Elon Musk, whose antisemitic remarks have been at the center of a mass X (formerly Twitter) exodus, told advertisers boycotting the company to “go fuck yourself” during The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday.
“It’s gonna kill the company,” Musk lamented of the ongoing boycott, adding, “That will be what bankrupts the company and that is what everybody on Earth will know.”
“Don’t advertise,” said Musk while speaking on stage at the summit moderated by Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin. After Sorkin asked, “You don’t want them to advertise?” The X CEO promptly answered, “No,” before continuing: “If someone is trying to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself,” and then adds, “Hey Bob,” presumably directed at Bob Iger, CEO of Disney — one of the companies who is boycotting X.
Earlier this month, a report by the watchdog group Media Matters found that ads for brands like Apple, Bravo, and Amazon had appeared on X next to white nationalist hashtags such as #WLM (White Lives Matter) or #KeepEuropeWhite. Following the report, X advertisers Disney, Apple, Lionsgate, Comcast/NBCUniversal, and IBM decided to sever ties with the platform, according to Axios.
The social media company owned by Musk later sued the media watchdog group for defamation, alleging the non-profit “maliciously” tried to drive away advertisers after it published its report.
Concern over brand safety on X has spiked after Musk endorsed a post accusing Jewish communities of promoting “dialectical hatred against whites.”
When responding onstage at DealBook, the Verge reported that Musk called his antisemitic post a “mistake.” He added, “I should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what I meant. But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I’m quite sorry, that was not my intention.” Despite his acknowledgement, the billionaire does not appear ready to admit his role in the advertiser boycott.