Even Paris Hilton has pulled adverts from X – and Elon Musk isn’t happy about it
Elon Musk has thrown another temper tantrum after Paris Hilton pulled her kitchenware adverts from X (formerly known as Twitter), in the latest blow to the beleaguered social media platform and its billionaire owner.
Controversial business figure Musk caused a huge stir among major advertisers on X earlier this month after publicly endorsing a tweet that was accused of spreading antisemitic tropes.
The 52-year-old multi-billionaire took to X in mid-November and appeared to agree with a post promoting the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. According to the National Immigration Forum, this is an unfounded far-right theory that minority groups such as Jewish people are attempting to replace white people in Western countries.
In a social media exchange X user @breakinngbaht parroted the harmful theory, to which Musk replied: “You have said the actual truth.” He is yet to take the post down.
The ensuing criticism and accusations of antisemitism led to several major companies such as Disney, IBM, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Lionsgate, pulling their adverts from X, which Musk purchased last year.
Now it seems heiress, entrepreneur and reality star Paris Hilton is the latest to leave the platform. The 42-year-old media personality removed her ad campaign for her “Be An Icon” kitchenware from X, while continuing to promote it on rival social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.
On Sunday (3 December), one person speculated that Hilton had “stopped advertising on X because the content is too controversial,” alongside a falsified viral image of her wearing a top that reads “stop being poor”.
Musk himself responded to the post, replying: “The ad campaign wasn’t super convincing tbh. I don’t think Paris cooks a lot.”
PinkNews has reached out to Paris Hilton for comment.
While attending the New York Times DealBook Summit last week, Disney CEO Bob Iger explained why the corporation had no choice but to pull advertising from X. “[Given] the position [Musk] took, in quite a public manner,” Iger said according to Variety, ” [the association is] not necessarily a positive one for us.”
Mush himself addressed the ongoing exodus of advertisers by publicly telling them to “go f**k themselves”, during the same event.
“I don’t want them to advertise,” he said. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go f**k yourself. Go. F**k. Yourself.’ Is that clear?”
Musk did however later share some regret over his reply to the original post, labelling it “foolish” and saying he was “far from being antisemitic”.
“I’m sorry for that … post,” Musk said. “It was foolish of me. Of the 30,000 it might be literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done. And I’ve tried my best to clarify six ways from Sunday, but you know at least I think it’ll be obvious that in fact far from being antisemitic, I’m in fact philosemitic [an appreciation for Jewish people].”
Earlier this month, Musk sued media watchdog Media Matters after they claimed X was promoting pro-Nazi material side-by-side major corporations.
The organisation claimed Musk was continuing “his descent into white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories”.