X’s ad revenue continues to fall after Musk takeover: Warc

X (formerly Twitter) has seen its ad revenue plummet since Elon Musk bought the platform in 2022.

The social media platform ad revenue dropped by almost half (46.4%) between 2022 and 2023— from $4.5 billion to $2.2 billion year-on-year, according to analysis from WARC Media.

This decline is forecast to continue with revenue in 2024 predicted to come in at $2 billion and below that in 2025. WARC estimates a hypothetical loss of $5.9 billion in ad revenue overall since Musk’s acquisition two years ago.

Other social media platforms, in comparison, have experienced strong growth in ad revenue during the same period—Instagram was up by 24.9%; Snapchat by 13.8%; and Pinterest up 18.1%.

James McDonald, WARC’s Director of Data, Intelligence and Forecasting, said: “Falling from a position as one of the top 20 media owners worldwide, X’s advertising business has eroded significantly since Q4 2022.

“Had it maintained growth relative to the wider social market recorded before acquisition, X’s ad revenue could be more than double what it is today.”

This is likely due to Musk’s lack of content moderation policies, which caused major advertisers like Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Mondelez to pull spending over brand safety concerns.

Additionally, data from Kantar’s media reactions study showed that X is perceived as untrustworthy as only 4% of marketers considered ads on the social media platform to be brand-safe and a quarter (26%) said they plan to reduce spending in 2025.

Jane Ostler, EVP Thought Leadership at Kantar, said: “Marketers’ perceptions of X are that it is neither particularly trustworthy nor innovative; two hurdles it needs to overcome to win back media spend from advertisers.”

In August this year, X filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) over an alleged "illegal boycott." This led to the WFA suspending its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative due to resource strains. Since then, X has made a settlement with Unilever but has continued to pursue the lawsuit against other advertisers.

A version of this article first appeared on Campaign sister title Performance Marketing World