- Elon Musk, the embattled owner of X (formerly Twitter), keeps tweeting at celebs to use his platform.
- Musk suggested Taylor Swift post her music on X and complained that Russell Brand was using Rumble.
- Under Musk, X (formerly Twitter) has lost half its ad revenue and is bleeding users.
Elon Musk, the embattled owner of X, formerly Twitter, is starting to look a little bit desperate.
While Musk has touted X’s views and engagement numbers — as if to prove to the haters that everything is fine, just fine — it’s actually been a rough year for the company. Twitter, now X, has lost half its ad revenue and a majority of its workforce since Musk bought Twitter in October 2022.
It’s apparently so bad that he’s now begging celebrities high and low to post to the recently rebranded platform.
In a reply to Taylor Swift’s announcement earlier this week of the re-release of her album “1989,” Musk replied on X: “I recommend posting some music or concert videos directly on the X platform.”
Musk also bragged that Tucker Carlson, the primetime anchor who was fired from Fox News in April, had received more views since streaming episodes on X.
"Views for his episodes on X now exceed the population of the United States. Talk to Earth via X!" Musk tweeted.
Musk's platform has faced criticism over its view counts, however. They are not unique, meaning a single viewer could be responsible for multiple views if they look at a tweet repeatedly, Insider previously reported.
The former X CEO also seems to get publicly pouty if celebrities don't do his bidding. Musk threw his support behind British comedian Russell Brand, who was recently accused of sexual assault by several women. Brand denied the accusations in a video he shared on X the day before the investigation into the accusations was published.
Brand later took to Rumble, another social media platform, urging his fans to follow him there and support him "directly." This seemed to annoy Musk.
"It is rather disappointing that he is exclusively pushing Rumble when X has supported free speech just as much," Musk lamented in the replies.
A request for comment made to X was met with an auto-reply that read: "Busy now, please check back later."