Elon Musk’s fanboys and supporters are in a serious pickle. They desperately want to believe that Musk is a next-level genius executing some brilliant plan for Twitter. They don’t want to admit that Musk is a shady, broke-ass idiot who was legally forced to purchase an over-valued product (Twitter) using borrowed money. They don’t want to admit that Musk is actually a terrible businessman with poor impulse control and he’s destroying Twitter because he doesn’t know what the f–k he’s doing. While Musk has gone on a firing spree within Twitter, it’s looking like advertisers are going on a firing spree of their own:

Twitter is facing an exodus of executives and skittish advertisers as Elon Musk and his advisers take control of the social media company, prepare to lay off employees and make changes to the product.

At least five top Twitter executives — including the chief marketing officer, the chief customer officer, the head of people and diversity, and the head of product — have departed the company in recent days, according to seven people with knowledge of the matter and public statements. Two announced their departures on Twitter on Tuesday; they did not say why they had quit. More executives may leave, the people said.

At the same time, advertisers — which provide about 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue — are increasingly grappling with Mr. Musk’s ownership of the platform. The billionaire, who is meeting advertising executives in New York this week, has spooked some advertisers because he has said he would loosen Twitter’s content rules, which could lead to a surge in misinformation and other toxic content.

IPG, one of the world’s largest advertising companies, issued a recommendation on Monday through its media agencies for clients to temporarily pause their spending on Twitter because of moderation concerns, three people with knowledge of the communication said. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of platforms, advertisers and industry groups that is fighting harmful content on social media, also said this week that it was monitoring how Twitter planned to deal with content moderation.

[From The NY Times]

Yeah, the advertiser issue will come to a head within the next week. A lot of people (myself included) are holding their breath to see what happens on Twitter ahead of the midterm elections, what happens on election night and what happens in the 48 hours after the midterms. Please remember that on election night in 2020, that’s when Twitter finally began censoring Donald Trump’s account. Twitter didn’t permanently suspend Trump until the January 6th insurrection, but on Election Night, Twitter was finally stepping up to moderate Trump’s deranged tweets. What will happen on election night this year? What will happen when Republicans use the platform to call for violence and terrorism against their enemies? If sh-t goes down (how could it not), advertisers will pull the plug.

It’s also funny that Musk thinks he can make up the advertisers’ income by simply charging $20 a month for Twitter Blue, the “verified Twitter.” When Stephen King said “f–k that,” Musk begged him to sign up for it and then lowered the price to $8 a month.

The funniest thing about this is that Elon Musk thinks the issue is that Stephen King is balking at the $20 per month fee. pic.twitter.com/BB5rnmaKKb

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) November 1, 2022

Photos of Musk looking like an idiot at Heidi Klum’s Halloween party, courtesy of Cover Images.