Anyone who tries to pressure X (formerly Twitter) through advertising can “go f**k yourself,” the platform’s owner, tech billionaire Elon Musk, said on Wednesday.
New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Musk at the DealBook Summit event on Wednesday whether his recent trip to Israel was “an apology tour” prompted by allegations of anti-Semitism on X that caused many major advertisers to ditch the platform.
“I hope they stop. Don’t advertise,” Musk responded, to Sorkin’s shock. “If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money? Go f**k yourself.”
“Go. F**k. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is,” he added. “That’s how I feel. Don’t advertise.”
Musk bought Twitter last year for an estimated $44 billion, objecting to the platform’s censorship. He has since rebranded it to X, fired much of the staff, and unbanned many accounts in the name of promoting free speech.
.@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
Earlier this month, several major corporations pulled their ads from X, following a report by the advocacy group Media Matters for America (MMFA) that claimed the platform displayed them next to “pro-Nazi” and “anti-Semitic” content.
X responded by publishing an analysis showing that Media Matters manipulated the algorithms with fake accounts to falsify its claims. Musk has filed a lawsuit against the Democrat-linked operation.
On Monday, Musk visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. Netanyahu lectured Musk on the “death cult” of Hamas, while Herzog insisted that X must crack down on “Jew hate.” Musk also visited Kfar Aza, the settlement near Gaza that was attacked by Hamas on October 7, and was shown the 44-minute film Israel had put together to showcase the Palestinian militant group’s atrocities.
After Netanyahu compared Israel’s military activities in Gaza to what the Allies had to do with Germany and Japan in the Second World War, Musk agreed on the need for “taking out the terrorists and those intent on murder,” but said Israel should “help those that remain, which is what happened in Germany and Japan.”
On Tuesday, Hamas issued a public invitation for Musk to visit Gaza, in the interest of “objectivity and credibility.” The tech mogul replied on X that it “seems a bit dangerous there right now.”
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