Angelo Carusone explains how advertisers “won't tolerate” Elon Musk’s planned terms of service changes to the platform
Carusone: Advertisers will decide “I don't want my brand next to Nazis. I think it's just not good for business”
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Angelo Carusone explains how advertisers “won't tolerate” Elon Musk’s planned terms of service changes to the platform
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From the April 27, 2022, edition of SiriusXM's The Dean Obeidallah Show
ANGELO CARUSONE: He does not believe he's gonna make money on this deal. He is -- and he's not doing for, you know, ideological reasons. Rupert Murdoch overpaid for the Wall Street Journal when he bought it. Typically, you have to pay premium when you're coming in with some ideological interests. So that's one piece.
Two, Twitter's business model, unlike even the other social media platforms -- Twitter does have an outsized influence for the size of its user base, you know, compared to say, Facebook and others.
And that's because its users are celebrities, high-profile people, decision-makers, advocates, activists, members of the news media, right? I mean, the reason we have a problem with money in politics, right, is because people have to raise billions of dollars to buy slivers of media. But the rest of the media is free if you're in the business. So of course, that influence matters.
So, Twitter does have a disproportionate influence over of a large number of, you know, of an elite or a really influential audience. And so, that -- there's -- but they don't have scale, and so they get their money mostly from advertising. And their advertising business is substantial. It's like about five billion dollars annually, but it's pretty small compared to the others.
And the assumption that Musk is gonna be able to retain that revenue honestly assumes that he doesn't do anything. So, the second he starts rolling back some things, as long as there's some pressure on the advertisers, they won't tolerate it because they've actually been pretty active over the past couple of years and we talk about this extensively for brand safety. And, you know, hey. I don't want my stuff being -- you know, not because they're good companies necessarily, though some of them are, it's just -- I don't want my brand next to Nazis. I think it's just not good for business.