Elon Musk seems to realize he needs advertisers for Twitter

I love the show Bar Rescue — I promise this is coming back to Elon Musk and Twitter, trust me — and it’s taught me something valuable.

The show is exactly what it sounds like: Tough-but-fair industry expert Jon Taffer rescues failing bars, usually from negligent, oft-drunk owners. Time and again, the owners are failing because they like going to bars, then soon discover owning a successful bar involves none of that fun. It is work.

In short: I learned that though I enjoy going to a bar, I would never, ever try to run one. And now we’re back to Musk.

See, the billionaire is apparently about to buy Twitter, his favorite online playground. He loves tweeting, so it probably seemed like it would be fun to own Twitter. But a post from Musk on Thursday seemed to indicate he is running into the realities of actually owning Twitter. He posted a statement directed at advertisers, courting them and promising, it seems, some level of content moderation. The lion’s share of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertisers, and for the platform to survive, Musk, at least for the time being, will need to keep them happy and their wallets open.

You can read the full statement in Musk’s tweet, which begins, fittingly, with, “Dear Twitter advertisers.”

Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in a new tab)

The gist of the letter, though, is effectively: please advertisers, don’t fret. While taking shots at “traditional media” and making the requisite references to the need to calm the far-right and far-left, Musk hinted that Twitter will still have some form of content moderation. That’s important to advertisers, because companies don’t want their products associated with extreme views posted to a platform.

“Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk wrote in his tweet. “In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.”

Musk said that while low-quality ads can be a nuisance, high-quality ads are welcome.

“Fundamentally, Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise,” he wrote.

That kind of thoughtful, nearly reasonable statement is in stark contrast to some of Musk’s wilder posts on Twitter. You know, his frequent posts about Russia’s war in Ukraine, or claims about bots, or speculating wrongly about COVID, or claiming, without evidence, a person is a pedophile. Perhaps most notably, he tweeted frequently about Twitter itself, and the need for unfettered free speech.

After a long saga of bids, withdrawals, and a lawsuit, Musk looks set to actually own Twitter ahead of the purchase deadline on Friday. And that means Musk has to care about advertisers and creating a platform they’ll support. He spent $44 billion on the dang thing, after all. Might as well keep it alive.

It’s like owning a bar. It’s all fun and games until the rent comes due. Musk is apparently about to actually run Twitter, not just complain about it. With his new courtship of advertisers, it seems he’s let that sink in.