(Reuters) – Twitter Inc’s new owner Elon Musk said on Friday that the social media company had seen a “massive” drop in revenue and blamed activist groups pressuring advertisers.
Musk, who took control of the firm last week, said the revenue decline came “even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.”
“Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America,” he said in a tweet.
Twitter recorded a fall in revenue in its last reported quarterly results in July, blaming Musk’s $44 billion proposal and weakening digital advertising market.
Last month, Musk said he wants Twitter to be “the most respected advertising platform”, in a bid to gain the trust of ad buyers ahead of the close of his deal.
Several companies including General Mills Inc and luxury automaker Audi of America already have paused advertising on Twitter, while General Motors Co said it had temporarily halted paid advertising.
(Reporting by Tiyashi Datta and Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
