In a now-viral interview, Elon Musk has blasted corporations who he says are trying to “blackmail” X (formerly Twitter) by withholding advertising, telling them to “go f**k yourselves”, and saying the world would know they “killed the company”.
“Don’t advertise. If someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is,” he said in response to a question about advertisers leaving X after recent controversies.
.@elonmusk to corporations pulling ads from X:
"Don't advertise. If someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is." pic.twitter.com/GuhIHWjei9
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 29, 2023
Musk said that if major corporations wanted to leave and advertising fell sharply, that would “kill the company, and the whole world will know the advertisers killed the company”.
“Let the chips fall where they may,” Musk told stunned interviewer, Andrew Ross Sorkin, at The New York Times Dealbook Summit.
The Tesla founder was accused of supporting anti-Semitism with a poorly worded tweet that he posted several days ago, which he later clarified when he expanded upon his remark. He was subsequently defended by multiple high profile Jewish figures who said that they did not believe that he was anti-Semitic, the Daily Wire reports.
Addressing his remarks during the interview, he said that he had done his best to clarify what he meant by his tweet.
“Once in a while I will say something foolish,” he said. “I did my best to clarify that.” He said that what he meant was there was a natural affinity for persecuted people and criticised those who funded Hamas. He strongly rejected the clam that he was antisemitic and said his tweet had been misunderstood.
Chief Executive of X Corp, Linda Yaccarino said that “X is enabling an information independence that’s uncomfortable for some people. We’re a platform that allows people to make their own decisions.”
She said that Musk “also offered an apology, an explanation and an explicit point of view about our position.”
“X is enabling an information independence that’s uncomfortable for some people. We’re a platform that allows people to make their own decisions. And here’s my perspective when it comes to advertising: X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street — and the X community is powerful and is here to welcome you. To our partners who believe in our meaningful work — Thank You,” she posted.
Today @elonmusk gave a wide ranging and candid interview at @dealbook 2023. He also offered an apology, an explanation and an explicit point of view about our position. X is enabling an information independence that's uncomfortable for some people. We're a platform that allows… https://t.co/PSmSKRkJSq
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) November 30, 2023
The backlash from Musk tweet on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict led advertisers to depart the platform, though some had already departed when Musk first bought out Twitter, unhappy with the site’s moderation policies.
The platform is experiencing a negative cash flow, Musk said in July, due to a 50% drop in advertising revenue.
Musk also spoke about Tesla, Free speech, SpaceX and Starlink, and his views on
The full interview can be seen here:
FULL INTERVIEW: Elon Musk tells advertisers trying to boycott X, 'Go Fuck Yourself', says, “What I see all over the place is people who care about looking good, while doing evil. Fuck them,” says he will not vote for Joe Biden in 2024, says Tesla has done more to help the… pic.twitter.com/DKNOY42gEm
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) November 30, 2023
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fair play to him
Actual lol ????
Musk is a very brave man. I hope it goes well for him
Nicely said Elon! It’s up to the people to boycott those advertisers who want to force censureship on us by blackmailing Twitter! Shall we start with Apple and Google!? I’m throwing my Iphone away for a Gigaset Android, on which I am installing GrapheneOS with zero Google functionality on it! It works better than an Iphone anyway and with less surveillence of my privacy!
I am not saying Google is withdrawing advertising from X, but they censure enough people on their Youtube and they are involved in manipulations that affect elections around the World according to Robert Epstein, Who has found them at it! I don’t feel safe with Google anyway near my laptop or mobile!
You’ve no idea how the Internet works do you? The only source of advertising income this website seems to have is Google Ads, which might cover their printer ink bills.
Google Search is a very biased search engine, I ran a website for a number of years and because the content challenged the mainstream view on issues , google ran it into the ground basically pushed it to the back pages of the web.
The turning point was one time when i covered a free speech rally in dublin , i think it was Dec 2019 . The article made it to the front page of google as it was the only article covering the event and got a lot of attention.
After that, Somebody somewhere didn’t like that, and things changed, over the following year , the website went to the back pages.
We live in an age of Control, where very powerful Global Forces want to dominate the World with their own ideas. These forces are intolerant of dissenters.