Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, said Friday that the company is experiencing a sharp decline in revenue because advertisers have stopped advertising on the social media platform.
In a tweet posted on his official Twitter account, the billionaire Musk blamed activist groups that put pressure on advertisers and said that Twitter had not changed its content moderation strategy, adding that the company did everything in its power to satisfy activists.
Musk, who also heads electric car maker Tesla and space maker SpaceX, did not specify how much of the drop in Twitter’s revenue was, nor did he provide evidence that it was caused by activist groups pressure on advertisers.
Musk reiterated his comments in an interview at the Baron Investment Conference today, where he said, “We haven’t made any changes to our operations in any way.” He added: “We did our best to please them, but nothing worked. So, this is a serious concern. I frankly think this is aggression against the First Amendment.”
Musk means by this the First Amendment to the text of the original Constitution of the United States of America, which is the amendment that prohibits the formulation of any laws that prohibit the establishment of religions, impede the freedom to practice religion, limit freedom of expression, infringe on freedom of the press, interfere with the right of peaceful assembly, or prohibit Submit a petition to the government for a redress of grievances. Noting that the First Amendment was among 10 other amendments adopted in 1791.
In recent days, a number of companies have said they will be pausing their Twitter ads to see how things turn out under Musk’s ownership. Automakers General Motors and Audi, rivals to Tesla, as well as food giant General Mills are among the companies that halted advertising on Twitter after Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on October 28. Advertising company IPG advised its customers to temporarily stop advertising on Twitter.
It is noteworthy that Twitter informed its employees yesterday, Thursday, that it would begin to lay off many of them, and Twitter today laid off many employees by e-mail, so the section on content moderation will also be affected by the layoffs.