Another week, and another Elon Musk meltdown.
On stage at the New York Times DealBook Summit, the mercurial CEO addressed his previous antisemitic outburst, and the flood of criticism he's since received after calling an unhinged and racist conspiracy theory "the actual truth."
His bizarre comments sent even more advertisers fleeing his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, including some industry juggernauts like Apple, Walt Disney, Warner Bros, and NBCUniversal.
Even the White House was taken aback, issuing a statement calling his comments an "abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate."
And clearly not much love has been lost, with Musk taking the opportunity at Wednesday's event to send out a very clear message to advertisers: "Go fuck yourself."
He even took a moment to call out Disney CEO Bob Iger, figuratively — but not literally — giving him the finger.
"Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience," he said.
Once again, Musk has become his own worst enemy. His deranged comments paint a dire picture of a desperate executive trying to wrestle with his own problematic biases — and the reality of having buried any chances of turning around an ailing company once valued at $44 billion.
It's also far from the first time Musk has dug in his heels after self-destructive public behavior. He has repeatedly made comments for which he had to apologize for later.
Onlookers were equally taken aback by Musk's unhinged appearance on Wednesday.
"Actually watching this all the way through and it's kind of... disturbing?" NBC senior reporter Ben Collins tweeted. "Something is clearly going on with this guy."
At the very least, Musk seems to have some regrets about his antisemitic comments, at least insofar as they've hurt his bottom line. During the event, he admitted to having "handed a loaded gun" to his critics.
"I mean, look, I’m sorry for that... post," he said. "It was foolish of me. Of the 30,000 it might be literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done."
Despite his hurtful comments, Musk tried to save face, arguing that it's "obvious" that he's "far from being antisemitic."
Following his poorly timed trip to Israel where he spoke with families of Israeli hostages — an extremely obvious attempt to score sympathy points and distract from the chaos he's caused — Musk argued that it wasn't, in fact, an "apology tour," adding that it had nothing to do with his antisemitic comments.
We're supposed to actually believe that?
Anyway, as to where Musk's disastrous public appearance leaves the future of X, it's unlikely to encourage advertisers to come back any time soon.
"They're not going to forget that," Lou Paskalis, founder of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory, told Reuters, referring to Musk's expletive-ridden comments, calling them the "closing chapter" for brands advertising on X.
And the platform's embattled owner is clearly aware of the precarious position the company now finds itself in. He even tried to paint himself as the victim in all of this, accusing advertisers of killing the company.
"Let the chips fall where they may," Musk said during the event.
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