On Saturday evening there was a Twitter Spaces hosted by Mario Nawfal along with Kim Dotcom, which Elon Musk joined in from using Starlink on his private jet as it took off.
The topic was to cover the Twitter Files shared by the social network recently, but Musk also talked about various issues, including advertising on Twitter. Musk revealed Apple had “fully resumed advertising” on Twitter, with the iPhone maker being the largest advertiser on the social network.
Musk gave journalist Matt Taibbi full unfettered access to the so-called Twitter Files to share online, essentially exposing so-called censoring by Twitter prior to being acquired by the Tesla CEO.
We listened to the Twitter Spaces last night, which saw over 100,000 people tune in live at the same time, setting a record for the service. Twitter Spaces essentially is like a live radio show for speakers to talk about any topic and for anyone on Twitter to join in and listen.
Here’s exactly what Musk said when it came to Apple and advertising on Twitter.
“Yeah, so Apple has fully resumed advertising, which is appreciated. Apple is the single biggest advertiser on Twitter and historically and and presently. So thanks Apple for fully resuming advertising,” said Musk.
What’s going on here @tim_cook?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
“And I think we’re seeing, we’re starting to see a lot of other advertisers also resume their spending. I think that the problem is that they would read all these stories in the media and then think that they were true and they’re not true. And as it becomes clear that the media stories about Twitter being some sort of, like, right-wing hellscape—which it absolutely isn’t—in fact there are far fewer bots, far fewer trolls and it’s actually I think way more fun and interesting,” continued the Tesla CEO.
“We’re seeing it in the user minutes and in the daily average users. Then advertisers are like oh okay, maybe it is safe to get back in the water. So we are seeing advertisers resume advertising on Twitter, so that’s a good sign. I wish it would be faster but we are seeing them resume,” added Twitter’s ‘Chief Twit’.
According to Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer, Amazon plans to resume advertising on Twitter as well, spending about $100 million per year.
“The more concerning factor on the advertising front is just the entire industry-wide drop in advertising which Twitter is not immune from. So even though advertisers do get back on, the advertising expenditures in general are dropping from all companies. So it is imperative that Twitter have an alternate revenue source, hence the subscriber revenue which is very important, for both the survival of Twitter and to reduce its dependence on advertisers,” said Musk.
“Overall I think I’m cautiously optimistic about the future,” concluded Musk.
Earlier this week Musk publicly declared his war on Apple for pausing advertising on Twitter, calling out Tim Cook in the process. Eventually, Cook hosted Musk at Apple HQ and both men were able to patch up the Apple and Twitter relationship.
“Good conversation. Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so,” said Musk after meeting with Cook on Wednesday.
Good conversation. Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 30, 2022
Earlier this week, Musk banned Ye–known as Kanye West–from Twitter again, for inciting violence, after the latter went on a tirade praising Adolf Hitler on the controversial Alex Jones show. Musk said, “I wanted to punch Kanye in the face” on Twitter Spaces.
Musk has long been opposed to Apple’s 30% cut of in-app purchases and said he would attempt to build his own alternative phone if Twitter was kicked from the App Store and Google Play.
You can listen to the full Twitter Spaces held on Saturday evening here. There’s a full YouTube version available below:
