Elon Musk tells X advertisers trying to 'blackmail' him to 'go f*** yourself'

Elon Musk sat down at the 2023 DealBook Summit in New York on Wednesday, where he answered some questions regarding advertising on the social media platform formerly called Twitter and now called X.

Elon Musk, the owner of X, and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at the company, spoke to Andrew Ross Sorkin about the recent tweets from Musk that have been described by the White House as "antisemitic and racist hate". Musk was asked his thoughts on big advertisers such as Disney and Apple pausing ad expenditure with X over his recent controversial tweets. Musk replied by saying, "I hope they stop. Don't advertise."

Sorkin followed up by asking Musk, "You don't want them to advertise?" Musk replied with, "No." Musk was asked to explain his reasoning behind his statement, to which the X owner said, "If somebody's gonna try to blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go f---yourself. Go. F---. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is." Musk then doubled down by saying, "Hi Bob! If you are in the audience. That's how I feel," which a reference to Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney.

Musk further explained that the lack of advertisers on the platform is going to "kill the company," and that "The whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail."