X-formerly-Twitter is in deep trouble — and owner Elon Musk is on his knees, yet again, begging advertisers to return.

Cross-post from https://lemmy.world/post/16743494

While the New York Times reported last week that executives at the beleaguered platform had assured employees that 65 percent of advertisers had returned, documents obtained by Bloomberg show that revenue has overall cratered since owner Elon Musk took over in late 2022.

Now, Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino are back in damage control mode, trying to scrounge up some much-needed funds at this year’s Cannes Lions festival in southern France. The mercurial billionaire reportedly met with executives from the likes of the NFL, L’Oreal, Qualcomm, and Target, according to new reporting by the NYT.

But whether these measures will help Musk’s hate speech-ridden echo chamber from bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter remains to be seen.

After all, who could forget that Musk quite literally told advertisers to go fuck themselves in November — fighting words that likely didn’t sit well with the execs he’s now pleading to return to X.

  • thechadwick@lemmy.world
    79·
    5 months ago

    “I don’t want them to advertise,” Musk said. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go f*** yourself. Go. F***. Yourself,” he said. “Is that clear? Hey Bob [Iger, CEO of Disney], if you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel."

    • the guy who bought the website for 40+ billion dollars.

        • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
          13·
          5 months ago

          And greater than the profit the company has ever made and a couple orders of magnitude higher than the salary they saved from their layoffs.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
          12·
          5 months ago

          Yeah but he looks stupid. Whatever happens, I don’t think he’s ever going to have to worry about finances, like worry if he can afford something he actually needs, like food or housing or vehicles or anything. So I don’t think the bonus will really make any difference; although I’m sure it is nice and he can buy himself some vanity project with it.

          He could still today have been the boy genius billionaire who invented going to Mars, in the public perception, and now he’s a fat thin-skinned laughingstock who has to go on his own social network and puff himself up through fake accounts and whose kids don’t want to deal with him. There’s not a bonus in the world that’ll make that feel better.

          Honestly, I think the issue was being insulated from consequences for too long. If you go a sufficient length of time with enough advantages that whatever you do, nothing really all that bad can happen, you start to forget that it’s possible, and you start doing and saying bonehead things because your brain has lost track of the concept that it might not work out great. It is a tough place to be, and I wish for him that soon is the redemption arc where he posts his big apology for being a moron and takes his hands off Twitter and starts investing in work on climate change.

        • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          5 months ago

          Yeah, but they’re just doing it because they know that Tesla is grossly overvalued, and as soon as he leaves the post the reality distortion bubble bursts and their precious stock will overcorrect into loses. They want some more time to put through the correct paperwork so when they sell right before the bubble burst it doesn’t look like insider trading.

  • ieatpwns@lemmy.world
    19·
    5 months ago

    This is like that episode of family guy where Peter curses everyone out, burns down a cabin, everyone leaves, then, they all come back and save him. Sometimes you just gotta let the idiots deal with the consequences of their actions. Or sometimes they get REALLY lucky.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
    821·
    5 months ago

    I wish stories about X would stop calling it Twitter.

    Call it X. People still have nostalgia for earlier Twitter, though I’ve no idea why, and nostalgia unfortunately still makes some believe something that no longer has any value somehow still does.

    No one gives a shit if X goes under. Call it X, that’s what Elon wanted anyway, right?