Elon Musk’s ‘troll heaven’ turned Twitter into advertiser hell

More than 3 million listeners tuned in for Elon Musk’s interview with the BBC’s James Clayton on Wednesday morning UK time. They heard the Twitter owner dodge and deflect questions on safety, claim the company’s chief executive officer was now his dog, and make frequent racist, pornographic allusions about the broadcaster’s name. So far, so Elon.

But also on the agenda was an assurance that Twitter’s advertisers were “returning” and, as a result, the company was “roughly” at breakeven. “We could be cashflow positive this quarter if things keep going well,” Musk predicted. Since Twitter is a private company, we have to take Musk’s word for it.

Insider Intelligence, the well-respected data-research group, sees a very different picture. “Many big agencies still haven’t advised clients to end their pause [on advertising with the company],” wrote analyst Jasmine Enberg. “We expect Twitter’s worldwide ad revenues to plummet by 27.9 per cent this year as advertisers continue to pull back spending.”

Enberg noted research from digital-economy research shop Sensor Tower that said spending by Twitter’s top 10 advertisers — which include Amazon, IBM, and Coca-Cola — had fallen 89 per cent in February and March 2023 compared with the pre-Musk September to October 2022. The recently revamped paid verification service, Twitter Blue, won’t come close to making up the shortfall.

This is not necessarily all Musk’s fault, Enberg rightly points out. Twitter’s decreasing relevance for much of the population — those who don’t want a constant timeline of doom and gloom — has had advertisers hesitating for a while now. Uncivilised behaviour on Twitter predated — but accelerated with — the rise of Donald Trump. Musk’s contribution has been to ultimately and inexplicably say “more of that, please”, reinstating some of the worst offenders.

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“Twitter is ‘troll heaven,’” Musk said after the BBC interview, when the discussion continued on Twitter Spaces, with Musk inviting a few acolytes who were eager to chat.

One of them, Ian Miles Cheong, a right-wing social media figure, described the appeal of Twitter as thus: “When you tweet a celebrity, there’s pretty good chance they’ll read it and they get irritated by it, and then say you’re trolling them, which is what I do. It’s good, it’s fun having that reaction. It’s like playing a video game but better.”

“Yeah, totally. Exactly,” Musk agreed.