More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk | Hacker News Reader

More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

nytimes.com

85 pointsMilnerRoute75 comments

Lools like the monetization to move away from relying on ads was the right one all along

That would require it actually being sufficient to pay the bills, which at present it is very far from.

You have to start somewhere. Since Twitter was so deep in the red for so long anyway they have a mountain to climb

The reason Twitter's so deep in the red right now is because of the leveraged buyout by Musk. Pre-acquisition Twitter was, at worst, treading water. Musk's mismanagement is what's causing Twitter's current poor financial state.

Twitter wasn't in the red. It was roughly break even, with way over half of quarters in past 5 years profitable pre-Musk. You bought a history rewrite peddled by Musk himself. Twitter was never a failing company. It was just a mediocre company. But now... now it's a rapidly failing company, propped up by Musk selling a few billion in TSLA shares late last year.

The monetization currently is bringing revenue less than one percent of their ad revenue. With no signs of improvement.

That’s like having to go to work 100 miles away, intentionally crashing your car and going like “well, looks like putting on my running shoes this morning turned out right all along!”

But imagine if they could get everyone on Twitter to pay more than $800/mo.

Only Elon Musk can save us from the problems Elon Musk gave us.

His approach is to start giving out empty promises and make false claims about having something he doesn't have, and then the government and gullible investors give him billions. He just tweeted "X Corp investors will get 25% of xAI". You know xAI, the company that has shipped nothing but 3 screenshots of cringe humor. He's looking for investors again.

The effectiveness of this approach is starting to run out.

There is a lot here to be think about. Three most interesting points to me are

1. These companies have bottom-of-the-barrel moral standards and don't care what one person on Twitter is Tweeting. This has to be political manoeuvring of some sort.

2. A lot of advertisers were quitting Twitter a while ago weren't they? But it has been months now. If they're still quitting, that suggests the flood of quitters is more of a small trickle. So this the first time all these companies have quit? Or is it that the media companies are quitting this round?

3. Musk is still the wealthiest human on the planet (in history? I expect in nominal terms he's the wealthiest in history). Twitter is a bit of a political sideshow for him. He might even decide to run it without ads, that'd hurt him financially and be a win for the rest of us.

Not sure why the downvotes - this definitely seems to be a coordinated effort, rather than one off brand-management exercise by IBM, but to what end I have no idea. Evidently Media Matters is somehow inciting this?

Lots of companies quit then returned. I don't know if these ones are in the first batch of quitting, but it may be the second time for them rather than "a trickle".

> 3. Musk is still the wealthiest human on the planet (in history? I expect in nominal terms he's the wealthiest in history).

John D. Rockefeller would like to have a word if we're talking about Americans, as would Carnegie and Vanderbilt:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_richest_Americans_in_h...

Internationally: Augustus Caesar, Emperor Shenzong, Akbar I:

* https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/31976...

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to refer to heads of state as having the wealth of the state. Musk can effectively spend all of his wealth if he chooses to (after paying his debts). Heads of state really can't, except on the state itself. Not even absolute monarchs.

> doesn't make a whole lot of sense to refer to heads of state as having the wealth of the state

Caesar Augustus was personally very, very rich. The British Crown has, similarly, its own private assets.

The British Crown is barely a billionaire.

Augustus may have been independently wealthy, I'm just saying don't attribute the wealth of the state to him as well.

> British Crown is barely a billionaire

I'm using the Crown to illustrate the difference between the personal assets of a head of state and the assets of their state.

> just saying don't attribute the wealth of the state to him as well

The SCMP article you're responding to makes it clear they aren't doing this.

Sort of. But they're also trying to convert percentages of much poorer and much smaller empires of yore into percentages of today's GWP.

> The British Crown is barely a billionaire.

The Crown is a billionaire many, many times over.

The monarch as an individual may or may not be "barely a billionaire", depending on how you look at things.

I thought it was only in the mid 10 figures, but it does appear to be 11 figures.

Your reply wouldn't make any sense to Octavian (Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus) whose lifetime was marked by frequent episodes of intercepting state funds and adding them to the already stupendous coffers of his family fortunes and using those to divert state armies to his own personal power plays.

As a time traveller you'd have little chance of making your case to Octavian, Divi filius (aka "son of a god") that he was bound by some modern rules applied to mere "heads of state".

As a time traveler I'm fine. Because in those time travel fantasies I've already ascended to godhood on the Prime Material Plane, and am time-travel gating to Rome in a bolt of lightning during the Flavian era 6 months or so before the eruption of mount Vesuvius to order the Senate and Legions to take action to relocate the inhabitants of Pompeii. (Seriously, I almost never think of the Roman Empire unless prompted to do so by others, but this is a genuine daydream of mine.)

Roman leaders were often grifters, and Octavian was a particularly notable example. Cash for favours, absolutely massive embezzlement… he did pretty well for himself; it wasn’t the state’s wealth, at least not after he’d stolen it.

