X Corp—X lost over half its advertising revenue as major brands fled platform after Musk acquisition
Following Elon Musk's October 2022 acquisition of Twitter (renamed X), advertising revenue plummeted approximately 54% year-over-year. By February 2023, more than half of X's top 1,000 advertisers had stopped spending on the platform. Projected 2023 ad revenue dropped to approximately $2.5 billion, down from $4.5 billion before the acquisition. The exodus was driven by Musk's content moderation rollbacks, reinstatement of banned accounts, and his own posting of antisemitic content endorsement in November 2023. X's overall value dropped approximately 80% from Musk's $44 billion purchase price.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content Moderation | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Corporate Governance | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.885 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (critical ×2) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
X's ad revenue dropped 54% year-over-year as half of top 1,000 advertisers fled platform
One year after Musk's acquisition, X's ad revenue had dropped approximately 54% year-over-year. More than half of the top 1,000 advertisers had stopped spending on the platform by February 2023. Projected 2023 ad revenue fell to approximately $2.5 billion from $4.5 billion pre-acquisition. X's overall value dropped approximately 80% from the $44B purchase price.