Advertisers Turn Away from Musk Conspiracy Theories... X Faces Hundreds of Billions in Losses Risk

Controversy Over Musk Supporting Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories
Some Tesla Shareholders Also Criticize Musk's Behavior

Social networking service X (formerly Twitter) has suffered losses amounting to hundreds of billions of won following Tesla CEO Elon Musk's support of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

The US daily The New York Times (NYT) recently cited internal documents from X's sales team, reporting that revenue losses due to advertiser departures on the platform are expected to reach up to $75 million (approximately 98 billion won).

According to the documents, over 200 companies and organizations, including Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Netflix, have recently stopped advertising on X or are considering suspending their ads.

However, X stated in a related statement that the advertising revenue at risk of loss is about $11 million (approximately 14.4 billion won), and that the figures mentioned in the documents were expressed as part of an internal exercise to assess overall risk.

X's advertising revenue has already decreased by nearly 60% compared to last year

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and the X logo [Image source=AP Yonhap News]

Following Musk's acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion (approximately 57 trillion won) in October last year, controversy over increased hate speech has continued, and the platform's advertising revenue is already known to have decreased by nearly 60% compared to last year.

In response, Musk sought reform by appointing Linda Yaccarino, former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, as X's CEO in May. This initially seemed to bring advertisers back, but as anti-Semitism controversies surrounding Musk and X have recently intensified, advertiser departures have become even more apparent.

The issue escalated after Musk posted messages supporting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and a report by a US media watchdog revealed that major corporate ads were placed alongside content promoting Nazism on X.

In particular, on the 15th, Musk commented in agreement that the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory claiming that Jews support minority immigration to replace the white population and incite hatred against whites is the "actual truth," further fueling controversy. This provoked strong backlash from the Jewish community and even prompted the White House to issue a critical statement saying it is "unacceptable."

Meanwhile, some Tesla shareholders recently criticized Musk's repeated problematic remarks and requested the Tesla board to have him step down as CEO.

Global investment bank HSBC downgraded its investment opinion on Tesla to "sell" and lowered its target price on the 9th, describing Musk as both "an asset and a risk" to Tesla.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.