- IBM said it would stop buying ads on X after they were reportedly placed alongside pro-Nazi posts.
- It's a blow to X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who's trying to increase ad revenue for the platform.
Elon Musk is facing yet another showdown with advertisers, with IBM pulling all ads from X after a report found they were being placed alongside antisemitic content.
IBM said it would suspend all advertising on X immediately after a report from nonprofit Media Matters found that ads for the technology company were running alongside posts glorifying the Nazi regime and denying the Holocaust.
"IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation," IBM said in a statement to Business Insider.
IBM had committed to spend $1 million on advertising on X for the last three months of the year, The New York Times reported.
The Media Matters report included screenshots showing ads for IBM, Apple, Oracle, and Bravo appearing alongside pro-Nazi content.
IBM's move is a blow for X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who's been attempting to revive flagging ad sales and previously promised brands would be "protected from the risk of being next to" toxic posts.
An executive for X told the Financial Times that while the placement of the IBM ad was not "ideal," the post in question only had "about 8,000 impressions."
X told BI the accounts cited in the Media Matters report will be demonetised and the posts given a "sensitive media" label.
They rejected the report's findings and said that brand safety on the platform had improved since Elon Musk's takeover.
Yaccarino did not directly address IBM's move, but posted on X that the platform has "always been very clear that discrimination by everyone should STOP across the board."
"When it comes to this platform — X has also been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination," she said.
Yaccarino's efforts to firefight the growing PR storm and reassure nervous advertisers are being complicated by her boss. Musk has also not addressed IBM's move, but described Media Matters as "an evil organization" in a reply on X.
The Tesla CEO is facing severe backlash after he agreed with an antisemitic post on X. Musk called the post, which referenced the white supremacist "great replacement" theory, "the actual truth."