> Musk can effectively spend all of his wealth if he chooses to

Ehhh kind of. Within certain limits he can liquidate all his stocks and other assets, sure, but unless done over a very long period of time what he winds up with at the end is far less than his theoretical wealth. And even done over a long period of time probably. There isn't actually the demand on the market to liquidate all his assets at the susposed market value, and Elon dumping assets would further reduce said demand.

I'm just saying that there aren't state powers that would literally stab him in the back to prevent him from doing so. Even Stalin would have had a quick death if he tried to spend the entire wealth of the USSR on himself.

> It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to refer to heads of state as having the wealth of the state.

"L'État, c'est moi."

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27État,_c%27est_moi

This is an odd take. Today on Twitter I saw an ad for a whites-only dating service with the photo of a celebrity who very likely did not endorse the company with the use of a racial slur (with an "r" at the end). Whatever you think about the "moral standards" of the companies in question, it makes sense that they would not want to put their brand on the same platform that would serve these ads alongside theirs. That doesn't seem to be political maneuvering but very basic advertising sense.

Bit of tell, isn't it? The advertisers were fine with that, nytimes.com didn't write an article about it, etcetera.

Isn't the fact that advertisers are leaving evidence that they aren't fine with that? I'm not sure I follow.

You're not agreeing with nytimes.com - they think that Musk's tweets are the issue here. You're suggesting it is who Twitter accepts ads from. And I'm suggesting that it is likely nytimes.com - or the companies reported on, or both - are engaged in political manoeuvring because we know their moral standards are remarkably low. if it means they can get eyeballs where they want them.

If companies were motivated more by not wanting to associate with caucasian dating sites (although to be honest why that would be a problem I don't see, what is next - banning gay dating sites? People have weird preferences and there are dating sites for all of them) then presumably the Times would be obliged to report on that.

It matters for the same reason that ads work- subconsciously. Seeing an Apple ad next to racial slurs means you are more likely to think of racial slurs when you think of Apple, or Apple when you think of racial slurs.

Apple obviously doesn't agree with or are they responsible for those views but we can't change how human minds work. At the end of the day they do not want the association in people's heads.

> These companies have bottom-of-the-barrel moral standards and don't care what one person on Twitter is Tweeting.

Advertisers have cared about placement for as long as advertising has existed.

> Advertisers have cared about placement for as long as advertising has existed

And advertising executives care about not having to monitor Elon's Twitter account in case he tweets something stupid on a Saturday.

And the gold medal in mental gymnastics goes to...

Twitter has never been a great platform to advertise on, the quality of the advertisers has dropped dramatically this year, and companies are distancing themselves from the clown show. There is no secret conspiracy. Advertising on Twitter just doesn't make sense.

> 1. These companies have bottom-of-the-barrel moral standards and don't care what one person on Twitter is Tweeting. This has to be political manoeuvring of some sort.

Or they just don’t want their brand associated with such posts. As kids these days say, “They don’t want no smoke”.

These companies are about making money. Getting associated with controversial stuff is bad for business.

Syndicated from NYT, original URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twit...

Thanks, let's use that above since it's the canonical source.

Submitted link was https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2023/nov/18/more-advertise..., which appears to be unpaywalled.

The reason for the lawsuit [1] seems to contradict itself; it's against spreading misinformation on X, while invoking the principle of allowing misinformation on X?

> "But for speech to be truly free, we must also have the freedom to see or hear things that some people may consider objectionable. We believe that everyone has the right to make up their own minds about what to read..."

So... "Let [Media Matters] say what you [consider objectionable], and [let us make up our own minds about what to read]."

I do get that that shouldn't preclude lawsuits for slander/libel... but suing people out of existence with "thermonuclear" lawsuits seems to be roughly the same type of tyranny as the censoring he's taking a stand against.

[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037

Ultimately this sort of thing gets justified as "I'm picking on people my own size", or "I'm defending the regular person against these other powerful entities".

Even billionaires like to think of themselves as Robin Hoods.

Definitely agree with that. And it's media vs. media, so they both have to sell a narrative since the stronger story, not who's actually right, will win.

As Sun Tzu said, when you are strong, appear weak.

Besides the strong (when they are expertly deploying an elaborate ruse), you know who else often appears weak?

The weak.

So if someone appears "strong", does that mean they are also "weak"?

"Strong" → "Appears Weak" "Weak" → "Appears Weak" ⊕ "Feigns strength"

Everyone is "weak" ∨ "appears weak"?

Is "appearance of strength" ∧ "strong" valid in this meta?

I need someone's help with the logic. I'm a bit rusty.

I think it's just an implication, so it is valid to "appear strong" ∧ "be strong"

I'm also curious about the distribution here.

I'm also just now noticing how weird the word strong is.

It's possible that this is the reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation

Yeah unfortunately the conjunctions just aren't commutative in the game of strongy-weaky.

Napoleon said "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake".

Haha, the US is leaning towards the right wing, and Elon probably has an advantage in doing what he did. Similarly, he mentioned that AI needs to stop, but then proceeded with AI projects. He says what grabs attention to divert from what he truly wants to do.

