Elon Musk’s social media platform
Since Musk acquired X in 2022 and took the company private, financial disclosures from the company have been rare. The UK financial filings for 2024 are the most recent overview of the social media company’s financial performance.
The UK arm of dollars the previous year.
“The significant decline in the company’s performance is the result of a decline in advertising revenue primarily driven by reduced spending by major brand advertisers due to concerns over brand safety, reputation and/or content moderation,” the company acknowledged in its strategic report filed with UK regulators.
Workplace and culture expert Bruce Daisley, who was previously Twitter’s vice president of Europe, Middle East and Asia, and general manager of Twitter in the UK, said: Fortune that the UK market has always served as a reliable indicator of the platform’s global health, despite only representing around 5.3% of its total revenue. “It’s a mature economy, reflecting what’s happening in the rest of the world,” Daisley explained, pointing to the developed network of e-commerce sellers and the diverse verticals of the UK economy.
The revelation of X UK’s problems comes as Musk has taken an unprecedented combative stance towards the very advertisers his platform depends on for its survival. In November 2023, during a profanity-laden tirade at New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk told to advertisers fleeing the platform to “go fuck yourself”, specifically shouting Disney CEO Bob Iger after the entertainment giant stopped its advertising. Musk accused Iger of trying to “blackmail” him with advertising money.
This explosion followed that of Musk approval of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about X, which he reposted on his own account. Major brands including Disney, Apple, IBM, ComcastAnd Discovery of Warner Bros. Next suspended their advertising on the platform. Musk has since apologized for his online comment, calling it the “worst and stupidest” message he has posted on his account. (Representatives for X did not respond to a request for comment.)
Rather than seek reconciliation, Musk has doubled down on his efforts by filing broad antitrust lawsuits against advertisers. In August 2024, continued the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) – an advertising industry initiative focused on brand safety – with its member companies, including CVS Health, UnileverMarch and Orstedaccusing them of illegally conspiring to boycott the platform and collectively withholding “billions of dollars in advertising revenue.” The lawsuit effectively resulted in the closure of GARM, which ceased operations citing limited resources to fight the legal battle. Unilever ruler his trial with X (terms were not disclosed).
Musk extended the trial in February 2025 to include other major brands such as Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive, Lego, ShellAnd Tyson Foods. “We tried peace for two years, now it’s war,” Musk posted on X.
“I can’t remember an example in the history of marketing where someone from a platform has threatened to file a lawsuit and sue people who don’t spend money with them,” Daisley said. Fortunecalling the approach “astonishing.” He called Musk’s strategy “mafia-like,” noting that the marketers he spoke with “simply don’t want anything to do with the brand, the product or the audience.”
The ad slump represents a stunning reversal for a platform that generated $4.5 billion in global ad revenue in 2022. That figure collapsed to $2.2 billion in 2023, a 46% drop, and is estimated to have fallen further to around $2 billion in 2024. Had X maintained pre-acquisition growth trends relative to the broader social media market, its ad revenue could be more than double that their current levels, according to WARC Media. analysis.
By comparison, competitors flourished in fiscal 2024, with Instagram ad revenue growth of 24.9%, Snapchat up 13.8%, and Pinterest up 18.1%.
Daisley attributes the current decline not only to brand safety concerns – where advertisers fear their ads will appear alongside neo-Nazi content or AI-generated pornography – but also to Musk’s broader concerns. political provocations. “He financed far-right political parties across Europe. He was accused of election interference by the French president,” Daisley noted, adding that Musk “insults the leaders of other Western European allies on a daily basis.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer both critical Musk’s support for far-right movements and his interference in European politics.
Despite the grim trajectory, Daisley believes the platform is not “beyond salvation” if leaders change course. “It remains a remarkably influential platform. It has not yet been completely replaced,” he said. However, he sees little indication of reform: “It is difficult to envisage a recovery in their income without change. »
