Elon Musk Says Twitter’s Had A Massive Revenue Drop Despite Its Attempts “To Appease The Activists”
As Twitter employees face mass layoffs starting today, new overlord Elon Musk says the platform has seen “a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers.”
General Mills, Audi and others confirmed in recent days that they’ve paused advertising on Twitter after Musk’s ascension. The deal close last week saw an upsurge in derogatory content and sowed doubt about future moderation policies under new ownership. Musk has said that he’d take a more hands off approach to moderation and that he doesn’t believe in permanent bans, including of former President Donald Trump.
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Musk, who named himself as sole director after dissolving the board and booting top executives, announced plans to set up a committee to evaluate moderation policies and promised no new steps or changes until that body takes stock. But his attempts to appease Madison Avenue are meeting with pushback, which he blames on “activists.” He reiterated in a tweet today that “nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
Influential Hollywood players and others have left or threatened to leave the platform.
Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion, with the company taking on major debt. A revenue drop is the opposite of what Twitter needs. Advertising is its main source of revenue. Layoffs, said to be underway today and said to impact as much as half of Twitter staff, will cut costs. But the shape of Twitter as a business is becoming increasing less clear.
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