The ink is barely dry on the contract for billionaire Elon Musk’s historic purchase of social media giant Twitter, and advertisers are already making threats over the direction in which the company might move forward.
Musk has indicated that under his helm, Twitter’s policy on permanent bans would only apply to bots or spam accounts, and that the platform would reinstate the account of Former President Donald Trump. Now that the transaction is complete, companies are set to make good on their promises to pull ad money from the platform.
About a dozen clients of GroupM, a leading ad-buying agency responsible for more than $60 billion in annual media spending, have told the agency to pause all ad buys on Twitter should Trump’s account be reinstated, according to an Oct. 28 report from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Kieley Taylor, global head of partnerships at GroupM, told WSJ that other clients have yet to indicate how they will proceed should Trump return to the platform.
“That doesn’t mean that we won’t be entertaining lots of emails and phone calls as soon as a transaction goes through,” Taylor said. “I anticipate we’ll be busy.”
Twitter permanently banned Trump in 2021, two days after the protests at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Musk said he believes it was a “morally bad decision” to ban Trump, in part because the ban “alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”
Following his ban from Twitter, Trump founded his own social media company, Truth Social. He has indicated on several occasions that should Twitter reinstate his account, he would have no interest in returning to the platform.
Even if he decided not to actively use his account, Twitter de-banning him would make his account and past activity visible to followers and account users.
“TRUTH SOCIAL has become somewhat of a phenomena. Last week it had bigger numbers than all other platforms, including TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest. It also looks and works better to my eye,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, the day after Musk’s Twitter takeover was completed.
“I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country,” he said. “Twitter must now work hard to rid itself of all of the bots and fake accounts that have hurt it so badly. It will be much smaller, but better. I LOVE TRUTH!”
