X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, could lose $75 million in advertising revenue by the end of the year after owner Elon Musk appeared to support an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory last week, The New York Times reported Friday.
The Times said it had seen “internal documents” that showed the social media company was in a difficult position. The documents reportedly list over 200 ad units from companies like Amazon and Coca-Cola that have stopped advertising on X or are considering doing so.
The Times said the documents came from X’s sales team and that they will be used to track the impact of November’s advertising withdrawals.
Musk faced backlash last week for appearing to agree with an anti-Semitic post on the platform, responding that it was the “actual truth.” The post Musk responded to was in response to another post by a user that raised an issue with rising anti-Semitism.
“To the cowards who hide behind the anonymity of the Internet and post ‘Hitler was right’: Do you have something you want to say?” wrote the first user, who described himself as a “Jewish conservative” in his bio. “Why don’t you tell us to our faces?”
In response, another user replied in a separate post: “Jewish [communities] have advanced exactly the kind of dialectical anti-white hatred that they claim they want people to stop using against them.”
“I am profoundly disinterested in caring in the slightest now that the Western Jewish population is coming to the disturbing realization that these hordes of minorities supporting the flooding of their land don’t particularly like them,” he continued user continued, adding: “This is what you want. “Speak the truth to your face, there it is.”
Musk responded, “You were telling the actual truth.”
Companies including IBM, Disney and Apple announced they would withdraw X’s advertising in the wake of Musk’s comments. The platform was already struggling with advertising revenue after half of X’s top advertisers exited in 2022 after Musk took control.
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