Elon Musk, who has had a tense relationship with advertisers since taking over X (formerly Twitter) last year, has told them to “go f**k themselves”. Musk’s comment comes amid a slew of companies, from Disney to Apple, pulling advertising from X over an alleged anti-Semitic post by Musk.
In an interaction at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk said, “If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, Go f**k yourself. Is that clear, I hope it is… Hey Bob (Iger), if you’re in the audience. That’s how I feel, don’t advertise.”
“No, totally. Look what this advertising boycott is going to do, it’s going to kill the company and the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company” Musk added.
The retort by Musk was aimed at Disney CEO Bob Iger who had earlier in the summit said that the association with X was no longer a positive one for his company.
Iger said, “I have a lot of respect for Elon and what he has accomplished… We know that Elon is larger than life in many respects, and that his name is very much connected to the companies he founded or owns. By him taking the position he took in a public manner, we felt that the association was not necessarily a positive one for us.”
Musk’s regrets reacting to anti-semitic post:
Earlier this month, Musk had agreed with a post that asserted that Jewish people harbour a “dialectical hatred” of white individuals. The content of the tweet is believed to be widely used by white supremacist conspiracy theorists. The reaction by Musk had also drawn criticism from the Joe Biden-led White House which called Musk’s action as ‘abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate’.
The list of companies who had stopped advertisement on X was growing increasingly large and included big names like Disney, IBM, Apple, Comcast, IBM, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Paramount, and Warner Bros.
In the interaction with New York Times, Musk regretted reacting to the controversial post, he said, “I am quite sorry…I should in retrospect not have replied to that particular post”. The 52 year old also went ahead to call his reaction to the anti-semitic post “one of the most foolish if not the most foolish thing I’ve ever done on the platform”
Milestone Alert!Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world 🌏 Click here to know more.
The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.
Updated: 30 Nov 2023, 06:52 AM IST
