Advertisers plan to withdraw from X in record numbers

London (CNN) — A record number of firms plan to cut advertising spending on X next year because of concerns that extreme content on the platform could damage their brands, dealing another blow to the financial fortunes of Elon Musk’s social media company.

A global survey by market research firm Kantar found that a net 26% of marketers plan to decrease their spending on X in 2025, the biggest recorded pullback from any major global ad platform. Only 4% of marketers overall think X ads provide “brand safety” — certainty that their ads won’t appear alongside extreme content — compared with 39% for Google ads, Kantar said in a report Thursday.

“Advertisers have been moving their marketing spend away from X for several years,” Gonca Bubani, Kantar’s global thought leadership director for media, said in a statement, adding that “a turnaround currently seems unlikely.”

“X has changed so much in recent years and can be unpredictable from one day to the next — it’s difficult to feel confident about your brand safety in that environment.”

Consumers, on the other hand, feel more positive about ads on X because there are fewer than there used to be, according to Kantar.

The findings suggest that Musk’s charm offensive at the world’s largest annual advertising festival, Cannes Lions, in June hasn’t succeeded. During an interview with Mark Read, the CEO of the marketing giant WPP, the billionaire struck a conciliatory tone after telling advertisers last year to “go f**k yourself.”

He agreed that advertisers “have a right to appear next to content that they find compatible with their brands.”

But his attempts to woo advertisers appear short-lived. Last month, Musk filed a lawsuit against an influential ad industry body — whose members include Unilever, Mars, and CVS — claiming the group conspired to “boycott” X.

In a statement Thursday, an X spokesperson said the platform “now offers stronger brand safety, performance and analytics capabilities than ever before, while seeing all-time-high levels of usage.”

The spokesperson added that X’s “brand safety rate is on average 99%, as validated by DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science,” companies that analyze the value of digital advertising placements.

Since Musk’s $44 billion takeover in 2022, big brands have retreated from the platform, formerly known as Twitter, over concerns about content moderation and uncertainty over the platform’s direction.

Musk’s own comments on Xhave also spooked advertisers. Last November, about a dozen prominent brands — including IBM, Disney, and Paramount — halted ad spending on X over concerns about antisemitism and hate speech, not helped by the fact that Musk himself had endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory. He later apologized.

The Kantar report, which was based on interviews with 1,000 senior marketers and 18,000 consumers in more than two dozen countries, alsofound that X scored outside the top 10 brands for trust and for the perception of how innovative advertising on the platform is.

According to the report, YouTube remains the ad platform marketers most prefer, while, for consumers, Amazon and TikTok share the top spot.

Separately, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said earlier this week that the world isn’t obliged to put up with Musk’s “far-right anything goes” agenda because of his immense wealth.

Brazil blocked X over the weekend following an order by the Supreme Court because Musk refused to appoint a new legal representative in the country. The move escalated a months-long feud over what constitutes free speech, as Brazil cracks down on the spread of misinformation online.

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