The Daily Wire will spend a quarter of a million dollars on advertising for “Lady Ballers” on the social media platform X after Disney last month announced it would no longer advertise on the platform.
Disney has joined an exodus of brands and companies from advertising on X. Disney CEO Bob Iger credited the move to comments X CEO Elon Musk made last month related to Left-leaning Jewish groups supporting the Democratic Party, a significant part of which backs anti-Semitic positions on U.S. policy toward Israel.
Critics accused Musk of anti-Semitism. The Left-wing outlet Media Matters published a report in the wake of the controversy suggesting that X advertisements ran often on pro-Nazi content posted to the site. Musk is now suing Media Matters for defamation over the report.
Iger said at an event last month that his entertainment giant Disney would no longer advertise on X because Musk “taking the position that he took in quite a public manner, we just felt that the association with that position and Elon Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us, and we decided we would pull our advertising.”
CLICK HERE TO WATCH “LADY BALLERS” ON DAILYWIRE+
Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro announced on Friday that his outlet would be spending $250,000 on advertisements for its new feature length comedy “Lady Ballers” to run on X in support of Musk amid the advertiser exodus. “Lady Ballers” mocks the recent and controversial phenomenon of men competing in women’s sports and is described in the trailer as the “most triggering comedy of the year.”
“Disney is not pulling its advertising on X because of one of Elon Musk’s tweets, a tweet he then explained and apologized for. They are pulling their advertising because they are part of an advertising cascade that is designed to pressure Elon Musk into doing their bidding,” Shapiro said.
Musk condemned those advertisers leaving his platform in comments at an event last month, saying that any company or person that tries to blackmail him with “money” can “go f*** yourself.”
“Disney and others pulling money from X are doubling down on their own catastrophic, woke strategies,” Shapiro said. “They really don’t like free speech, and they especially hate any company or platform that can break their stranglehold on the media; the same media that has never been willing to say, ‘go f*** yourself,’ to the likes of Disney. It’s a true clash of the titans.”
Disney pulling ads on X is anti-free speech and is designed to pressure Musk into doing their bidding.@realDailyWire’s $250k spend on X today to promote Lady Ballers won’t alone save X, but we must oppose those who seek to destroy free speech and support those trying to save it pic.twitter.com/CHzC1TjSZ0
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 1, 2023
The Daily Wire has been joined by other independent-minded outlets such as Timcast and The Babylon Bee.
I appreciate the actions of @SethDillon, @Timcast, and others committing their resources toward advertising on @X. We’re happy to do the same @dailywireplus. https://t.co/STJy5zkwxK
— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) December 1, 2023
“Will our $250,000 cut into X’s loss of revenue due to virtue signaling? Not much, but every little bit does help,” Shapiro said. “If we want to keep X a free speech space, it’s important that everyone continue to subsidize the businesses they like. As Elon so aptly put it, if Disney and others are successful in their advertising boycott, it will kill free speech. And if that happens, everybody is going to know who actually killed it.”
“Lady Ballers” became available to DailyWire+ members on December 1 at 8:00 p.m. EST.