General Mills to Mondelez, top Twitter advertisers to hit the pause button

Food company General Mills, Oreo maker Mondelez International, Pfizer and Volkswagen Audi are among a growing list of brands that have temporarily paused their Twitter advertising in the wake of the takeover of the company by Elon Musk. 

Some advertisers are concerned that Musk could scale back content moderation, which they worry would lead to an increase in objectionable content on the platform. Others are temporarily halting their advertisements because of the uncertainty at the firm as top executives exit and Musk considers a raft of changes.

“We have paused advertising on Twitter,” said Kelsey Roemhildt, a spokesperson for General Mills.

“As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend,” the spokesperson added, confirming a report by The Wall Street Journal. 

Last week, US auto giant General Motors was the first major advertiser to suspend advertising. Reports that Musk plans mass layoffs at the site, which would include content moderators, have also frazzled observers.

Advertisers are Twitter’s main source of revenue and Musk has tried to calm the nerves by reassuring that the site would not become a “free-for-all hellscape”.

Musk blames activists

Elon Musk said that the social media company had seen a “massive” drop in revenue and blamed activist groups pressuring advertisers.

He said the revenue decline came “even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.”

“Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America,” he said in a tweet.

Last month, Musk said he wants Twitter to be “the most respected advertising platform”, in a bid to gain the trust of ad buyers ahead of the close of his deal.