Elon Musk on Wednesday tried to walk back comments he made in which he slammed advertisers for fleeing his social media platform, “X.”
Speaking at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in Cannes, France, Musk was asked by WPP CEO Mark Read why he told advertisers to “fuck off” when they threatened to pull their ads from the platform late last year.
Musk said his comment was not intended to be a comment on the advertising industry as a whole, but rather a general opinion about free speech.
“It’s not about advertisers in general,” Musk said. “It’s about free speech. We think it’s important to have a global free speech platform where a broader range of views can express their views.”
“In some cases, some advertisers have advocated for censorship,” Musk said. “At the end of the day, if you have to choose between censorship and losing money, [or] “It’s a choice between censorship and money, or freedom of speech and financial loss, and we’re going to choose the latter.”
“I’m going to support freedom of speech rather than agree to be censored for money. I think that’s the right moral decision,” he added.
Musk flew to Cannes earlier this week to reassure advertising groups and global brands about X’s future.
He was joined by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X and former chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal.
Free Speech Platform
Last year, the world’s largest advertisers, including Apple, IBM, Disney and Sony, The company has pulled its ads on X following Musk’s controversial comments and instances of its ads appearing alongside harmful posts.
In November, Musk traveled to Israel to meet with officials there after being accused by civil rights groups of inciting anti-Semitic hatred with X.
Asked at the time whether the trip was an “apology tour” to advertisers, the tech billionaire said onstage at the 2023 DealBook Summit in New York that advertisers who were threatening to stop spending on the platform should stop advertising on his platform.
“Don’t do ads,” he said in a November interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. “What if someone tries to blackmail me with ads? What if they blackmail me with money? Fuck you.”
Musk walked back his attack on advertisers on Wednesday.
“Of course, advertisers have the right to advertise next to content that is appropriate for their brand,” he said. “It’s not OK for them to insist that content they don’t agree with shouldn’t be on their platforms.”
He added: “For X to be the world’s public square, it needs to be a platform where freedom of speech is guaranteed. That doesn’t mean people can say illegal things, but freedom of speech within the bounds of the law.”
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.