Twitter ad sales dropped 59% to just £88million in the five weeks up to May

Twitter’s ad revenue in the US has fallen dramatically by 59 percent in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform – despite the CEO claiming that “nearly all advertisers” had returned to the tech giant.

An internal presentation shows that Twitter’s ad sales fell to $88 million between April 1 and the first week of May, a 59 percent drop from the previous year, the company reports. New York Times.

The internal documents also show that the company regularly falls short of its weekly sales forecasts in the US – sometimes by 30 percent.

The devastating development comes after Musk said in April that Twitter “could be profitable” because “nearly all advertisers have come back or said they will come back.”

But the reality is different – and Twitter employees told the paper they don’t believe the social media giant will improve any time soon.

They said Twitter’s ad vendors are concerned that advertisers are avoiding the site because of an increase in pornography and hate speech on the social network.

In November, it emerged that half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers, who accounted for about $2 billion in spend since the start of 2020, had ceased working with the site.

Reputable companies, including Chevrolet, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Ford, and Jeep, have discontinued advertising on the site.

The mass exodus stems largely from ethical concerns about the company’s new direction led by Musk, 51, who has aired plans to increase subscription revenue and give users more “freedom of speech.”

Musk’s plans — which have already reinstated previously banned accounts, such as former President Donald Trump’s — have proved polarizing in terms of morality.

Six ad agency executives told the New York Times that their clients continue to limit their spending on Twitter because of confusion over Musk’s changes to the site, as well as “inconsistent support from Twitter and concerns about the continued presence of deceptive and toxic content on the website.” platform.’

Indeed, oneadvertisers are shocked by the massive layoffs at the company and Musk’s rush to roll out a paid verification feature that resulted in scammers posing as businesses on Twitter.

The social media platform also recently reversed its 2019 ban on political advertising, saying it would relax advertising policies for “cause-based advertising” in the United States and align its advertising policies with TV and other media.

Musk planned to diversify Twitter’s revenue from advertising in the long run. However, the sudden drop in spending is likely to hamper the company in the medium term.

Musk has already suspended 75 percent of his 7,500 staff, prompting dozens of laid-off employees to sue the company for firing them without warning.

And last week, Twitter lost a second safety manager in just 24 hours.

The company’s head of brand safety and ad quality, AJ Brown, has resigned — just a day after its head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, also stepped down, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Both departures come after a controversy on the platform over restrictions on the Daily Wire’s ‘What is a Woman?’ documentary, in which one of the right-wing outlet’s columnists, Matt Walsh, questions the transgender movement.

Irwin, who stepped down Thursday, was in charge of content moderation decisions.

It’s unclear if the exits had anything to do with Musk overriding a decision made by Twitter execs regarding the Daily Wire’s documentary.

On Thursday, Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing claimed Twitter reps told him the platform would “stop supporting us and limit the film’s reach and label it as “hateful conduct” due to “misgendering.”

Musk responded to several complaints about the censorship, saying it was an employee error and that the issue would be resolved on Friday. Indeed, Twitter users could share the documentary on Friday, as Musk himself did.

Irwin, who joined Twitter in June 2022, took over as head of the trust and security team in November when previous head Yoel Roth stepped down.

Kara Swisher, a tech journalist and frequent critic of Musk, called Irwin an “Elon loyalist” who was “kicked to the curb.”

Twitter has suffered a huge loss in ad revenue after Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition last year, as companies don’t want their products advertised next to controversial content.

Brown was the top executive who assured advertisers that they should trust Twitter to host their ad content.

In December, when Irwin took over from Roth, Twitter disbanded its Trust and Safety Council, the advisory group of about 100 independent civil, human rights, and other organizations the company created in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, address self-judgment. damage and other issues on the platform.

The council was scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives. But Twitter notified the group via email that it would disband the group shortly before the meeting was due to take place, several members said.

Linda Yaccarino, former head of advertising sales at NBCUniversal, was recently named Twitter’s new CEO, but hasn’t taken the job yet.

On May 12, Musk announced that Yaccarino will “focus primarily on business operations, while I will focus on product design and new technology.”

Twitter’s revenue comes primarily from advertising — in 2021 it accounted for 90 percent of revenue.

In January, the company suffered a 40 percent drop in revenue since 2022 as more than 500 advertisers paused their spending on the microblogging site.