Elon Musk told advertisers boycotting X/Twitter over his recent antisemetic tweet to "go f*ck yourself" in a chaotic new interview that vacillated between defiance and hand-wringing over the future of X/Twitter.
The new interview, part of the New York Times' DealBook Summit, featured several eyebrow-raising moments, from a discussion of the interior "storm" in Musk's mind to his declaration that ongoing advertising boycotts would be "what bankrupts the company." But its wildest moment by far was Musk cursing out the advertisers who have abandoned the troubled platform in the wake of his posts.
"If someone is going to try and blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money — go f*ck yourself," Musk said, repeating the words for emphasis. He added a shoutout to Disney president Bob Iger, who had earlier appeared in the DealBook Summit. "Hey Bob, if you're in the audience. That's how I feel, don't advertise."
Iger, who also took part in the DealBook Summit, had earlier said of Disney's decision to pull ads from the platform, "By him taking the position he took, we felt that the association with that position, and Elon Musk and X, was not a positive one for us."
X/Twitter's advertiser exodus
X's advertiser exodus followed Musk endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory as "the actual truth," along with a report from Media Matters says that ads were being placed alongside antisemitic content. Musk responded by filing suit against the organization. Various studios have also quietly stopped posting on X/Twitter.
In the same interview, though, Musk called his antisemetic post "a mistake," calling it "one of the most foolish — if not the most foolish — thing I’ve done on the platform."
"I should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what I meant," Musk said. "But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I’m quite sorry, that was not my intention."
He did not comment on the lawsuit he filed against Media Matters.
The backlash against Musk has been the latest in a string of controversial moments since he took control of Twitter and subsequently rebranded it as "X, ranging from wholesale changes to the way the platform handles verification to promising to fight Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The full interview also touched on topics including Tesla sales, interplanetary exploration, and OpenAI, with other guests include Iger, Vice President Kamala Harris, and more.
Kat Bailey is IGN's News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
