Elon Musk's stern message to advertisers: ‘X is prioritising free speech over profit’

Elon Musk said that the company had made progress on becoming a safer place for brands at a time when some major advertisers abandoned the app.

Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), said that free speech trumps profits. as he talked about advertisements on his social media platform at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Talking about brand safety, Elon Musk said, “Advertisers have a right to appear next to content that they find…compatible with their brands. That's totally fine.”

Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter. (Reuters)

He added, “What is not cool is insisting that there can be no content that they disagree with on the platform.”

Elon Musk said that the company had made progress on becoming a safer place for brands at a time when some major advertisers abandoned the app over concerns about the type of content allowed on the platform.

Talking about his own posts on X, he said, “I do shoot myself in the foot from time to time. If you’re constantly going through a filter, now you aren’t being real. It’s better to be real.”

Maintaining that freedom of choice is paramount, he said, “We don't want to take money to censor. I think that would be wrong.”

Elon Musk and X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino have attempted to boost the social platform’s advertising business through new video partnerships. Elon Musk has also tried to diversify the company’s business away from advertising and most notably started selling a revamped subscription service after he took over. He has also announced plans to make X an “everything app” with payments services.