Back From Israel, Musk Rips Boycott

Advertisers that suspended their buys on X should just go, he says
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 29, 2023 7:35 PM CST
Back From Israel, Musk Rips Boycott
Elon Musk attends an event with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on Nov. 2.   (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool, File)

Just returned from a trip to Israel, Elon Musk said at a New York event on Wednesday that his recent endorsement of an antisemitic tweet was the "worst and dumbest I've ever done." Nevertheless, he said, advertisers that have quit spending on X in opposition to hateful content should just leave his site. "Don't advertise," Musk told the audience at the New York Times DealBook Summit. The billionaire included a "Go f--- yourself," Yahoo Finance reports.

Musk argued in an onstage interview that the boycotting advertisers are trying to blackmail him. But his threat to them sounded similar. "What it's going to do is it's going to kill the company, and the whole world will know the advertisers killed the company," Musk told the audience, suggesting his supporters would in turn boycott those advertisers, per CNBC. "We will document it in great detail," he said. Musk singled out Disney boss Bob Iger. "Hey Bob, if you're in the audience … that's how I feel," Musk said.

Iger had already told the event that Disney's association with X and Musk "was not necessarily a positive one for us," per the New York Times. Also in the audience was X CEO Linda Yaccarino, whose job is to get major brands to advertise on the social media platform, per CNN. Big-name advertisers that have at least suspended their X buys include Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate, and Warner Bros. Discovery, as well as Disney. Musk told the gathering that it's been "a hell of a year," conceding that he sometimes says "the wrong thing." (More Elon Musk stories.)

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