Elon Musk's Standoff With Apple, Disney And Other Big Advertisers Forces X To Turn To Smaller Ones

Elon Musk's "Go f**k yourself" rant against big advertisers has forced X to shift gears and aim at small and medium businesses instead.

What Happened: After Musk said that the boycott by big advertisers like Apple Inc. AAPL, Walt Disney Co. DIS and others was "going to kill the company," X has stepped the pedal on bringing smaller ones instead, reported the Financial Times.

"Small and medium businesses are a very significant engine that we have definitely underplayed for a long time. It [was] always part of the plan — now we will go even further with it," said X.

Major advertisers like Apple, Disney, and earlier IBM IBM have stopped advertising on X due to increasing hate speech on the platform, with Musk's endorsement of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories being the straw that broke the camel's back.

See Also: Free Speech Or Foul Speech? Yaccarino Wrestles With Musk's ‘Go F*** Yourself' Rebuke To Advertisers

However, X CEO Linda Yaccarino tried to dial down Musk's rant and stressed that X is a free-speech platform.

"Here’s my perspective when it comes to advertising: X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street," she said, continuing to pitch X as a free speech platform.

Why It Matters: The advertiser exodus is expected to result in a $75 million loss of revenue for X. However, Musk has remained resilient in his stance, clapping back at brands and media organizations over reports of Meta Platforms Inc.'s META Instagram showing sexualized content of minors.

Replacing big advertisers with smaller ones might not prove to be enough.

Adding to X' problems, billionaire investor Mark Cuban expressed doubts about the efficacy of ads on X.

“If advertisers were getting results from their X ads, or possibly if you posted data that showed that ads on this platform were effective and produced results, you would be in an entirely different position,” Cuban said.

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