back to article Musk tells Twitter advertisers: You're welcome back, but don't make demands

Elon Musk took to the stage at an advertising conference yesterday to try to reassure attendees that Twitter was a safe place to serve ads, while also warning the biz won't bow to pressure from advertisers who want to dictate its behavior. Speaking with Linda Yaccarino, chairman of global advertising and partnerships at …

  1. alain williams Silver badge

    I have been meaning to ask ...

    Is Twatter still not paying rent on its offices ?

    1. ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo Silver badge

      Re: I have been meaning to ask ...

      Next rename: squatter

      1. keithpeter Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: I have been meaning to ask ...

        I'm going for Squitter (aka Seagull)

        1. renniks

          Re: I have been meaning to ask ...

          I prefer Shitter myself - as in what it is going down

          1. Bbuckley

            Re: I have been meaning to ask ...

            No Shitter is before Musk came to clean it out.

    2. Bbuckley

      Re: I have been meaning to ask ...

      It was Twatter before Musk.

  2. aerogems Silver badge
    FAIL

    Still doesn't get it

    If this was his effort at trying to address the concerns of advertisers, I'd call it an epic fail. At the very least he could have said something about how they'll improve methods of making sure that ads don't show up to any content the advertiser might consider objectionable and maybe be willing to offer a refund plus some kind of additional compensation for every instance where it fails. It probably still wouldn't be enough to woo back many advertisers, but it'd at least be a start. Instead he just doubles down on "I'm making Twitter a Nazi bar and fuck you if you don't like it!"

    This is on top of his driving away multiple companies who he was counting on paying $12K/year for their "gold check" with his "government funded" twaddle and seemingly doing everything he can to make sure the only people who use Twitter are the really casual sorts who don't really care about polls and other nonsense, and the hardcore taint lickers who will pay $96/year for the "privilege" of licking some Twitler taint.

    The only thing he really seems to have succeeded at with this performance is showing the world, yet again, that he is an absolutely terrible business executive. One who doesn't understand Twitter's core business even at a fundamental level.

  3. Howard Sway Silver badge

    don't make demands

    He who pays the piper calls the tune.

    Which means if they don't like the tune, they stop paying.

    Musk had clearly never looked at how the advertising industry works, before buying an ad-funded company.

    1. FatGerman

      Re: don't make demands

      He's a spoiled rich chancer who got lucky. Buying Twatter was a fit of petulance and he tried to get out of it when he realised he was out of his depth. I hope he takes the ship down and goes down with it.

    2. EricB123 Silver badge

      Re: don't make demands

      While, he designed an electric truck tractor without talking to truckers. So the driver's seat is in the middle of the cab. Perfect position for the driver to pay tolls or give a yardmaster manifests.

      1. Kimo

        Re: don't make demands

        The truck also requires a vestibule for the driver to enter the seat, reducing room for a sleeping compartment. That removes a second driver.

        1. TomChaton
          Thumb Down

          Re: don't make demands

          Not that you need a second driver, due to the range.

  4. IGotOut Silver badge

    Wow...

    And we thought jobs had a reality distortion field.

    Hi, I pissed you all off by allowing your brands to be associated with hate speech, but you're ok to come back and give me money, but don't ask not to appear next to hate speech.

    Is that one way ticket to Mars any closer? Nope thought not. Shame.

    1. aerogems Silver badge

      Re: Wow...

      The whole Mars thing was just another grift to help get funding for SpaceX. If he could leave tomorrow, there's no way he ever would. He'd never survive the 6 month journey without the constant attention from the Twitter Twitler taint lickers.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wow...

      ... Except that the reality distortion field Jobs had more or less worked; Musk is just delusional.

      1. Kimo

        Re: Wow...

        Jobs nearly ran Apple into the ground on his first go. He learned from that and his time at Pixar. Musk so far shows no sign of being able to learn.

  5. Paul Herber Silver badge

    'in lieu of a poop emoji we were met with silence. '

    Constipation.

    I think he needs some SpaceXlax

  6. cornetman Silver badge

    There's clearly a lot of copium here in the comments today.

    I don't think I would have the brassneck to lecture a self-made multi-billionaire on how to run a business or make money.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      He made money by having people make something customers wanted to buy.

      Having so much money has detached him from reality. He's forgotten that he still needs to provide something that customers want to but. Either that or he hasn't grasped that his customers are the advertisers. In fact, given that he's trying to flog multi-coloured ticks to users, the latter is probably the case.

      1. cornetman Silver badge

        > ... he hasn't grasped that his customers are the advertisers.

        A wise business man doesn't just look to the customers. He also looks to the quality of his product.

        And if he has any self respect, he also has a social conscience.

        > In fact, given that he's trying to flog multi-coloured ticks to users, the latter is probably the case.

        No worse than selling mobile phone ring tones. You make your money where you can.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          >You make your money where you can<

          As does every con-man on the planet.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          This, I think is the problem. He sees the users as his customers, not as his product. The tick-selling seems to confirm that.

          Advertisers seem to be treated as someone along for the ride and if they don't like it they can just hitch a lift elsewhere. When even I start feeling sorry for advertisers things have got really bad.

          1. Zolko Silver badge

            This, I think is the problem. He sees the users as his customers, not as his product

            in what way is this a problem ? I thought that's the general rule of businesses.

            What you seem to say is that users are an annoyance and the real customers are advertisers.

            1. mpi

              > and the real customers are advertisers.

              That's because they are. By definition, the customer is the one who buys what the company is selling. Well, most users use twitter for free. What accounts for the VAST majority of the revenue the company relies on, and therefore, by definition, constitutes its customers, are ADVERTISERS.

