Right-wing influencers have offered to advertise on X to support Elon Musk after major brands pulled ads after the billionaire amplified an anti-Semitic post.
Apple and IBM joined a raft of companies that suspended advertising on the social media platform last week after Musk agreed with a post that claimed Jewish people were ‘pushing dialectical hatred against whites.’
In the following days, right-wing online personalities including Andrew Tate, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon and YouTuber Tim Pool pledged their support to X, formerly known as Twitter.
Dillon promised his conservative satire website would spend $250,000, Pool said his website would also commit $250,000, while Tate claimed he would stake the embattled company $1million per month.
But the influencers are still millions short of making up the deficit. Apple alone spent more than $100million per year on advertising on the platform.
Right wing influencers have offered to advertise on X to support Elon Musk after major brands paused ads on the platform
Andrew Tate ate pledged the largest sum, claiming he would give $1million to Musk per month without even running ads
Musk, who has 163 million followers, replied to the post with: ‘You have said the actual truth’
Dillon posted on X: ‘They attack Musk because they hate freedom, and they hate freedom because it threatens their power to control the narrative.
‘It really is that simple. As others are pulling their ad spend to punish Musk for the crime of letting free people speak, the Bee is committing to spending more.’
Meanwhile Tate, who’s facing charges of sex trafficking in Romania, pledged the largest sum – without even running any adverts.
He said: ‘I will advertise X on X, I will literally promote your own platform on this platform. 1,000,000 USD a month. You don’t need other advertisers. Simply let me know where to pay @elonmusk.’
Musk replied to Tate’s offer, writing: ‘You’re a good man.’
According to Romanian authorities, Tate has about $10million in assets, so it’s unclear how he would pay Musk $1million per month.
On Friday Axios reported Apple would pause its advertising on the platform after 164 rabbis and activists called on Apple, Google, Amazon and Disney to stop advertising.
IBM, the European Commission and Lions Gate Entertainment have also suspended ads on the platform in response to Musk’s post.
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon pledged the conservative satire website would spend $250,000 to advertise on X to support ‘free speech’
YouTuber Tim Pool said his website would also commit $250,000 for ads on X during the next few months
The moves came after Musk’s anti-Semitic post and a report by liberal advocacy group Media Matters that said ads from Apple, Oracle, NBCUniversal’s Bravo network and Comcast were placed next to anti-Semitic material on X.
IBM said it stopped advertising on X after the report said its ads were appearing alongside material praising Nazis — a fresh setback as the platform tries to win back big brands and their ad dollars, X’s main source of revenue.
The company said in a statement it ‘has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.’
The European Union’s executive branch said separately Friday that it’s pausing its advertising on X and other social media platforms, in part because of a surge in hate speech.
The White House issued a statement on what it called Musk’s ‘abhorrent’ promotion of antisemitism.
After the backlash, Musk backtracked on his earlier endorsement of the anti-Semitic post, clarifying that he does not believe hatred of white people extends ‘to all Jewish communities.’
Over 100 Jewish rabbis and activists had called on Apple, Google Amazon and Disney to stop advertising on X. Apple CEO Tim Cook is pictured
Media Matters put out a report claiming that it had found ads from big brands including IBM, Apple, Oracle and Comcast’s Xfinity and Bravo running next to content ‘that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party’
Musk, who has been strongly criticized by the Anti-Defamation League and Israel’s Foreign Ministry for his past remarks, then attacked the ADL, accusing them of racism, saying it ‘unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majority of the West supporting the Jewish people and Israel.’
‘This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are their primary threat.’ Musk added.
Musk doubled down against the ADL hours later, writing: ‘I am deeply offended by ADL’s messaging and any other groups who push de facto anti-white racism or anti-Asian racism or racism of any kind. I’m sick of it. Stop now.’
Meanwhile X CEO Linda Yaccarino said X’s ‘point of view has always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board.’
‘I think that’s something we can and should all agree on,’ she posted on Thursday.
The accounts that Media Matters found posting anti-Semitic material will no longer be monetizable and the specific posts will be labeled ‘sensitive media,’ according to a statement from X. Still, Musk decried Media Matters as ‘an evil organization.’
