Compounding the irony is that Musk doesn’t really want to be in the advertising business in the first place. Not only is his native antipathy to ads well known, but Twitter before Musk was always considered something of an advertising also-ran—hence his push from day one to find new revenue streams, whether selling premium subscriptions, introducing AI tools, or launching the soon-to-debut X Money. 

Of course, Musk can’t quit ads just yet. But if he has to sell ads, he’s clearly going to try to do it on his terms. Witness him at the 2023 DealBook Summit telling Andrew Ross Sorkin in colorful language that he wasn’t going to let advertisers like Disney “blackmail” him with their advertising dollars into toeing a particular political line. 

Yet despite (or because of?) this belligerence, the market and culture have undeniably moved in his direction. Whether that translates into more ad dollars for X is yet to be determined. What isn’t in doubt is that many advertisers are actively resetting their priorities and politics in ways more in line with what could be considered the harder-edged Muskian worldview. They still might not bring him their media spend, but they’ve already sort of brought him their souls.