Elon Musk has made a nasty mess for X, but it may not matter all that much to him

The exchange was reminiscent of Trump’s Truth Social — a platform where right-wing pundits and conspiracy theorists have the freedom to post with few guardrails.

Hours later, Musk deleted the comment and said that it was a joke, writing, “Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X.”

It’s true that many users didn’t find the “joke” all that funny; the backlash was swift, with users calling the post “appalling,” “dangerous,” and “irresponsible.” By Monday morning, the hashtag #DeportElonMusk was trending on his own site (Musk is originally from South Africa). Even the Secret Service was made aware.

For many Americans already dealing with a febrile pre-election atmosphere, it was offensive — regardless of political beliefs. For X (formerly Twitter), it’s yet another nail in the coffin.

“I don’t think this is much more than just confirmation that X is not a place for brands. They sensibly don’t want any part of this,” Brian Morrissey, the former editor in chief of Digiday who now writes the media newsletter The Rebooting, told Business Insider. “Avoiding X isn’t bias, it’s common sense. Musk’s vision of unfettered free speech utility is simply not workable with an ad model that depends on image-conscious big brand advertisers.”

The social app is already proving to be quite pricey for the Tesla CEO; he pays about $1.5 billion in annual interest on the $13 billion he borrowed to purchase the company in 2022 for $44 billion. Meanwhile, his approach is “advertisers be damned” — literally, he told them to F off — and many have expressed concern that it’s not a safe space for brands.

“Musk’s latest comments only reinforce the narrative of the platform’s unpredictability and toxicity,” Brendan Gahan, cofounder and CEO of LinkedIn influencer marketing agency Creator Authority, told BI.

In 2023, his first full year owning the social media platform, X’s ad revenue reportedly fell to $2.5 billion, from more than $5 billion in 2021. Major advertisers like Disney, Apple, and Walmart suspended their ad spend on the platform.

This year, advertisers slashed their X marketing budgets ahead of major events like the Super Bowl. Quartz reported that advertising revenue was $744 million in the first half of this year, down from $982 million in the first half of 2023.

Of course, this can’t all be attributed to Musk.

“The cynic in me can’t help but wonder if X were as effective as Meta for advertising, Musk’s remarks might be overlooked,” Gahan said, noting that, even before Musk, Twitter “was rarely a priority for paid media.”

Earlier this summer, Musk seemed to at least try to win advertisers back by playing the game at Cannes, but comments like his recent ones about assassinations don’t bode well for the future of X.

Musk himself admitted that an advertising boycott would “kill the company.” Money-making efforts like Twitter Blue and an AI chatbot have floundered.

Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore?

“I cannot believe he truly believes X is going to attract large brand advertisers,” Morrissey said. “Any time a service markets an ad-free as a major benefit of a subscription, it tells me they’re not serious about the ad business.”

“Musk seemingly has no desire to appease advertisers and rebuild trust. Instead, he’s continued to scare advertisers away,” Gahan said.

Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk’s purchase of Twitter is the worst buyout financing deal for banks since the Great Recession. They haven’t been able to unload the debt and could stand to lose billions, but banks still want to work with him.

Musk is still the richest person in the world, with a net worth of about $250 billion, per Bloomberg. The $13 billion loan represents just 5% of that.

So X may suffer, but Musk will probably come out alright.

“From a cold, clinical perspective, outrageousness has long been built into Musk’s proverbial stock price,” Eric Dezenhall, the founder of crisis-management firm Dezenhall Resources, told BI. “His has been a life magnificently free of consequences. For an extraordinary few, what goes around never comes around, not even a little. After the usual kazoo tooting, Musk will be just fine.”