              I mean, sure, twitter-blue subscriptions exist, but, well...

              https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-04/musk-s-month-pushing-twitter-blue-failed-to-win-many-subscribers?leadSource=uverify%20wall

              https://qz.com/elon-musk-twitter-blue-subscriptions-1850082558

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes, that's the other word: 'neck'. Or variations thereof.

      I'll have a 99.

    3. Jeff Smith

      It does rather feel that one indulging in 'copium' might convince themselves that the actions of an obscenely wealthy idol must always be absolutely correct, despite glaring evidence to the contrary.

    4. chivo243 Silver badge

      I don't think I would have the brassneck to lecture a self-made multi-billionaire on how to run a business or make money.

      Self-made through inheritance? and didn't his family make this fortune through questionable channels too? It seems that the internet has been scrubbed of articles that confirm or deny this in full.

      https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-mine/

    5. Mongrel

      You mean the 'self-made' multi billionare who inherited a fortune from his fathers emerald mine?

    6. iron

      Self-made using mummy and daddy's apartheid emerald mine money?

      Self-made on the backs of how many dead people who were treated as little more than slaves?

      Self-made on the luck that PayPal bought his X company and bailed him out?

      Self-made on US governement electric car subsidies?

      Self-made on billion dollar hand-outs from NASA?

      Self-made?

    7. aerogems Silver badge

      He's not self-made anything. His father owns an emerald mine in South Africa which meant Twitler won the birth lottery being born to rich parents. That meant he had the family fortune backstopping him if he bet and lost on some investments. As opposed to you or me, who would have to spend that money on silly things like rent and food. Frankly, up until he got lucky at Tesla (he wasn't a founder BTW, just an early investor) pretty much everything he touched turned to shit. His X.com idea floundered, he was fired from PayPal, and then he forced out the actual founders of Tesla and installed his literal family and other sycophants to the board who are quite happy to shirk their fiduciary duty to the stockholders and provide any kind of meaningful oversight of the man-child.

      This is a guy who is known for rage firing people. That is to say he fires people just because they happened to walk past his office when he was in a bad mood. Frankly, calling him a man-child is an insult to the maturity of actual man-children, but I can't think of another term off the top of my head.

    8. MrDamage

      I'd be a self-made billionaire too if my daddy owned an apartheid emerald mine.

  7. jake Silver badge

    Ads?

    What are these things you call "ads", Mr. Musk?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ads?

      Are you really trying to flex that you use an adblocker, on a tech site?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I may misunderstand

    but this looks to me like he's trying to convince the world that the big advertisers have realized they made a mistake leaving and desperately want to come back. The 'front' approach, as in 'he's got some'. Whether that means they think from Twitter's clearly superior bargaining position it'll be vindictive and not let them back and he's telling them not to worry; or whether he thinks, saying it, they'll change their minds like the fickle people they are; or whether he doesn't care so much if they do come back as that the rest of the world believes it anyway, remains to be seen.

    He reads like the guy down the pub whose wife has left him, who won't admit that he drove her to it. That guy with the fragile ego who claims to have a Merc and a Harley, a gun, some top-grade coke he got from his mate, Mick Jagger, and you and everyone else think he's a wanker.

    But maybe I misunderstand.

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "freedom of speech at Twitter was paramount"

    Correction : freedom of speech is paramount, except if you're dissing the Great Twitler.

    What Musk still doesn't understand (and probably never will) is that your actions still have to correspond to your words in order to be credible.

    Making exceptions to your own general rules and your credibility goes down. Make those exceptions to favor yourself and your close friends, and your credibility disappears.

    His credibility has disappeared.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "freedom of speech at Twitter was paramount"

      he had credibility?

      hahahahahahahahahaha

      please stop with the jokes it hurts

  10. Groo The Wanderer

    Musk really doesn't communicate with the tact to reassure vendors and win back their trust in the platform. The direct opposite, if you ask me. Particularly as he has branded the CBC in Canada as "government controlled" media, which it is no more than the BBC is. What it ISN'T is up for sale to Musk and his compadres.

    1. chivo243 Silver badge

      really doesn't communicate with the tact...

      Seems that is what counts now for leadership, tactless, confrontational name calling and finger pointing. MillerKnoll Pity City anyone?

  11. trevorde Silver badge

    New advertising accounts on Twitter

    Tesla

    SpaceX

    The Boring Company

    Neuralink

    Twitter

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But of course!

      Well, Elon is really good at self-advertising. Doubly so with Twitter.

  12. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Cart, meet horse

    I think he's still pushing for some kind of bankruptcy. Twitter's value proposition was questionable at the best of times, but like many sinking boats, it was lifted by the pandemic online spend. Since then, partly due to Musk's epic fucking around and partly due to being "last year's platform", the value proposition has declined. People are moving to other platforms and the money will follow them.

    If I could be bothered I'd do a comparative search for "said on Twitter/instagramTelegram/TikTok/Discord…" to see at least how journalists, the biggest Twitter whores of them all, have started to react to the changes.

  13. mark l 2 Silver badge

    OK Musk I am sure there are plenty of advertisers willing to pay for ads on Twitter, Crypto exchanges, Get rich from working from home courses, Raid Shadow Legends are probably all at the front of the queue to advertise on Twitter.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    http://xcorp.com seems to have cryptic messages what elon musk's goals are with x corp.

  15. arctic_haze
    IT Angle

    Spend matching?

    Is it something like speed dating?

  16. Bbuckley

    Musk should win a Nobel Prize for shutting down the worst Orwellian communist propaganda channel in the history of the world. I do hope he recovers his money. We all owe him infinite gratitude.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like