Hyundai Motor America suspended its advertising on the X, formerly Twitter, after another post espousing pro-Hitler, antisemitic views appeared on the social media outlet. Tesla CEO Elon Musk also helms X and has been under fire before after allowing similar content in the past.
Hyundai Motor America pulled its advertising on X, formerly known as Twitter, after a post espousing pro-Nazi and antisemitic views was linked to one of its ads.
Several companies paused their advertising on the social media site last November after Musk seemingly endorsed an antisemitic theory floating around on the site.
The most recent post caused Hyundai and other companies to stop its current ads and reassess how it selects the sites it uses.
Ongoing problem
“We are immediately removing from the site. We are updating our parameters to avoid other instances similar to this,” the automaker told Nancy Levine Stearns, a freelance journalist, who posted the response on X.
Hyundai is working with X to revise its parameters for advertising the site to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Stearns recently posted a screenshot of a Hyundai ad running on an X account that regularly posts Holocaust denial claims and antisemitic remarks.
The social media site suspended the account, which featured a blue checkmark, for violating its policy against abusive profiles.
X officials said they are also working with Hyundai to implement stronger brand safety controls.
The social media site has become a haven for pro-Nazi and antisemitic content since Musk engineered a buyout of then-Twitter about 18 months ago. The posts range from support for Adolph Hitler to spurious claims that 6 million Jews did not die in the holocaust.
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Hoping for change
Musk decided to lead a group of investors to buy the site due to his growing disenchantment with what he viewed as consistent overreaches by Twitter’s monitors. 
He spent $44 billion to acquire the site. Not long after he took over, a slew of its top advertisers, including General Motors, Volkswagen, Audi and Stellantis.
“As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising.” General Motors added that it is “engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership.”
Musk took to the site, hoping to allay concerns of top advertisers. He tweeted on Oct. 27, 2022, that he wanted Twitter to be a type of “digital town square” where ideas could be freely exchanged as part of civil discourse.
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.” he added. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
I don’t think Twitter is accomplishing any of Musk’s stated goals, indeed, it is doing exactly what he says he doesn’t want to do.
Agreed, Paul. I think it has lost huge value as a corporation. It has alienated millions of former users and advertisers. It has turned into an extremist site, not one that values free and open discussion from all corners. And it is now causing serious damage to Tesla. There’s a solid WSJ story out that suggests angered Democrats (who make up a disproportionate share of EV buyers) have walked away. And there are more and more solid alternatives to Tesla products.
Paul E.