Twitter owner Elon Musk tells departing advertisers to 'Go f*** yourself' in baffling on-stage interview: 'This advertising boycott is going to kill the company… Let's see how Earth responds to that'

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 29: C.E.O. of Tesla, Chief Engineer of SpaceX and C.T.O. of X Elon Musk speaks during the New York Times annual DealBook summit on November 29, 2023 in New York City. Andrew Ross Sorkin returns for the NYT summit for a day of interviews with Vice President Kamala Harris, President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-Wen, C.E.O. of Tesla, Chief Engineer of SpaceX and C.T.O. of X Elon Musk, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and leaders in business, politics and culture.

In a perplexing performance at yesterday's New York Times DealBook Summit, Twitter owner Elon Musk told advertisers dropping the platform to "go fuck yourself". In fact, he did so three times, and took a specific swipe at Disney CEO Bob Iger before going on to say that the departure of major advertisers like Apple, Disney, and Warner Bros. is "going to kill the company."

NYT journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin had asked Musk if the billionaire was on an "apology tour" for recent controversies—like Musk's endorsement of an antisemitic tweet and a Media Matters report showing that Twitter was placing ads next to pro-Nazi content—that has driven many companies to pause advertising on the site entirely. Musk appeared to take the question personally, announcing "I hope they stop [advertising]," before elaborating that "If somebody's going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself."