Musk Addresses 'Don't Advertise' Slam

X owner revisits November challenge in industry remarks in France
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 19, 2024 5:02 PM CDT
Musk Addresses 'Don't Advertise' Slam
Elon Musk speaks at a conference in Washington in 2020.   (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Elon Musk went to advertisers on Wednesday to try to put his incendiary remarks in November in a wider context, in case they thought when he told them to "Go f--- yourself" that he meant "Go f--- yourself." He had also told companies that had stopped buying ads on X not to advertise anymore if that's the way they felt. The suspensions had begun in response to reports that X was putting ads for mainstream brands next to pro-Nazi and white nationalist content on its platform. His outburst was about free speech and "wasn't to advertisers as a whole," Musk said at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in France, CNBC reports, where he's reassuring brands about the future of his social media platform.

"In some cases, there were advertisers who were insisting on censorship," Musk said, adding, "We're going to support free speech rather than agree to be censored for money, which I think is the right moral decision." He did concede that advertisers "have a right to appear next to content that they find compatible with their brands," saying "That's totally cool." Musk added, per the Hill, "But what is not cool is insisting that there can be no content that they disagree with on the platform." (More Elon Musk stories.)

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