Elon Musk’s Advertiser Apology Tour Begins at Cannes

CANNES, France—Elon Musk dialed back his infamous GFY comment to advertisers last year, saying he only meant the message for brands that would not enable free speech. 

The owner and chief technology officer of X (formerly Twitter) is at the Cannes Lions Festival this week on a mission to win back advertisers after many fled the platform over brand safety concerns and Musk’s own controversial posts. Last November at the DealBook conference, Musk singled out Disney CEO Bob Iger for pulling ad spend from the platform, saying that brands ceasing advertising on X over such concerns were effectively committing “blackmail.”

On Wednesday, speaking on the Cannes stage with WPP chief executive Mark Read, Musk took a softer tone and touted the platform’s “influential” users and ad-targeting capabilities. 

Musk clarified that his previous comment was not “to advertisers as a whole,” but rather to those “insisting on censorship.” He emphasized that it is important X remains a “free speech platform, where people from a wide range of opinions can voice their views.” 

“Advertisers have a right to appear next to content that they think fits with their brand. That’s totally cool. What is not cool is insisting that there can be no content they disagree with on the platform,” Musk said. “If there’s [a choice between] censorship and money or free speech and losing money, we’re going to go with the second … that was the right moral decision.”

His message to advertisers that have left X altogether—that includes Disney, IBM and Apple —is that the platform “is worth trying out” because its users are “the most influential people in the world.”

Musk said brand safety is “critical” and insisted that “every third-party reviewer has given us an A+ on brand safety.”

He also said that X is working on using AI to improve its ad targeting capabilities.

“Previously with old-school Twitter, there was essentially no targeting or matching of users to ads,” he explained. “We’re very focused on having ads shown to people they’ll find interesting.”

Last year, Musk missed attending the Cannes Lions, the biggest gathering of the advertising industry. X chief executive Linda Yaccarino is also at the event, and both are trying to reassure brands wary of the ad-funded platform and its provocative owner, who has often posted controversial and right-wing opinions.

X’s ad revenue tanked by nearly 50% in 2023, and its market value has likely declined by roughly 70% since Musk bought it in 2022, according to Fidelity. 

Brands are still risk-averse

Kara Swisher, journalist and co-host of the podcast Pivot, said during a live podcast recording at ADWEEK House on Tuesday that X’s proposition is a “difficult sell” for Yaccarino.  

“Elon Musk no longer wants advertisers to go fuck themselves,” she observed. “How do you manage the owner and his antics? [Yaccarino] doesn’t seem to think there’s a connection … [but] everyone I talk to is worried about being called out by this guy.” 

Pivot co-host Scott Galloway added that X hosts “a lot of incredibly toxic content,” pointing to a 2020 survey from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) that found 49% of all child exploitation content found online in the last three years originated on Twitter. 

“Brands don’t want to be in the business of ever taking that risk,” Galloway said.