--- title: "Elon Musk in Deep Trouble as Even More Advertisers Are Planning to Leave Twitter’s Toxic Cesspool" description: "A record number of advertisers plan to cut their spending on Elon Musk's Twitter next year, according to new research from Kantar." date: "2024-09-06" modified: "2024-09-06" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/more-advertisers-to-leave-twitter" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "the digest" - "twitter" --- # Elon Musk in Deep Trouble as Even More Advertisers Are Planning to Leave Twitter’s Toxic Cesspool ![A record number of advertisers plan to cut their spending on Elon Musk's Twitter next year, according to new research from Kantar.]() *\Image: Steve Granitz / FilmMagic via Getty / Futurism\* ## Xodus Advertisers, and the precious revenue they bring, have been fleeing X-formerly-Twitter ever since Elon Musk took it over in October 2022, bringing with him a groundswell of [hate speech](), [misinformation](), and [racist rhetoric]() — a lot of which has come from his own account. Now the site's marketing prognosis, already dire, is about to get worse. New [research]() from the data firm Kantar indicates that a record 26 percent of advertisers plan to cut spending on Twitter next year, which could be a death sentence for a site whose revenues were already in freefall. As [*CNN* reports](), this would be the biggest withdrawal from a major ad platform on record. "Marketers are brand custodians and need to trust the platforms they use," Gonca Bubani, a director of global thought leadership at Kantar, said in a statement, [as quoted by *The Guardian*](). "X has changed so much in recent years and can be unpredictable from one day to the next," she added. "It is difficult to feel confident about your brand safety in that environment." ## Turn Tables The metrics add to the climate of uncertainty surrounding Twitter's future, which is probably what's driving advertisers away more than anything: they want stability, not volatility. According to the report, which was compiled by interviewing 1,000 senior marketers and 18,000 consumers across the globe, just four percent of marketers think Twitter ads provide brand safety, whereas Google enjoys considerably more trust at 39 percent. The general attitude towards the platform has also soured. In 2022, 15 percent of marketers were favorable towards Twitter ads. It has since undergone a complete reversal: now 21 percent of marketers are *unfavorable*. "Advertisers have been moving their marketing spend away from X for several years," Bubani said, per *The Guardian*. "The stark acceleration of this trend in the past 12 months means a turnaround seems unlikely." Conversely, consumer ad preference has actually gone up, since they're happier to see fewer ads. The user base [is dwindling](), though, and we suspect that this boost would be offset by [the sheer number of bots]() plaguing the platform. ## Musk Meddling Musk's personal interventions into the situation have done little to stop the bleeding. If anything, he poked the bear by telling advertisers "Go fuck yourself," during [an onstage tirade]() in November 2023 — which is now looking like a legendary blunder, because those advertising dollars have dried up, bringing an astonishing [53 percent drop in revenue]() in the second quarter from the same period last year. A humbled Musk tried to walk back his comments this June, [begging the advertisers to come back](). Then he changed his tune again the next month, [suing them for not buying ads]() on his platform, and declaring "war" for good measure. All-in-all, not the kind of leadership that inspires faith in the site being a stable place at which to throw ad money. A Twitter spokesperson said that "advertisers know that X now offers stronger brand safety, performance and analytics capabilities than ever before, while seeing all-time-high levels of usage," per *The Guardian*. "Our brand safety rate is on average 99 percent as validated by DoubleVerify and Integral Ads Science, which is reflected by the fact that the majority of advertisers are increasing their investment in X, as shown by Kantar's data." **More on Twitter:** *[When Elon Musk First Saw His Wife Using Twitter, He Thought It Was a Waste of Time]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()