Musk lashes out at advertisers leaving X over rise in hate speech

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, is dialing up the pressure on his own company even more after cursing advertisers who paused ads on the social media platform.

  The advertising freeze from major companies like Disney and Apple came after Musk endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X earlier this month.

  In an interview at The New York Times DealBook Summit yesterday, he denied the accusation of antisemitism and told companies not to advertise. He even called out the CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, who was at the event.

• Question:

  You don't want them to advertise?

• Elon Musk:

  No.

• Question:

  What do you mean?

• Elon Musk:

  If somebody's going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go (expletive deleted) yourself.

• Question:

  But…

• Elon Musk:

  Go (expletive deleted) yourself.

  (Laughter)

• Elon Musk:

  Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob, if you're in the audience.

• Geoff Bennett:

  NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn joins us now.

  So, Bobby, there is no possible business benefit, at least not one I can think of, to Elon Musk sitting on stage, cursing out the advertisers whom he needs to buy ads on X to keep that company afloat. It raises the question, what does Elon Musk want with X right now? Is he intentionally trying to tank this company?

• Bobby Allyn:

  It sure does seem like it.

  I mean, this was an act of pure self-sabotage. Remember, 90 percent of X's revenue comes from advertisers. Since Elon Musk made waves by endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, there has been an exodus of major corporations away from X.

  Linda Yaccarino, who was brought in as X's new CEO, has been trying to court some of those fleeing advertisers back to the platform. But now we have the world's richest man, who runs X, literally telling the brands to go eff themselves, cursing them out.

  I can't imagine this does anything but make the problem much worse. And Musk even said himself from that very stage that advertisers are going to kill the company. He seems even to be saying what many outside observers have been saying for a while, which is, it sure does seem like bankruptcy is a fait accompli, that it's just a matter of not — it's not a matter of if, but when X files for bankruptcy.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, The New York Times reported that X could lose as much as $75 million in advertising revenue by the end of this year, as all of these advertisers walk away from the company.

  You mentioned Linda Yaccarino, who was brought on to bring advertisers back to X after Elon Musk took it over in 2022. What does this mean for her and the job that she was hired to do? Elon Musk is not making her job any easier.

• Bobby Allyn:

  Not at all.

  Linda Yaccarino today tried to play cleanup. She's in crisis control mode, because, remember, her main job has been to try to bring some of these skittish advertisers back to the platform. And she issued a statement today saying that X is at the sort of unique and amazing intersection of Main Street and free speech, right?

  She's trying to spin her boss' comments in the most positive way possible. But think about it. If you are someone whose job it is to bring corporations to this platform and to try to place ads on this platform, and the person who leads it is basically cursing you out and saying he has absolutely no respect for your concerns, that's going to be a really hard business case.

  It's going to be really hard to be a salesperson in the wake of these comments, where Elon Musk does seem to be trying to drive his company directly into the ground. I can't imagine any other outcome but that. I mean, like I said, he said in no uncertain terms that this advertiser boycott will likely decline the company into bankruptcy.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Big picture, Bobby, the U.S. government can't seem to quit Elon Musk, even if it wanted to. The Pentagon needs his satellites. NASA needs his rockets. The Biden White House needs his electric vehicles as a key component of this green economy that they're trying to promote.

  How is the government contending with the fact that so many of his companies are woven into the fabric of American culture and are so sort of inextricably linked to national security interests?

• Bobby Allyn:

  That's completely right.

  "The New Yorker" has called this Elon's shadow rule. Some say Elon Musk is like an unelected official, right? He has a tremendous amount of power, whether it's with his Starlink satellites in Ukraine, which are on the front lines of the war with Russia, whether it's the E.V. charging stations across the country.

  Remember, Elon Musk's company, right, Tesla, controls 60 percent of the E.V. charging stations around the country. So the Biden administration, as you mentioned, can't push its green energy policies without working with Elon Musk. We can't send astronauts from American soil to the International Space Station unless we work with SpaceX.

  So the government has no choice but to play nice and to do business with this very mercurial, erratic business leader who is becoming increasingly unhinged by the day. And some U.S. government officials say it's just too late. We wish we could have done something sooner, but this entrepreneur just has so many deep inroads into the federal government at this point.

• Geoff Bennett:

  NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn.

  Bobby, thanks again. Good to see you.

• Bobby Allyn:

  Thank you.