Elon Musk’s social media platform X suffered a 58% income collapse in its U.Ok. operations throughout 2024, in response to monetary disclosures newly filed with Firms Home, marking one other brutal 12 months for the corporate previously often called Twitter as advertisers proceed to flee amid issues concerning the model and its billionaire proprietor.
Since Musk acquired X in 2022 and took the corporate non-public, monetary disclosures from the corporate have been few and much between. The 2024 monetary paperwork from the U.Ok. are the newest perception into the social media firm’s monetary efficiency.
X’s U.Ok. arm reported income of simply $39.8 million for the 12 months ending December 31, 2024, down from $95.2 million in 2023. The stark decline represents the continuation of a catastrophic promoting exodus that started when Musk acquired the platform in October 2022. Income from U.Ok. operations had already plummeted 66% in 2023 from $282.9 million the earlier 12 months.
“The numerous lower within the efficiency of the corporate is a results of the decline of promoting income primarily pushed by a discount in spend from giant model advertisers resulting from issues about model security, status and/or content material moderation,” the corporate acknowledged in its strategic report filed with U.Ok. regulators.
Office and tradition skilled Bruce Daisley, who beforehand served as Twitter’s vice chairman of Europe, the Center East, and Asia, and as Twitter U.Ok.’s managing director, advised Fortune that the U.Ok. market has traditionally served as a dependable proxy for the platform’s world well being, regardless of accounting for less than roughly 5.3% of its complete income. “It’s a mature economic system and it’s reflecting what’s occurring in the remainder of the world,” Daisley defined, pointing to the developed community of e-commerce distributors and the U.Ok. economic system’s diversified verticals.
The revelation of X U.Ok.’s points comes as Musk has adopted an unprecedented combative stance towards the very advertisers his platform relies upon upon for survival. In November 2023, throughout a profanity-laden tirade at The New York Occasions DealBook Summit, Musk advised advertisers fleeing the platform to “go f*** your self,” particularly calling out Disney CEO Bob Iger after the leisure big halted its promoting. Musk accused Iger of trying to “blackmail” him with promoting cash.
That outburst adopted Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy principle on X, which he re-posted to his personal account. Main manufacturers together with Disney, Apple, IBM, Comcast, and Warner Bros. Discovery subsequently suspended their promoting on the platform. Musk has since apologized for his on-line remark, calling the submit the “worst and dumbest” factor he has revealed on his account. (Representatives for X didn’t reply to a request for remark.)
Moderately than searching for reconciliation, Musk doubled down, submitting sweeping antitrust lawsuits towards advertisers. In August 2024, X sued the International Alliance for Accountable Media (GARM)—an promoting business initiative centered on model security—together with member firms together with CVS Well being, Unilever, Mars, and Orsted, accusing them of illegally conspiring to boycott the platform and collectively withholding “billions of {dollars} in promoting income.” The lawsuit successfully shut down GARM, which ceased operations citing restricted assets to combat the authorized battle. Unilever settled its go well with with X (the phrases weren’t disclosed).
Musk expanded the lawsuit in February 2025 to incorporate extra main manufacturers equivalent to Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive, Lego, Shell, and Tyson Meals. “We tried peace for 2 years, now it’s struggle,” Musk posted on X.
“I can’t bear in mind an instance within the historical past of promoting the place somebody from a platform has threatened to go to regulation and sue individuals who don’t spend cash with him,” Daisley advised Fortune, describing the strategy as “astonishing.” He characterised Musk’s technique as “mafia-like,” noting that entrepreneurs he’s spoken with “simply need nothing to do with the model, the product, or the viewers.”
The promoting disaster represents a surprising reversal for a platform that generated $4.5 billion in world advert income in 2022. That determine collapsed to $2.2 billion in 2023—a 46% decline—and is estimated to have fallen additional to roughly $2 billion in 2024. Had X maintained pre-acquisition development tendencies relative to the broader social media market, its advert income may very well be greater than double present ranges, in response to WARC Media evaluation.
By comparability, rivals thrived in the course of the 2024 monetary 12 months, with Instagram’s advert income rising 24.9%, Snapchat up 13.8%, and Pinterest growing 18.1%.
Daisley attributes the continuing decline not simply to model security issues—the place advertisers worry their adverts showing alongside neo-Nazi content material or AI-generated pornography—however to Musk’s broader political provocations. “He’s funded far-right political events throughout Europe. He’s been accused of election interference by the president of France,” Daisley famous, including that Musk “insults the leaders of different Western European allies each day.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.Ok. Prime Minister Keir Starmer have each criticized Musk’s help for far-right actions and interference in European politics.
Regardless of the grim trajectory, Daisley believes the platform isn’t “past salvation” if management modifications course. “It nonetheless stays a remarkably influential platform. It hasn’t but been absolutely substituted,” he mentioned. Nevertheless, he sees little indication of reform: “It’s exhausting to see any revival of their revenues with out change.”
