The Most and Least Valuable Social Media Advertising

After Disney became the latest company to announce it was pulling its ads from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), X owner Elon Musk issued an expletive-laden public response on Wednesday.

This latest headline-grabbing episode started with Disney and its CEO Bob Iger reacting to what was interpreted as Musk's endorsement of an antisemitic post on X. Speaking at the DealBook conference, Iger explained: "His name is very much tied to the companies he either founded or he owns...And by him taking the position that he took in quite a public manner, we just felt that the association with that position and Elon Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us."

In an interview at the same event, Musk said on the topic: “I mean, look, I’m sorry for that post...Of the 30,000 it might be literally the worst and dumbest". He then went on to say he "hopes they stop" advertising. Asked to clarify his position, Musk added: "If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f**k yourself.”

Despite this combative stance, the potential consequences of an advertising exodus are clear to the CEO, with Musk stating: “What this advertising boycott is going to do is, it is going to kill the company,”

A report published by marketing agency Gupta Media reveals the extent to which X has been struggling to generate advertising revenue since it was officially acquired by Musk in October 2022. X's CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) has plummeted by over 75% since the social network came into the SpaceX founder's hands, falling to $0.65 in August 2023 (from $5.77 in September 2022), its lowest level in three years.

As this infographic shows, X's CPM is significantly lower than its biggest social media rivals, with an average of just $1.20 in 2023. At the other end of the scale, advertising on Meta's Instagram and Facebook cost an average of $7.17.