Elon Musk tells Twitter users to 'press the heart' in an apparent bid to boost ad engagement

• Elon Musk is asking Twitter users to "like" adverts to help boost engagement on the platform.
• "Press the heart," he tweeted on Friday in a comment about an ad for Hyundai.

Elon Musk appears to be counting on help from his 128 million followers to increase engagement of ads on Twitter.

The "Chief Twit" is calling on Twitter users to comment and like some ads on the platform, in an apparent attempt to boost interaction.

Musk commented on a Hyundai advert featuring actor Kevin Bacon. On Friday he tweeted: "Press the heart." The ad only attracted about 2,000 likes and some 123,000 views.

"Try out the Doritos pyramid scheme," Musk also said in a comment responding to a prompt in a Doritos ad, along with a smiley face symbol. The ad has had more than 8.5 million views but only about 6,000 likes.

It comes as CNN reported that about half of Twitter's top 1,000 advertisers in September were no longer spending on the platform in the first weeks of this year, citing data from digital marketing analysis firm Pathmatics.

Musk reportedly met with Twitter engineers this week to discuss his declining view count on tweets, Platformer reported.

"This is ridiculous," Musk told staff, according to Platformer, which cited multiple sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. "I have more than 100 million followers, and I'm only getting tens of thousands of impressions."

He also fired a top engineer at Twitter who said his popularity on the site was waning. The worker suggested it was as a result of a lack of public interest since he bought Twitter, per Platformer.

Twitter didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside normal working hours.