Elon Musk Sees “Massive” Ad Revenue Drop at Twitter
Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter shared today that the platform just had “a massive drop in ad revenue.” Musk shared the news as half of Twitter’s workforce is being laid off today, casting more doubt about the executive’s ability to manage a company he acquired in some really strange conditions.
In his message, Musk attributed the revenue drop to “activist groups pressuring advertisers,” despite the fact that “nothing has changed with content moderation.” The Twitter CEO added that “we did everything we could to appease the activists.”
Musk sees the current situation as “extremely messed up”, accusing activist groups of “trying to destroy free speech in America. The accusing tone of his message probably isn’t going to convince advertisers to come back.
Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though 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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Oreo maker Mondelez International Inc. and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer are among the big companies which paused advertising on Twitter following Musk’s takeover. In a message to advertisers published a week ago, Musk said that “Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise.”
That’s a message that’s probably hard to listen to as Musk’s first moves as the CEO of Twitter have received a lot of criticism, to say the least. As we learned earlier today, former Twitter employees have now filed a class-action lawsuit against the company over the massive layoffs that have apparently been done without proper legal notice.
Since Musk took over Twitter, all of his tweets have been under heavy scrutiny. Obviously, this management style has led lots of users and advertisers to be concerned about the future of the platform. The brutal management practices that have been detailed in the press aren’t sending a reassuring message either.