Twitter is significantly losing revenue. This is according to its new owner, Elon Musk, who cited clampdown by advertisers since he took over the company’s ownership.
BizWatch Nigeria had predicted the Twitter revenue plunge as Fortune 500 corporations, including Coca-Cola, Amazon, and Apple were enjoined to boycott the tech giant.
Others include Verizon Communications Inc., Walt Disney Co., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Merck & Co., Unilever PLC, Meta Platforms Inc., PepsiCo Inc., and Procter & Gamble Co. They are all Twitter’s major revenue sources.
However, as Elon Musk claimed ownership of Twitter after concluding the $44 billion purchase, more than 40 activist organisations, led by co-founder and executive director of digital rights group Accountable Tech, Nicole Gill, wrote to 20 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Fortune 500 firms to publicly assure their customers that if the billionaire allows conspiracy theories, hate speech, misinformation rise on the micro-blogging site, their firms would withdraw their business relationships.
The activists’ request for the CEOs to pull out their ads from Twitter followed Musk’s promise that the app would be more open to free speech, in contrast to the era when the platform was publicly owned.
The billionaire had argued that the content moderation policy of Twitter needs to change, criticising the hasty ban placed on users of the platform. He had also stated that a council will be set up to preside over major content decisions or account reinstatements.
Lamenting how the clampdown is driving Twitter revenue to the ground, Musk said the situation is messed up.
“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. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America,” his tweet read.
