In his quest to restore X’s revenue capabilities, Elon Musk faced a significant massive exodus of advertisers late last year, with some of this retreat linked to the rise of pro-Nazi content. Not long after, Musk provocatively told advertisers to “go f*** yourself.”
All of this occurred just as he revealed that X’s revenue had plummeted by 60 percent since he took over.
Looking ahead, prospects for X in 2025 seem grim. A recent report from the UK research firm Kantar indicates that 26 percent of marketers intend to cut their advertising budgets for Musk’s platform next year.
Kantar’s findings suggest that this marks the “most significant decline” from any major global advertising platforms.
According to Gonca Bubani, Director of Global Thought Leadership at Kantar, “Advertisers have been shifting their marketing expenses away from X for several years. The rapid pace of this trend over the past year indicates that a recovery seems improbable at this time.”
X is poised to lose even more advertisers
Kantar’s research revealed that advertisers’ confidence in Twitter was already “historically low” before Musk’s acquisition. Since then, however, that trust has diminished even more.
Kantar found that trust in Twitter in 2022 stood at 22 percent; today, as X, it has plummeted to just 12 percent in 2024.
As Bubani remarked, “X has undergone so many changes in recent years and can be quite unpredictable day-to-day, making it hard for brands to feel secure in that environment.”
The report indicates that a mere 4 percent of advertisers believe X offers brand safety. In contrast, Google leads the pack with a brand safety rating of 39 percent. X’s performance in terms of trust and innovative advertising positions it outside the global top ten, with TikTok being viewed as the most creative and YouTube leading in trust ratings.
This stark difference between X and other social media platforms is further illustrated in a graph included in Kantar’s report, which provides a visual representation of these statistics.
Credit: Kantar
Under Musk’s leadership, X is unlikely to adopt a new strategy. Just this week, he was criticized for sharing a Tucker Carlson video that featured a guest expressing admiration for Hitler.
Musk commented, “Very interesting. Worth watching,” before he eventually removed the post.