Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – X CEO Linda Yaccarino is facing a credibility crisis as advertisers stop spending on billionaire Elon Musk’s platform.
This was triggered by allegations that Elon Musk supported anti-Jewish movements on his social media.
According to reports ForbesYaccarino has been contacted by many advertising executives who question why he would risk his reputation to protect Musk’s behavior.
They also suggested that Yaccarino could express a stance against racism and antisemitism by resigning from X.
He has so far rejected their pleas, sources familiar with the matter said, quoted from ForbesMonday (20/11/2023).
Last week, Musk explicitly supported anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. A report from media watchdog, ‘Media Matters’, found that ads from major companies including IBM and Amazon were placed next to content promoting Nazis and white nationalism.
This prompted advertisers including Apple, Disney, and IBM to withdraw from advertising partnerships with X.
In fact, the White House condemned Musk’s statement agreeing with conspiracy theorist user X that the Jewish community has encouraged dialectical hatred against white people.
On November 16, Yaccarino responded to this in a post on X and said:
“X’s views have always been very clear that discrimination by all people must STOP completely. I think that is something we can and should all agree on. Regarding X’s platform, we are also very clear about fighting antisemitism and discrimination. There is no place for that anywhere in the world. This is ugly and wrong. Period,” Yaccarino said.
The personal approach to Yaccarino by advertising executives comes as X, formerly known as Twitter, struggles to adjust under Elon’s advertiser-unfriendly behavior.
After nearly a dozen years at NBCUniversal as an advertising executive, Yaccarino was hired six months ago at
However, in his first interview after starting as CEO, Yaccarino stated that by all objective metrics, X is a much healthier and safer platform than it was a year ago.
He promises to create tools that help give advertisers more control over what content their ads will appear on.
However, the new measures the company implemented to protect advertisers did not work as promised.
The proof, according to the Media Matters report, is that advertisements placed by Apple, Bravo, Oracle, Xfinity and IBM appeared alongside posts touting Hitler and the Nazis.
Beyond the hateful content itself, it was Twitter’s failure to deliver on other protection promises that angered brands, leading them to pull ads they placed on X.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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