General Motors temporarily halted paid advertising on Twitter one day after billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk finalized a $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform.
CNBC was be the first to report GM’s decision. TechCrunch confirmed the decision of the American automaker.
“We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership,” the company said in a statement emailed to TechCrunch. “As is the normal course of dealing with a significant change in media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer service interaction on Twitter will continue.”
It’s unclear what percentage of GM’s total advertising budget is earmarked for Twitter.
Most, if not all, car manufacturers have a presence on Twitter. Although not everyone chooses paid advertising.
Ford, GM, Stellantis, Porsche, VW and Volvo are just a few of the established automakers along with newer companies like Rivian that have social media accounts on the platform. Fisker is still on Twitter, even after its founder and CEO Henrik Fisker deleted his personal account in April after the Musk-Twitter deal was announced.
Musk tried to quell advertisers’ fears earlier this week with a note posted on his personal Twitter account about his planned approach to running the social media platform.
“There has been a lot of speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I thought about the ad,” Musk wrote. “Most of it is wrong.” He went on to write that he believes Twitter has the potential to be a “common digital town square” and that the platform cannot be a “free-for-all hellscape.”
Musk’s promises may not be enough for GM as it seeks to compete with and even surpass Tesla in EV sales.
GM pauses paid advertising on Twitter as Chief Twit Elon Musk takes ownership