New Twitter CEO Elon Musk warned that companies that continue to cave to boycott demands from the far-left will face serious consequences as he will publicly name and shame them to his more than 100 million Twitter followers.
The world’s richest man, who said he bought the company for $44 billion in order to reserve a corner of the public square for open dialogue and free expression, induced leftist ire after he officially took over the platform last week. Musk said that a number of advertisers have ended their relationships with the company over the past several days, dealing a significant blow to the business.
Musk responded to a tweet that encouraged him to name and shame the companies that are boycotting the platform. “You have nearly 114,000,000 Twitter followers. Name and shame the advertisers who are succumbing to the advertiser boycotts,” the tweet said. “So we can counter-boycott them. And get your $8 monthly subscription going asap. So we can start to makeup for lost revenue now.”
“Thank you,” Musk replied. “A thermonuclear name & shame is exactly what will happen if this continues.”
The account that Musk responded to made the remarks in response to a separate tweet from Musk earlier in the day that revealed the massive loss in revenue the company has experienced.
“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,” Musk remarked on the platform. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
Thank you.
A thermonuclear name & shame is exactly what will happen if this continues.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022
A number of leftist-aligned organizations, including Media Matters for America, the NAACP, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, recently wrote a letter to the executives of major advertisers, calling on them to “cease all advertising” if Musk backs down from content moderation.
“Not only are extremists celebrating Musk’s takeover of Twitter, they are seeing it as a new opportunity to post the most abusive, harassing, and racist language and imagery,” the organizations alleged. “This includes clear threats of violence against people with whom they disagree. Without deliberate efforts by Twitter to address this type of abuse and hate, your brands will be actively supporting accelerating extremism.”
A number of large corporations, including Pfizer, Volkswagen, Mondelez International, and General Mills have temporarily paused their Twitter advertising, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, while legacy car manufacturers GM and Ford were among the first companies to freeze advertisements on the platform, according to another report from Forbes. Both firms are entering the electric vehicle space against two-decade-old market leader Tesla, which is presently the world’s most valuable car brand. The former companies have received a number of special favors from President Joe Biden, who has also snubbed Tesla.
Ben Zeisloft contributed to this report.