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Elon Musk with a sink at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Oct. 26.
Twitter account of Elon Musk/AFP via Getty Images
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has many users worried about changes to the site under the mercurial billionaire, including big corporate advertisers. Auto giants General Motors and Ford were among the first to say they would not place ads on the platform until they understood the scope of those changes.
“We are reaching out to Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership,” the Detroit-based automaker said in an e-mail statement Friday. “As is the normal course of business with major media platform changes, we have temporarily stopped our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions will continue on Twitter.”
Ford is “currently not advertising on Twitter,” said spokesman Said Deep. “We will continue to evaluate the direction of the platform under new ownership.”
Like GM, it also continues to engage with Ford customers on site.
The moves come as Musk attempts to calm Twitter advertisers who may be worried that his comments about being a “free speech absolutist” mean the site will become more welcoming to extremist views, racism and extensive offensive content. said Musk Twitter could not be “a free-for-all hellscape” before the purchase and tweeted on Friday that it was creating a “content moderation council with widely diverse views” to set new rules.
Both GM and Ford are looking to take electric vehicle market share from Musk’s Tesla, the world’s leading EV brand. Advertising on a platform owned by the man who also heads a rival carmaker creates an unusual situation. The French automaker Citroёn is known for a mysterious tweet on Friday.
“How about a social media platform owned by one of our competitors,” the company said without elaborating.
Hyundai and Kia, which are also aggressively ramping up EV sales, were not immediately available for comment.
Smaller electric car companies, including Lucid, Rivian and Fisker, told Forbes they have no plans to change their use of Twitter. All three are in startup mode, particularly Fisker, which is launching its first model, the battery-powered Ocean SUV, next month.
However, Fisker CEO and cofounder Henrik Fisker, who had a legal and professional feud with Musk, deleted his personal Twitter account in April after the platform agreed to Musk’s buyout offer.
GM’s move was reported earlier by CNBC.
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