Elon Musk is facing new challenges from ad companies after buying Twitter.
Ad agencies are afraid Twitter won’t have the same content filtering as with its former CEO and they’re afraid of vehicle ads because Musk is the CEO of Tesla, Wall Street Journal reports.
Kieley Taylor, international director of partnerships at GroupM, a major advertiser for large firms, said reinstalling Trump would be a “red line.”
Addressing Issues
The new CEO claimed in a tweet to advertisers on Thursday that he bought Twitter because it’s crucial for the continuation of humanity to have a shared digital city square in which a vast range of opinions can be discussed without violence.
He noted social media might fracture into far-right and far-left groupthink that splits our society.
Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022
One of the first moves Musk is making is lifting all speech-related lifetime restrictions, which would include erstwhile President Trump, according to Bloomberg News.
Other accounts banned include Laura Loomer, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon, Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Alex Jones.
Bloomberg claimed a person familiar with Musk’s account restoration plans said it’s uncertain if Trump can return to Twitter.
Musk suggested Twitter shouldn’t have banned Trump and should reinstate him. In May, he stated banning Trump was wrong. He said it was a mistake because it insulted a significant part of the population and didn’t silence Trump.
Trump and much of the right will be on Truth Social, he predicted. So, he believed it could be worse than having only one platform for debate.
Musk now owns Twitter and is changing it. The sale was made on Thursday and Musk removed Twitter’s CEO and CFO, The Wall Street Journal said.
People say Musk sacked CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal after the deal concluded. Twitter made no remarks on the matter.
It wasn’t apparent who would take the top jobs. CNBC reported the firings. Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top legal and policy officer, and Sean Edgett, general counsel, were also fired.
A Long Time Coming
Musk’s on-again, off-again quest with Twitter took a positive turn this month with predictions he would finalize the $44 billion transaction….or an unfavorable turn, depending on the viewpoint.
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk delivered another big hint on Tuesday that the merger is moving forward. He tweeted a video of himself bringing a sink into Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.
Musk added “Chief Twit” to his Twitter bio. Later, he tweeted out the following:
Meeting a lot of cool people at Twitter today!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022
Musk had until Friday at 5 p.m. to complete the deal or face new litigation in Delaware. Musk planned to make big changes to Twitter’s employees once he controlled it.
He aims to slash over 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, reducing the firm to a skeleton staff of 2,000, the Washington Post said.
If Musk doesn’t buy Twitter, the present owners aim to slash 25% of employees, according to a report.
This article appeared in NewsHouse and has been published here with permission.
