Kevin O’Leary, the Canadian entrepreneur, self-proclaimed investment guru, FTX influencer, and famed Shark Tank judge, is joining a long list of companies swearing off X advertising, proclaiming on Threads on Tuesday that X is “the only social media platform that’s declining in America.”
But O’Leary, who claims to spend a monthly advertising budget of $2 million across his 40 companies, isn’t doing it because of Musk’s erratic behavior and alleged antisemitism, like many of those who walked away from the platform in the past month, but simply because it’s not a great place to run ads.
“It was not giving my companies a good CAC [customer acquisition cost] and Return on Ad Spend,” he wrote, adding that he has “high hopes for Elon to fix it, but right now, Twitter/X is a cesspool.”
X advertising has been on a downward spiral since Musk’s takeover last year. The first advertiser exodus was a response to Musk’s “radical” leadership which included cutting a laying off a significant portion of the company, including its moderation team.
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One of the reasons Musk acquired X, then known as Twitter, was because he wanted to get rid of the bots. But, after over a year, X has grown into a — as O’Leary puts it — a cesspool, filled with hate and problematic content.
The most recent advertiser exodus was triggered by a Media Matters report that found ads from companies like IBM, Apple, Oracle, and Comcast’s Xfinity were being displayed alongside antisemitic content. Musk has called the report a “fraudulent attack,” but his behavior has not stopped advertisers from leaving the platform.
According to a recent report from the New York Times, X is facing losses of up to $75 million in advertising revenue by the end of the year.
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