GM Throws Temper Tantrum, Temporarily Pulls Ads from Twitter as Punishment for Musk Supporting Free Speech

With Elon Musk taking over Twitter, General Motors announced Friday, it is suspending advertising on Twitter.

In an emailed statement to CNBC, General Motors stated, “We are engaging with Twitter to understand the direction of the platform under their new ownership. As is normal course of business with a significant change in a media platform, we have temporarily paused our paid advertising. Our customer care interactions on Twitter will continue.”

General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced last year, that they would be spending billions to better compete against Tesla. Elon Must is also the CEO of Tesla and this seems it could be one of the possible reasons for GM pausing its advertising on Twitter.

So far they appear to be the only Tesla competing motor company that has publicly announced they were suspending their advertising on Twitter.

Musk took over Twitter as he wanted to be a free-speech town square, a free exchange of ideas.

Musk recently tweeted:

“Comedy is now legal on Twitter”.

Comedy is now legal on Twitter

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

The censorship on Twitter was seemingly one-sided and appeared to target those on the right side of politics. The platform has lacked real control of content overall and has seemed specifically targeted.

This directional change in the way that Twitter will be monitored and censored may also be a leading factor in why GM has decided to stall advertising. Once it becomes more clear as to how Musk will operate Twitter, GM advertisements may be gone for good from Twitter or could possibly return. We will have to wait and see what happens next.