Advertisers have been abandoning the platform formerly known as Twitter after CEO Elon Musk made comments the left construed as antisemitic. Musk talked about his comments and clarified, even visiting Israel last month, but advertisers continue to abandon X. Mostly all the companies pulling advertising are considered woke, and considering Musk’s outspoken stance on censorship and Joe Biden, it is small wonder they aren’t coming back.
The most recent to pull their ad dollars is Walmart. Musk, however, for his part, is not backing down, calling out advertisers with an expletive-laden tirade last week, specifically calling out Disney CEO Bob Iger. A company called Media Matters published a report claiming X ads ran regularly on pro-Nazi pages, prompting the Tesla CEO to file a defamation suit against the far-left publication.
Iger pulled Disney advertising last month, saying about Musk: “Taking the position that he took in quite a public manner, we just felt that the association with that position and Elon Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us, and we decided we would pull our advertising.” Whether or not there was any real merit to Musk’s claims of antisemitism, other advertisers followed suit.
On Friday, a new advertiser stepped up and spent a reported $250,000 dollars on new ads for the platform. The Daily Wire will be spending the money to promote the new original movie “Lady Ballers.” The comedy makes light of the ongoing issue of biological men in women’s sports, portraying it in the most absurd, humorous vein. It stars numerous Daily Wire personalities, including Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro and co-founder Jeremy Boreing.
Ben Shapiro spoke of the controversy with X: “Disney is not pulling its advertising on X because of one of Elon Musk’s tweets, a tweet he then explained and apologized for. They are pulling their advertising because they are part of an advertising cascade that is designed to pressure Elon Musk into doing their bidding.” Despite the fact Disney has made nothing but wrong decisions in terms of culture wars and content, they still continue their self-destructive path.
Shapiro continued: “Disney and others pulling money from X are doubling down on their own catastrophic, woke strategies. They really don’t like free speech, and they especially hate any company or platform that can break their stranglehold on the media; the same media that has never been willing to say, ‘go f*** yourself,’ to the likes of Disney. It’s a true clash of the titans.”
If Disney and others are actually engaging in a concerted effort to financially ruin X in hopes of making Musk bend a knee to the left, it isn’t working. Musk has also seen more advertising dollars from Timcast and The Babylon Bee. While it may not be enough to offset losses from places like Walmart, a message is being sent that there are other advertisers ready to step up.
Shapiro talked about spending ad dollars on X: “Will our $250,000 cut into X’s loss of revenue due to virtue signaling? Not much, but every little bit does help. If we want to keep X a free speech space, it’s important that everyone continue to subsidize the businesses they like. As Elon so aptly put it, if Disney and others are successful in their advertising boycott, it will kill free speech. And if that happens, everybody is going to know who actually killed it.” It is shaping up to be a titanic battle between X, billionaire Elon Musk, and retailers like Walmart and Disney. Who will win remains to be seen, but for the sake of free speech, let’s all hope it is Elon Musk and X.