Musk is attending Cannes Lions this week with the aim of reassuring global advertising groups and brands about the future of the X.
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Elon Musk on Wednesday tried to walk back his comments criticizing advertisers fleeing his social media platform X.
At the Cannes Lions advertising festival in Cannes, France, WPP CEO Mark Read asked Musk what he meant by telling advertisers who threatened to pull ads from the platform late last year to “go yourselves.”
Musk said this was intended to be a general point about freedom of expression and not a comment on the broader advertising industry.
“It wasn't about advertisers as a whole,” Musk said. “In terms of freedom of expression, I think it is important to have a global platform for freedom of expression, where people from a wide range of views can express their opinions.”
“In some cases, there were advertisers who insisted on censorship,” Musk said. “Ultimately… if we had to choose between censorship and losing money, or (or) censorship and money, or freedom of expression and losing money, we would choose the latter.”
He added: “We will support freedom of expression rather than agree to censor money, which I believe is the right moral decision.”
Musk traveled to Cannes earlier this week with the aim of reassuring global advertising groups and brands about the future of the X.
He was joined by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X and former president of global advertising and partnerships for NBC Universal.
Freedom of expression platform
Last year, some of the world's biggest advertisers including apple, IBM, DisneyAnd Sony They pulled their ads on X in the wake of controversial comments made by Musk, as well as their ad placements appearing alongside toxic posts.
In November, Musk traveled to Israel to meet with local officials after civil rights groups accused him of amplifying anti-Jewish hatred on the X website.
The tech billionaire was asked at the time if the trip was an “apology tour” for advertisers, and he said on stage at the 2023 DealBook Summit in New York that advertisers who threaten to stop ad spending on the platform should stop advertising on his platform.
“Don’t advertise,” he said in a November interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. “If someone's going to try to blackmail me with ads? Blackmail me with money? Go f— yourself.”
On Wednesday, Musk backed away from his attacks against advertisers.
“Of course, advertisers have the right to appear next to content they find consistent with their brands,” he said. “What's not great is insisting that there be no content on the platforms that they don't agree with.”
He added: “For
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
