Microsoft has announced it will drop Twitter from its advertising platform next week, following Twitter’s decision to charge a minimum of $42,000 per month to users of its API. Although Microsoft has the funds to pay this price, the move appears to be a statement. Beginning April 25, 2023, Microsoft’s Smart Campaigns with Multi-platform and Digital Marketing Center will no longer support Twitter, preventing users from accessing their accounts or managing tweets through Microsoft’s free social media management service.
Despite still being able to manage and create content for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn through the platform, the move has incensed Elon Musk, owner of Twitter. Musk tweeted about the decision, accusing Microsoft of training its powerful AI models on Twitter data illegally, threatening legal action.
There has been tension between Microsoft and Twitter due to Microsoft’s licensing agreement with OpenAI and its investment in the company. Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left several years later, periodically bashing it on Twitter. The move comes at a challenging time for Musk, who has been working to win over advertisers since reportedly losing more than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers following his takeover of the platform in late October.
During a recent interview in Miami, Musk stated that he was open to hearing legitimate concerns advertisers might have about Twitter but would not make changes he did not believe in. When asked on Twitter about his decision to charge so much for Twitter’s API access, Musk responded that he was open to ideas, but ripping off the Twitter database, demonetizing it, and then selling data to others was not a winning solution.
