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Elon Musk says Apple has ‘fully resumed’ advertising on Twitter
The billionaire made the comment after meeting with Tim Cook.
According to Elon Musk, Apple has “fully resumed” advertising on Twitter. The billionaire made the comment during a Twitter Spaces conversation he broadcast from his private plane on Saturday evening. On November 28th, Musk claimed Apple had “mostly stopped advertising on Twitter” and threatened to remove the platform’s iOS client from the App Store. “Do they hate free speech?” Musk asked his followers and went on to play up the censorship angle.
The New York Times reports Apple temporarily stopped advertising on Twitter following the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs on November 19th. The outlet notes brands tend to their dial back their Twitter ads following shootings and disasters, primarily because they don’t want to see their products next to tweets about human tragedy.
More information on this per a source familiar: Amazon continued advertising on Twitter throughout the recent turmoil, although some campaigns were paused. The company is looking to increase it's ad spend to $100m a year, as stated in my prior tweet.
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) December 4, 2022
Two days after blasting Apple, Musk said he had met with Tim Cook. “We resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store,” he posted. “Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.” On Saturday, Musk added Apple was the largest advertiser on Twitter. That same day, he thanked advertisers “for returning to Twitter.”
Separately, Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer reported on Saturday that Amazon has plans to increase how much it spends on Twitter advertising to as much as $100 million per year. The retail giant had reportedly paused some campaigns but had continued to advertise on the platform despite the recent turmoil at Twitter.
News of Apple and Amazon returning to Twitter comes amid ongoing reports that the company’s advertising revenue has dropped significantly since Musk’s takeover in late October. During the first week of the World Cup in Qatar, the company only made about 20 percent of the ad revenue it expected to during that period, according to The Times. In recent weeks, the company has repeatedly cut its internal revenue projections for the final three months of the year. Initially, Twitter reportedly expected to earn about $1.4 billion in Q4 but has since cut that number to $1.1 billion. Musk previously told employees the company was in dire financial straits and warned bankruptcy was “not out of the question.”
Update 05/12/22 3:14PM ET: Added new information about Amazon's plans for Twitter.
