General Motorsis suspending its advertising on Twitter, saying it needs time to evaluate the service’s new direction in the wake of Elon Musk’s purchase.
The Detroit automaker revealed its plans to CNBC on Friday, saying it was ‘pausing” advertising, but would continue its interaction with customers on the platform.
“We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership,”A company statement stated that. “As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions on Twitter will continue.”
GM is a rival to Musk’s other company, Tesla, which makes electric vehicles. Ironically, Tesla does not use traditional advertising but instead relies on other customer acquisition strategies including social media influencers.
Ford Motor Co. told CNBC that it was also evaluating the platform’s direction under Musk. Ford claimed it wasn’t an advertiser on Twitter at the moment and that it has never been an advertiser before. CNBC however pointed out that Ford had at least one promoted Twitter.
Ford continues to engage with customers via Twitter, even though they don’t pay.
Musk’s takeover of Twitter has prompted much hand-wringing and pearl-clutching among certain factions. The new owner of Twitter has pledged to restore accounts banned by the service and claimed that he would only remove spam, bots, and other flotsam. Musk stated that the goal of the platform is to encourage free speech.
A “content moderation council”Musk is planning the launch of the service, which he said would not allow any accounts to be reactivated or make major content decisions prior to its convening. Musk attempted to calm advertisers earlier by saying that Twitter wouldn’t become a monopoly under his leadership. “free-for-all hellscape.”