Elon Musk, the internet tycoon who owns X (previously Twitter), warned on Wednesday that anyone attempting to exert pressure on the site through advertising should “go f***k yourself.”
At the DealBook Summit on Wednesday, columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times questioned Musk about if his recent trip to Israel was “an apology tour,” in response to claims of anti-Semitism on X that led numerous big advertisers to withdraw from the platform.
“I hope they give up. To Sorkin’s surprise, Musk said, “Don’t advertise.” “Blank me with money if someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, okay? F**k yourself, please.
“Get over yourself. F**k.” Is that understood correctly? I’m hoping so,” he continued. That’s my emotional state. Avoid making advertisements.
Musk objected to Twitter’s censoring and purchased the company last year for an estimated $44 billion. Since then, in an effort to support free expression, he has unbanned numerous accounts, rebranded it as X, and sacked a large portion of the staff.
Following a report by the advocacy group Media Matters for America (MMFA) alleging that the platform showed the advertisements adjacent to “pro-Nazi” and “anti-Semitic” content, a number of large firms removed their ads from X earlier this month.
In response, X released an analysis demonstrating how Media Matters had used fictitious accounts to manipulate the algorithms and inflate its claims. Musk has sued the operation connected to Democrats.
Musk visited Israel on Monday and had meetings with President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Herzog stressed that X must take action against “Jew hate,” while Netanyahu lectured Musk about the “death cult” that is Hamas. When Musk visited Kfar Aza, the settlement outside of Gaza that Hamas attacked on October 7, he was also shown the 44-minute film that Israel had produced to highlight the crimes committed by the Palestinian militant group.
Musk agreed that it was necessary to “take out the terrorists and those intent on murder,” but he also stated that Israel should “help those that remain, which is what happened in Germany and Japan” in response to Netanyahu’s comparison of Israel’s military actions in Gaza to what the Allies had to do with Germany and Japan during World War II.
In the sake of “objectivity and credibility,” Hamas publicly invited Musk to visit Gaza on Tuesday. Reacting on X, the tech magnate said, “It looks a little risky there right now.”
