‘Go F*** Yourself’: Elon Musk slams advertisers for leaving X over anti-Semitic content

Companies that have halted or stopped advertising on X in recent weeks include Apple, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, IBM, Paramount Global, Lionsgate and the European Commission.

New Delhi: X-owner Elon Musk surprised the world when he said to advertisers late on Wednesday that they had to “go crazy”, after some top companies had removed advertisements on his platform because of his support for anti-Semitism. When Andrew Ross Sorkin asked X-owner about breaks in advertising at The New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk responded: “Don’t advertise.”

“Don’t you want them to advertise?” Sorkin asked him. ‘If someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, will you blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself,” Musk said.

He then waved to the crowd and said, “Hey Bob,” referring to Disney CEO Bob Iger who was also at the event. “What this advertising boycott is going to do is kill the company. And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in detail,” he told the audience.

Facing widespread criticism since agreeing with a user who falsely accused Jewish people of inciting hatred against white people, Musk defended his post by claiming the user was telling “the actual truth” regarding the conspiracy theory of the ” Great Replacement”.

However, Musk apologized in his first interview with mainstream media since his anti-Semitic post for what he called his “dumbest” social media post about Semitism ever. Musk repeatedly apologized for a Nov. 15 tweet endorsing an anti-Jewish post.

“I mean, look, I’m sorry about that message. It was foolish of me. Out of 30,000, this might literally be the worst and stupidest post I’ve ever done,” he said.

Companies that have halted or stopped advertising on X in recent weeks include Apple, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, IBM, Paramount Global, Lionsgate and the European Commission, while Musk promoted anti-Semitic content on X.

Since then, more than 100 brands have halted their advertising and reports say the company is at risk of losing $75 million by the end of the year.