Twitter CEO Elon Musk had jaws on the floor Wednesday after he flat-out told companies who pulled their advertisements off the platform following allegations of antisemitism to “go fuck yourself.”
Musk was speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook/Summit with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin when he told the group of companies, “Go fuck yourself.”
.@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
“Don’t advertise … If somebody is gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.”
Apple, IBM, Lionsgate, Paramount Global, Sony, and Warner Bros. Discovery all pulled their advertising from Twitter after Media Matters alleged that the companies’ advertisements were appearing alongside antisemitic content. Musk launched a lawsuit against Media Matters claiming their methodology to obtain the results allegedly showing antisemitic content being peppered with advertisements was flawed and defamatory.
The suit alleges that Media Matters “accessed accounts that had been active for at least 30 days, bypassing X’s ad filter for new users.” (RELATED: ‘Compelling’: Legal Experts Say Elon Musk’s X Has A Good Case Against Media Matters)
“Media Matters then exclusively followed a small subset of users consisting entirely of accounts in one of two categories: those known to produce extreme, fringe content, and accounts owned by X’s big-name advertisers. The end result was a feed precision-designed by Media Matters for a single purpose: to produce side-by-side ad/content placements that it could screenshot in an effort to alienate advertisers.”