‘Massive drop in Twitter’s revenue': Elon Musk blames ‘activist groups'

New York, Nov 04: Twitter has suffered a "massive drop in revenue" due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, claimed new chief Elon Musk on Friday.

"Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists," tweeted Musk.

"Extremely messed up! They are trying to destroy free speech in America," he added.

However, it was not immediately known who Musk was referring to as "activists".

Elon Musk had told Twitter advertisers he is buying the platform to "help humanity" and doesn't want it to become a "free-for-all hellscape" where anything can be said with no consequences.

"The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence," Musk wrote, in an unusually-long message for the billionaire Tesla CEO who typically projects his thoughts in one-line tweets.

"There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society."The message reflects concerns among advertisers - Twitter's chief source of revenue - that Musk's plans to promote free speech by cutting back on moderating content will open the floodgates to more online toxicity and drive away users.
he continued.

Musk told advertisers that he wants Twitter to be "the most respected advertising platform in the world."