More major advertisers have paused spending on X, the social media service formerly known as Twitter, as the backlash over Elon Musk’s support of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about X continued.
Entertainment company Warner Bros. Discovery and Sony, along with other well-known brands that have increased their spending on CBS, paused all of their ads on Friday.
The spending freeze comes as X has struggled to win back advertisers who were reluctant to spend on the platform after Mr. Musk decided to relax content moderation rules over a year ago. Big brands tend to place their ads next to posts with offensive or hateful language.
Mr. Musk, who bought Twitter in October 2022 and renamed it Support immigration of “hordes of minorities.”
“You told the actual truth,” Mr. Musk replied. Jewish groups said Mr. Musk’s message fueled a conspiracy theory known as the replacement theory, which suggests that Jews organized non-white immigrants to replace the white race. The concept was adopted by Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
Mr Musk’s statement was condemned by the White House on Friday. Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that it was “unacceptable to repeat the vile lie behind the deadliest act of anti-Semitism in American history at any time, let alone a month after the deadliest day for Jewish life.” People since the…”Holocaust.”
Mr. Musk lashed out at advertisers who withdrew their dollars from X on Friday and threatened legal action against Media Matters, a left-wing advocacy group that said it appeared alongside posts praising Hitler and the Nazi Party.
In one post On Friday evening, Mr Musk said: “The court will open in a split second on Monday. X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those involved in this fraudulent attack on our company.”
X said the research strategy used by Media Matters to discover the ads, which ran with anti-Semitic content, was not representative of the way regular people use its platform. The organization tracked accounts that posted the content and then updated the X timeline until ads appeared, X said in one blog entry. Only one of the nine posts highlighted by Media Matters violated content moderation rules, X added.
In a statement, Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at , said. He added: “Data wins allegations.”
Media Matters said it is opposing lawsuits from , the president of Media Matters. “Musk admitted that the ads in question ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified. It’s like being angry with a mirror because you don’t like the reflection. If he sues us, we will win.”
Ryan Mac contributed reporting.