The advertiser exodus at Twitter could be going into reverse.
Elon Musk, speaking Saturday during a Twitter Spaces broadcast, said that Apple had “fully resumed” advertising with the company. Apple was Twitter’s largest advertiser previously.
The announcement followed a brief tweet Friday evening thanking advertisers for returning to the brand. That followed a report from tech outlet Platformer that Amazon was resuming ads on the social media site, and plans to spend $100 million per year.
Amazon, however, never stopped advertising on the platform, a source familiar with the matter told Coins2Day, making it unclear exactly who Musk was thanking.
Neither company has publicly discussed its advertising plans with regard to Twitter. And there’s no reported status change from Interpublic Group (IPG), one of the world’s largest advertising companies, which recommended its clients pause spending on Twitter last month due to moderation concerns. The company’s clients include Walmart, American Express, Coca-Cola, Fitbit, GoPro, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss & Co, Mattel and Spotify. It manages roughly $40 billion in marketing campaigns worldwide.
Advertiser reticence has been one of Musk’s biggest concerns since his takeover of the company. In November, he went on a rant about activist groups pressuring companies about Twitter’s moderation policies and extreme cost-cutting methods.
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” he wrote. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
The anti-free-speech claim is a go-to for Musk when he feels advertising revenue is being threatened. During his recent dustup with Apple, where he briefly accused the company of trying to block Twitter from its app store and halting most advertising, he posited “Do they hate free speech in America?”
Twitter’s advertiser problems have come at a crucial time. The holiday period, as well as the World Cup, are peak advertising spend periods. And Twitter, seemingly, is missing out on much of that largess.
Amazon declined to comment on the record to Coins2Day. Apple did not immediately return Coins2Day’s request for comment.
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