X owner Elon Musk did not mince words to advertisers “trying to blackmail” him with boycotts against his social media platform.
New York Times hack Andrew Ross Sorkin conducted a struggle session with Musk at the outlet’s DealBook summit on Wednesday, grilling the SpaceX founder over advertisers bailing on X over concerns he was promoting “anti-semitism” on his platform.
“I hope they stop,” Musk declared. “Don’t advertise.”
“You don’t want them to advertise? What do you mean?” Sorkin asked incredulously.
“No,” Musk said. “If someone’s going to try and blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.”
BREAKING: Elon Musk to advertisers trying to blackmail into censorship: “Go f*ck yourself.” pic.twitter.com/cfH3ThOXNh
— ALX
(@alx) November 29, 2023
Sorkin was left gobsmacked by Musk’s reply.
“I understand…but there’s a reality too, right?” Sorkin asked.
“I mean, [X CEO] Linda Yaccarino is over here and she’s got to sell advertising,” he said as he gestured to her in the audience.
The Tesla CEO then said the corporate boycott is “going to kill the company.”
“And the whole world will know those advertisers killed the company,” he added. “And we’ll document that in great detail.”
Multiple corporations, including Apple, Comcast NBCUniversal, and IBM, discontinued advertising on X in response to a hit piece by left-wing publication Media Matters alleging Musk’s social media company was promoting “white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories” content next to ads by these companies.
Musk hit Media Matters back with a “thermonuclear” lawsuit last week accusing them of defamation, claiming they “completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers.”
“Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform,” the complaint reads.
Watch Musk’s full remarks:
NYT DealBook Summit | 2023: Elon Muskhttps://t.co/4I99IgK2sU
— Adrian Dittmann (@AdrianDittmann) November 29, 2023