RUNNING SCARED

Twitter Hit by Staggering 59 Percent Drop in U.S. Ad Sales: Report

Some companies haven’t been thrilled with Elon Musk’s overhaul of the platform.

Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue has plunged dramatically in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the site, according to The New York Times. The newspaper reports that an internal Twitter presentation showed that the company’s American ad sales in the five weeks from April 1 into early May stood at $88 million—a whopping 59 percent lower than the same period a year earlier. Unnamed current and former employees said Twitter’s ad sales staff are worried that advertisers may have throttled their spending out of concern about an increase in hate speech and pornography on the platform, along with a surge in advertisements on the site for cannabis products and online gambling. Six ad agency executives said their clients continue to limit their Twitter spending out of confusion about Musk’s changes to the site, as well as “inconsistent support from Twitter and concerns about the persistent presence of misleading and toxic content on the platform.”