Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, attempted to do damage control as Paramount and Warner Bros among others also pulled ads

Apple will pause all its advertising on X, formerly Twitter, two days after owner Elon Musk tweeted his enthusiastic agreement with an antisemitic post.

A cascade of other major technology and media companies, from IBM to Disney, made similar announcements on Friday.

Apple’s ads had run beside tweets praising Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, according to a report released earlier in the week. Film studio Lionsgate said it would also pause ads on X, as did Warner Bros, Paramount, Sony Pictures, and Comcast/NBCUniversal, according to media reports. IBM made a similar move the night prior. The New York Times reported Disney would be pausing spending on the social media platform as well.

The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX wrote Wednesday that a tweet accusing Jews of hating white people was “the actual truth”. The White House condemned Musk’s statements Friday morning, lambasting them as “abhorrent”. A coalition of more than 150 rabbis had called for Apple, Disney, Amazon, Oracle and others to stop advertising on the social network in response to Musk’s tweets.

  • citrusface@lemmy.worldEnglish
    662·
    1 year ago

    Honestly, I’m surprised that they are still there.

    I’m surprised anyone who isn’t a right-wing nut job is still there.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      33·
      1 year ago

      It’s ridiculous that it took Elon to be totally open about his racism for them to do this. And as the article says, it’s a pause. They’ll start advertising there again when the furor dies down. Then they’ll do another pause the next time he says something atrocious and the cycle will repeat.

      • squiblet@kbin.social
        15·
        1 year ago

        I don’t see why these companies are acting surprised when he’s made it clear that he’s a fascist asshole for at least a year straight now.

        • cybervseas@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          1 year ago

          Money?

          It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

          • squiblet@kbin.social
            51·
            1 year ago

            I can’t picture advertising on Twitter being extremely lucrative for large companies currently. Most of them have already reduced their Twitter ad spending by a huge amount compared to last year.

            • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
              3·
              1 year ago

              Apple is still happy to sell iPhones to right wing douche nozzles and twitter is a great way to reach them.

              • squiblet@kbin.social
                1·
                1 year ago

                I’m sure. But it’s not really who their brand is oriented towards or does best with, and they can easily continue to thrive without advertising on TwitX.

    • Zetta@mander.xyz
      6·
      1 year ago

      The space development tracking community and Ukraine war OSINT people basically only use Twitter. I am interested in both topics so I use Twitter, but specifically only for those topics.

      • citrusface@lemmy.worldEnglish
        61·
        1 year ago

        Fair. My comment may have been harsh. Hopefully some new and better alternatives become more adopted soon.

    • Zirconium@lemmy.world
      83·
      1 year ago

      Well I’m surprised IBM is shying away from their past. I feel like they want to make their products available to Nazis

      • MrJ199414@lemmy.world
        51·
        1 year ago

        What’s weird is I just got done reading about this very thing and the fact they refuse to admit they did anything wrong.

        • yip-bonk@kbin.social
          52·
          1 year ago

          They’ve admitted it a lot. Where are you getting that disinformation?

          Well trying to find an actual statement is more difficult than I remember, but that could partially be due to Google ongoing enshittification. I did find this in a TIME article about the “IBM and the Holocaust” book from 2001:

          Of course, not everyone agrees with Seltzer’s assessment — least of all IBM. Last week, the company released a statement: “If this book points to new and verifiable information that advances understanding of this tragic era, IBM will examine it and ask that appropriate scholars do the same.” But company spokespeople insist that Black’s allegations are not new, that historians have long been aware that the Nazis used IBM’s tabulating machines. And, spokespeople insist, the company is paying for its mistakes: IBM Germany, formerly Dehomag, has already paid into Germany’s government-sponsored initiative to compensate citizens forced to work for the Nazis.

          I thought there was a lot more public acknowledgement though, and it’s hard to find. So - 50%?