Apple, Amazon ‘Resume’ Twitter Advertising

Elon Musk said Apple has “fully resumed” advertising on Twitter, days after he criticised the company after he said it had “mostly stopped” their advertising.

A separate report indicated Amazon was increasing its ad spending to $100 million (£83m) a year after having paused some campaigns.

A number of high-profile advertisers, including General Motors and Pfizer, paused ad spending on the platform following Musk’s acquisition of it in late October, contributing to financial concerns.

Musk’s tenure as owner so far has included mass layoffs of about half of the company’s worldwide staff, walkouts by others, and the return of users who had been banned for hate speech or other dangers.

Apple row

On 28 November Musk claimed Apple had “mostly stopped advertising on Twitter” and had threatened to remove Twitter from the App Store.

The New York Times reported Apple had temporarily stopped advertising on the social media platform following the nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs on 19 November, saying brands often decrease Twitter advertising after a disaster in order to avoid their brand being displayed next to upsetting material.

Two days after his message Musk said he had met with Tim Cook and “resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store”.

“Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so,” he wrote.

‘Fully resumed’

During a Saturday Twitter Spaces chat, in which he spoke from his private plane for more than two hours, Musk said Apple was Twitter’s biggest advertiser and had “fully resumed” its campaigns.

In a separate Twitter post he thanked advertisers “for returning to Twitter”.

Separately, Platformer News on Saturday cited unnamed people as saying Amazon had paused some campaigns since Musk took over but was now looking to “increase its ad spend to $100m a year”.