GM briefly suspends promoting on Twitter following Musk takeover

DETROIT — Common Motors is suspending its promoting on Twitter following Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform, the corporate informed CNBC on Friday.

The Detroit automaker, a rival to Musk’s Tesla, stated it’s “pausing” promoting because it evaluates Twitter’s new course. It should proceed to make use of the platform to work together with prospects however not pay for promoting, GM added.

“We’re participating with Twitter to know the course of the platform beneath their new possession. As is regular course of enterprise with a major change in a media platform, we have now briefly paused our paid promoting. Our buyer care interactions on Twitter will proceed,” the corporate stated in an emailed assertion.

Beneath CEO Mary Barra, the Detroit firm was among the many first automakers to announce billions of {dollars} in spending to raised compete towards Tesla relating to electrical autos.

Different auto firms, together with Ford Motor, Stellantis and Alphabet-owned Waymo, didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon whether or not they plan to droop promoting or discontinue utilizing the social media platform in wake of Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter. Electrical truck maker Nikola stated it had no plans to alter something relating to the platform.

The long run course of Twitter has been central to the takeover story. Musk has stated he’s a “free speech absolutist,” who would restore the account of former President Donald Trump, who was banned over his tweets through the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol revolt. Musk stated on Friday that he plans a “content material moderation council” and won’t reinstate any accounts or make main content material selections earlier than it’s convened.

Musk additionally stated in a press release to advertisers this week that he can not let Twitter turn into a “free-for-all hellscape.”

Henrik Fisker, CEO of EV startup Fisker Inc., deleted his Twitter account earlier this yr when Twitter’s board accepted Musk’s bid to purchase the corporate and take it personal. Fisker Inc. continues to make use of Twitter, which each and every main automotive model makes use of for buyer engagement and advertising.

Musk has lengthy boasted that Tesla doesn’t pay for conventional promoting, a value that has added up for standard automakers’ manufacturers by means of the years.

As an alternative, Tesla rewards individuals who run, or are members of, Tesla homeowners’ golf equipment in addition to different social media influencers who promote the corporate’s merchandise, inventory and Musk on social networks, particularly Twitter and YouTube in addition to on fan blogs.

They’re typically granted early entry to Tesla merchandise, like the corporate’s Full Self Driving Beta software program, and given passes to firm occasions the place attendance is proscribed.

In September 2020, Tesla weighed a stockholder proposal to start strategic, paid promoting to coach the general public about its autos and charging community. The Tesla board beneficial towards it, and shareholders voted with the board towards beginning to pay for conventional advert campaigns. 

Within the firm’s annual report for 2021, Tesla wrote: “Traditionally, we have now been in a position to generate important media protection of our firm and our merchandise, and we consider we’ll proceed to take action. Such media protection and phrase of mouth are the present major drivers of our gross sales leads and have helped us obtain gross sales with out conventional promoting and at comparatively low advertising prices.”

It reported advertising, promotional and promoting prices that have been immaterial for the years ended Dec. 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019 in monetary filings with the Securities and Alternate Fee.

— CNBC’s John Rosevear contributed to this report.