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Elon Musk attempted to repair his often strained relationship with the advertising industry with an appearance at the Cannes Lions conference in France on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s richest man was interviewed on stage Wednesday by Mark Read, the chief executive officer of one of the largest advertising agencies, who began by addressing Musk\u2019s outburst against the industry last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in November, you had a message for us, you told us to\u00a0go \u201cf\u2014\u2014\u201d ourselves<\/a>\u00a0,\u201d WPP Plc CEO Read said at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, a week-long event in the South of France that gathers the industry\u2019s most influential executives. \u201cWhat did you mean by that?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk told Read that he was referring to a subset of advertisers who were trying to limit free speech, and that the company had made progress on becoming a safer place for brands. The outburst reflected what\u2019s been a challenging first few years for Musk in charge of the social network, which relies on ads for the bulk of its revenue. At the time, some major advertisers had abandoned the app over concerns about the type of content allowed on the platform, and Musk had said he was worried it would doom the company.<\/p>\n \u201cAdvertisers have a right to appear next to content that they think is compatible with their brands,\u201d Musk said at the event in Cannes, adding that third party review gave the platform high marks on brand safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, X will always choose the option of making less money over limiting free speech, he said. The billionaire has loosened some of the app\u2019s content restrictions and welcomed back many banned accounts, which has made some marketers uneasy. Musk\u2019s own behavior, too, has been an issue. He\u2019s used the platform to\u00a0spread conspiracy theories<\/a>\u00a0and amplify extremist views to his more than 187 million followers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI do shoot myself in the foot from time to time,\u201d Musk said. \u201cIf you\u2019re constantly going through a filter, now you aren\u2019t being real. It\u2019s better to be real.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It was a return to Cannes for the company, which had\u00a0skipped last year\u2019s event<\/a>. Musk\u2019s fraught relationship with the industry began soon after his chaotic takeover of X led some advertising agencies, including WPP, to advise clients to pause or\u00a0consider suspending<\/a>\u00a0their ads on the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n In November, X accused Media Matters for America in a\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0of \u201cmaliciously\u201d trying to drive away advertisers from the social media platform by reporting that ads for Apple Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp. were running next to pro-Nazi content.<\/p>\n X no longer publicly reports revenue or profits, but was\u00a0on pace for about $2.5 billion<\/a>\u00a0in total advertising revenue in 2023 before Musk\u2019s on-stage comments, Bloomberg previously reported. That would have reflected a\u00a0drop of roughly 45%<\/a>\u00a0since 2021, the last full year before Musk\u2019s arrival.\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk and X\u2019s CEO Linda Yaccarino have tried to boost the social platform\u2019s advertising business through new video partnerships, which would theoretically give marketers more high-quality places to buy ads within X. But Musk has also tried to diversify the company\u2019s business away from advertising, and most notably started selling a revamped subscription service shortly after he took over and announced plans to make X an \u201ceverything app\u201d with\u00a0payments services<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSubscribe to the Fortune Next to Lead newsletter to get weekly strategies on how to make it to the corner office. Sign up for free<\/a> before it launches on June 24, 2024.<\/div>\n