Elon Musk is not happy that advertisers have chosen to boycott ‘X’ and warns that the boycott could ‘kill the company.’
via THR:
“What this advertising boycott is going to do is, it is going to kill the company,” Musk said Wednesday. “And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company.”
Musk was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin on Wednesday afternoon at the New York Times Dealbook Summit, capping off a day of speakers that included Vice President Kamala Harris, FTC chair Lina Khan, Disney CEO Bob Iger, and PGA commissioner Jay Monahan.
Musk also responded to Iger, who explained his company’s decision to pull advertising from the platform earlier.
“Don’t advertise. If someone is going to try and blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself,” Musk said. “Go fuck yourself, is that clear? Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience. That’s how I feel, don’t advertise.”
Musk did say of the post that sparked the advertiser exodus that “I should, in retrospect, not have replied to that particular post, and should have expanded in greater length about what I meant.
“I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me,” he added, calling it “one of the most foolish” things he had said on the platform. Later, after calling Sorkin “Jonathan,” Musk quipped that “what I am trying to illustrate is that, sometimes I say the wrong thing.”
Linda Yaccarino, X’s CEO (who was hired in part to woo advertisers), sat stone-faced in the front row as Musk commented.
Musk also seemed to relish his online reputation, telling Sorkin that “there is a real weakness to wanting to be liked,” and adding, “I have no problem being hated, by the way. Hate away.”
When pressed on if he is a decent person, someone who can be trusted, Musk said, “I think I am, but I am certainly not going to do some sort of tap dance to prove that I am.”
X dying wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?
