X could lose $75m in ad revenue post Musk antisemitic tweet: report

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, could lose $75 million in advertising revenue by the end of the year following owner Elon Musk’s apparent endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory last week, The New York Times reported Friday.

The Times said it had viewed “internal documents” revealing that the social media company is in a tough position. The documents reportedly list over 200 ad units from companies like Amazon and Coca-Cola that have stopped or are considering pausing their advertising on X.

The Times said the documents are from the sales team at X, and that they are used to track the impact from advertising pullbacks in November.

Musk faced backlash last week for appearing to agree with an antisemitic post on the platform, replying it was the “actual truth.” The post that Musk replied to was a response to another post by a user raising an issue with increasing antisemitism.

“To the cowards hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and posting ‘Hitler was right’: You got something you want to say?” the initial user, who identified themselves as a “Jewish Conservative” in their bio, wrote. “Why dont you say it to our faces.”

In response, another user said in separate post that “Jewish [communities] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”

“I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much,” the user continued, adding, “You want truth said to your face, there it is.”

Musk replied: “You have said the actual truth.”

Companies such as IBM, Disney and Apple announced they would pull ads from X in the wake of Musk’s comments. The platform had already been struggling with ad revenue following half of X’s top advertisers’ exits in 2022 after Musk took control.