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A record number of advertisers are planning to decrease their spending on X next year due to concerns about being associated with extreme content. This is bad news for Elon Musk, who hopes to improve the finances of the social media group.
According to a global survey by Kantar, a net 26% of marketers plan to cut advertising on X in 2025. This is the biggest pullback from a major global advertising platform ever recorded.
Since Musk took over X (previously known as Twitter) in 2022, big brands have been pulling back due to his decision to loosen content moderation based on his belief in free speech. As a result, revenue has dropped and the company’s value has declined.
The Kantar survey shows that advertiser trust in X has dropped in the past year. Only 4% of marketers believe that advertising on X is “brand safe”, compared to 39% for Google. Many are worried about their ads appearing next to controversial content.
X’s spokesperson claims that their brand safety rate is 99% on average, validated by DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science. They also say that advertisers are increasing their investment in X due to its strong brand safety, performance, and analytics capabilities.
The survey by Kantar, based on interviews with consumers and senior marketers globally, is likely to escalate tensions between Musk and the advertising industry. Musk recently threatened to sue a marketing trade body and advertisers like Unilever and Mars for an alleged “illegal boycott” of X.
Musk has had a difficult relationship with the advertising industry. Companies like Disney, IBM, and Apple left X last year, prompting Musk to criticize them in an interview. Advertising executives were hopeful after Musk and X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, made efforts to charm advertisers at the Cannes advertising festival, but these efforts may have been in vain due to legal threats from the platform.
Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal executive, was hired to improve relations with advertisers, but the trend of decreasing spending on X seems to be continuing.
Overall, the survey by Kantar shows a decline in trust in X’s ads under Musk’s leadership. TikTok is considered the most innovative advertising platform by marketers, while YouTube is the most trusted and preferred platform for marketers in 2024.
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