Twitter’s new boss Elon Musk has issued a threat that he may identify advertisers who boycott Twitter and shame them by name.
On Friday, local time in the United States, Elon Musk posted that the platform’s revenue plummeted after he bought Twitter because activist groups pressured advertisers to stop buying ads.
A Twitter user named Mike Davis responded to Elon Musk’s tweet and proposed to him, “You have almost 114 million followers on Twitter, name and shame the advertisers who have caved in to the ad boycott so we can boycott them back. Start the $8 per month subscription service plan as soon as possible so we can start making up for lost revenue now.”
To which Elon Musk responded, “Thanks, thermonuclear-level (thermonuclear) naming and shaming will be something that could happen if this continues.”
Twitter relies on ads for more than 90 percent of its revenue, although that could change under Elon Musk. Elon Musk has begun charging users $8 a month to help verify the status of their accounts.
Elon Musk last week closed a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter and promised to restore “free speech” by providing a “digital town square” where people can debate freely. However, dozens of groups have called on Twitter advertisers to stop advertising on the platform, claiming that Elon Musk’s proposed changes would allow Twitter to post “harmful content” and thus become “a direct threat to public safety.
To keep Twitter running financially, Elon Musk announced that he would fire half of the company’s 7,500 employees. He claimed that the company had been losing money until he took over. Elon Musk said, “Unfortunately for Twitter layoffs, we have no choice when the company is losing more than $4 million a day.”
Elon Musk remains the richest man in the world today, with a net worth estimated by Forbes magazine at more than $208 billion.
