Elon Musk at Dealbook Summit after telling advertisers they can “go fuck themselves.” Michael M. Santiago
Elon Musk said Wednesday that advertisers who leave X can “f***** themselves.”
But he dodged questions about whether he would ever sell X — or whether he wanted to use his own money to keep it going.
With ad revenue declining at the former Twitter, the end may be near. But what will that mean?
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor.
The most notable thing Elon Musk said during his appearance at the Dealbook Summit on Wednesday was an unpronounceable word that he said repeatedly. He suggested that advertisers could do it themselves. This was shocking (and not just because of the swear words).
The big question that comes up after the interview: What happens to X now?
After Musk said that an advertiser who threatened to boycott Musk did not respond directly. He said instead: “If the company fails because of an advertising boycott, it will fail… and it will disappear.”
Musk did not answer the other important question he was asked. “Is there a part of you that says, ‘Maybe I should [X] Sell or give away?’” That is, given the fact that it’s clearly just giving him a headache. Instead, Musk defended his recent controversial tweet as a response to an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
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So would Elon Musk ever just get out of X? And if so, what is his exit strategy?
X seems to be in big trouble. It was like that before — and now it’s even worse. Whether CEO Linda Yaccarino will be able to salvage some of the advertising revenue is anyone’s guess. Some advertisers have already fled X. It is questionable whether Yaccarino will remain in office for much longer.
Yaccarino reportedly received text messages from advertising executives advising her to quit before she ruined her reputation for good. Another report states that X’s advertising sales employees have resigned. But it’s hard to imagine Yaccarino having any success after Musk’s comments on Wednesday.
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Unless Elon Musk is willing to reach into his own pockets — and he hasn’t said, that he wouldn’t do that; he’s done this in the past for Tesla — how can the former Twitter continue for another year, another five years?
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What does it look like if the company fails, as he put it? Will it just… shut down?
There is a theory that Musk is secretly sabotaging X to reduce debt. Kind of like burning down a failing restaurant to get insurance money. Personally, I think this theory is more of a 4D chess game than the simpler and more likely version: Musk is just bad at running a social platform. He lacks the impulse control to not say stupid things.
Twitter has been declared “dead” since the days after Elon Musk took office. It seems like every few months there’s a requiem for Twitter as a new nail is driven into the coffin. But the website is still there, people still use it and I still look at it 18 times a day.
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