Elon Musk blasts advertisers who pulled money from X: 'Go f--- yourself'
X owner Elon Musk took a resolute stance against advertisers who accused him of antisemitism while at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit Wednesday.
Musk, who bought the platform formerly known as Twitter last year, is facing allegations that his company profits off of antisemitic content. He also recently upheld "Pizzagate," a conspiracy theory that claims global elites run an underground child sex trafficking ring partially out of pizzerias, leading to substantial from X users.
Musk accused those of pulling spending from his website over the accusations of "blackmailing."
“Don’t advertise,” he said Wednesday. “Go f- yourself. Go. F-. Yourself. Is that clear?”
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New York Times reporters covering the event said “the crowd in the auditorium noticeably gasped and tensed up after Musk declared, emphatically and profanely, that he did not care about companies withholding their advertising.” They also noted “investment banks currently sitting on billions in Twitter debt are likely not happy to hear Musk’s aggressive stance to advertisers who have left the platform.”
Musk later directed comments toward Disney CEO Bob Iger, who also spoke at the summit, saying the company is one of several doing “evil” by trying to appear virtuous in taking back ad revenue.
“Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel — don’t advertise,” the X owner said.
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Iger said he has “a lot of respect for Elon and what he has accomplished,” but cited “the position [Musk] took, in quite a public manner” as a contributing factor behind Disney’s decision to part ways with X.
Musk also defended his actions when throttling access to the New York Times’ website via X by as much as 4.5 seconds. He said that “it wasn’t specific to The Times” and said it was done to leverage premium subscriptions to the site. Such a cost, he said, is a “low-cost freedom” that allows subscribers to boost posts.
Also speaking at Wednesday's event was Vice President Kamala Harris, who concerns over President Joe Biden’s age.