This guy would be considered a genius, admired and respected worldwide, a living legend.. if he'd never opened that Twitter account. But he did, so he's just another eccentric rich idiot.

Strange that you don't think his twitter account helped him get all that media attention along the way.

The attention he got because of Twitter has always been overwhelmingly negative, by his own doing. Do you think the guy who founded Tesla and SpaceX needed any more media attention?

He did not found Tesla, did he?

> He did not found Tesla, did he?

There was a legal agreement that allows him to call himself that:

> The company was incorporated as Tesla Motors, Inc. on July 1, 2003, by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning.[12][13] Eberhard and Tarpenning served as CEO and CFO, respectively.[14] Eberhard said that he wanted to build "a car manufacturer that is also a technology company", with its core technologies as "the battery, the computer software, and the proprietary motor".[15]

> Ian Wright was Tesla's third employee, joining a few months later.[12] In February 2004, the company raised US$7.5 million (equivalent to $12 million in 2022) in series A funding, including $6.5 million (equivalent to $10 million in 2022) from Elon Musk, who had received $100 million from the sale of his interest in PayPal two years earlier. Musk became the chairman of the board of directors and the largest shareholder of Tesla.[16][17][14] J. B. Straubel joined Tesla in May 2004 as chief technical officer.[18]

> A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five – Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk, and Straubel – to call themselves co-founders.[19]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Founding_(2003–200...

Legal agreements do not supersede facts. He has the legal right to falsely claim he is a/the founder of Tesla, nothing more.

Yes, either you founded it or not. Buying the rights to a title isn’t the same thing

He did build the Tesla we know, that is not in question

In Ireland, Kilkenny is legally not a city, but there is actual legislation saying that it is _allowed to call itself a city_. This seems a similar principle, and it’s rather silly; ‘founder’ has a commonly-understood meaning.

I'm not a general Musk defender (anymore), but yeah, he kind of did.

Others incorporated the company, but he was key to its initial success.

I think he needs the twitter hype and bots to boost his brands and stock value. I wouldn't be surprised if he were funding these bots to boost himself.

On the contrary, his online activities have always tanked the stock.

His do. I'm proclaiming with no evidence that he buys twitter bots/shills to hype his brands.

SpaceX, Tesla, Starlink, Neuralink, Boring Company, are you serious that because of some dumb tweets and a questionable personality or political views not everyone agrees with, you think history will overlook all of this? Not a chance, sorry.

A person can be remembered for the companies they founded, professionally, and at the same time be remembered as, personally, "just another eccentric rich idiot".

What views, specifically, do you think people are talking about

He's the CEO of six companies and still finds time to tweet throughout the day. I'm more inclined to believe that these companies are successful despite him, not because of him.

It clear he's a great 'salesman' in terms of raising capital and spruiking up share prices, and he's turned that toward some interesting concepts.

What is also interesting is part of the act is pretending he is the genius behind the ideas and has a hand in the novel engineering of them, which makes some of his fans love him, and anyone with subject matter expertise on whatever technical things he's saying realise he's half a moron or at least shameless.

It's not only that he's raised capital for/funded interesting concepts, it's that he's (mostly) successfully spent money on interesting concepts that the majority of people in the media and in those industries said were not viable.

Even if these insights into specific industries aren't his own, he's savvy enough to recognize their validity and bring together other people who can make those insights reality.

At the same time, he has his fair share of boneheaded boondoggles.

> pretending he is the genius behind the ideas and has a hand in the novel engineering of them

Musk has always been brutally transparent with investors. The personal genius schtick isn't one he pulls when raising capital. (It does play well to a lay audience.)

It's a bit of both, isn't it? I do remember the "production hell" perspective, but also many over-optimistic predictions along the lines of "I swear we'll have full self driving by the end of the year" for 5 years.

Have you read the issacson book though? Plenty of people that work directly with him talk about how involved he is....for better or worse.

I’m actually starting to believe that the more companies he is a CEO of, the better they will do, as he will have his attention divided between them all and less time to negatively impact them on an individual level.

You can simultaneously accept that these organizations Musk, and others, built are remarkable while accepting that his current personal behavior is unacceptable and is not in his self interest.

History is littered with entrepreneurs and inventors who lost thier marbles.

Agree. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Tweeting is some sort of energy/mental/payxhological outlet for him i.e we may not be able to have one without the other? :)

x/Twitter is definitively going to overshadow everything else he’s done. Especially with where this is going.

Howard Hughes is way more famous for the spruce goose and being a hypochondriac shut in with the general public than anything else!

It is better to remain silent and be thought an idiot than to speak and remove all doubt.

What is all the honor and glory in the world weighed against the siren's call of being a poster that people find funny?

He could have kept posting without buying the company.

Musk is now the poster child for ruining your own success via social media.

He had the world in his hand and now he's an internet-poisoned laughing-stock chasing away all the advertisers.

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