X cobbles up team to woo back advertisers

Weeks after he was faced with a quasi-exodus of advertisers, Elon Musk has put together a special team with the goal of generating around $100 million in advertising revenue for his platform X before the 2024 elections, Financial Times reported.

In November, major corporations like Coca-Cola, Disney, and Apple pulled out their content from X expressing their dissatisfaction on Musk's seemingly endorsing a post on X that contained anti-Semitic content. The discontent led to advertisers withdrawing from the social media platform, with The New York Times estimating a potential loss of around $75 million in advertising revenue to the firm.

The relationship between X and its advertisers worsened when Elon Musk used strong language and criticised those who decided to move away from the platform. This included a public berating of Disney CEO Bob Iger.

In an interview with DealBook, Musk emphasised that the advertising boycott had the potential to seriously harm the company, stating that "the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company."

In an effort to recover from the setback in advertising revenue, X brought on Sten McGuire, previously associated with Hulu and Disney's political sales departments. Additionally, the company is actively seeking new members for the political ad sales team on LinkedIn, as reported by ReadWrite.

Reports say that since Elon Musk has acquired Twitter, which he renamed as X, the platform has experienced a substantial decline in revenue. By October, it was estimated that X had lost 57 per cent of its value from the original $44 billion that Musk paid to acquire the company.

The newly formed team has a challenging task ahead—retrieving the lost advertising investments – with an eye on $100 million target. However, past political advertising efforts paint a stark picture.

During the 2018 midterm elections, when X was still known as Twitter, the platform generated a modest $3 million in political advertising revenue. As of December 11, X had made approximately $4.7 million from political ads since the beginning of the year, according to disclosure data available from the company.

To meet their goal, the team faces a formidable challenge—a 95 per cent increase in revenue before the 2024 elections in November.