 Even though I'm an avid user of Twitter, I genuinely enjoy watching Elon Musk rum the entire platform into the ground, because he is destroying this notion that a meritocracy is a thing. It's not, it never has been a thing, and no, talent doesn't directly translate into success. He's proving that he's not a genius, in fact, he's a gigantic dumbass, and he's not just a dumbass, we're learning how petrolent he is. So we know already that he is distraught about the prospect of advertisers fleeing the platform thanks to him. But I didn't know how desperate he was, how low he was willing to go to get advertisers back, and when you hear about his strategy for trying to get advertisers to stay, it's shocking to me that this genius thinks this is actually going to be successful for him. Financial Times reports, Elon Musk's tumultuous reign at Twitter has led to a damaging rift with top brands and marketers, with the social media company's 5 billion a year advertising business hit by tensions over content moderation and resources. Multiple top advertising agencies and media buyers told The Financial Times that nearly all of the big brands they represent have paused spending on the social media platform, citing alarm at Elon Musk's ad hoc approach to policing content and decision to axe many of its ad sales team. Musk, meanwhile, has sought to personally call chief executives of some brands that have curbed advertising in order to berate them according to one senior industry figure, leading others to instead reduce their spend to the bare minimum required so as to avoid further confrontation with the billionaire entrepreneur. After several waves of job cuts and departures, Twitter's ads business team has shrunk so much that many agencies no longer have any point of contact at the company and have received little to no communication in recent weeks according to four industry insiders. That is so pathetic he's literally calling up CEOs and executives and he's berating them. I mean, imagine thinking that this was a good idea and even if it was a good idea, even if this would be a successful strategy for him, it's just embarrassing. It's pathetic, it's petulant, but it's very on brand for Elon Musk. Now, we've talked about this before on the show and I think it's pretty obvious, but the reason why brands don't want to be associated with Twitter is because of Elon Musk. He himself has tweeted conspiracy theories and fake news. He chums it up with far right extremists on the platform and also with the lack of content moderation, they just don't want their brands associated with the stink of Twitter. And to make matters even worse on November 23rd, Twitter quietly stopped enforcing policies related to COVID-19 misinformation, meaning that people can now just straight up lie about the pandemic and vaccines with no repercussions whatsoever. In other words, you can tweet out that the COVID-19 vaccines are murdering people and nothing is going to happen. You won't be suspended, you can get away with anything. He doesn't understand that Twitter, even though Twitter is not real life, it can have a real-world impact. And COVID-19 misinformation, misinformation with regard to any medical data or statistics, that can be catastrophic. But yet he's like, eh, it's okay, probably because he's a conspiracy theorist himself. Now, you might think, well, maybe this is a bit of a trade-off, right? Because even if he is allowing misinformation to potentially flourish or even thrive on the website, well, at least we get more free speech, except that's not true either. As the Intercept reports, left-wing voices are silenced on Twitter as far-right trolls advise Elon Musk. Elon Musk appears to have outsourced decisions about who to ban from Twitter to the platform's right-wing extremists. Now, this article goes on to explain how Elon Musk has suspended anti-fascist accounts like chatloader, an independent researcher whose documentation of the January 6 insurrection has led to the arrest of a proud boy. Vishal Pratap Singh, who reports on extremist organizations in Southern California, has also been suspended. The Elm Forg John Brown Gun Club, which is an anti-fascist organization that defends LGBTQ plus spaces from fascistic harassment and intimidation. They've been suspended along with CrimeThink, another anti-fascist collective. And I just want to emphasize here that it's not just that he's suspending more left-leaning journalists in anti-fascist accounts. It's that he's doing this at the direction of right-wingers. The Intercept explains several prominent anti-fascist organizers and journalists have had their accounts suspended in the past week after right-wing operatives appealed directly to Musk to ban them and far-right internet trolls flooded Twitter's complaint system with false reports about terms of service violations. All four accounts have been singled out for criticism by Andy Noe, a far-right writer whose conspiratorial, error-riddled reporting on left-wing protests and social movements feels the mass delusion that a handful of small anti-fascist groups are part of an imaginary shadow army called Antifa. In a public exchange on Twitter on Friday, Musk invited Noe to report Antifa accounts that should be suspended directly to him. As the Intercept reported last year, Noe had previously tried and failed to have Loader suspended from Twitter and also joined a botched attempt to have a court order the researcher to stop tweeting about one of the Proud Boys who took part in the Capitol riot. In other words, Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter has been a boon for fascism but not so much free speech. And yet, he has a surprised Pikachu face as advertisers are fleeing the sinking ship that is Twitter. You've effectively turned it into parlor, my dude. Why would any brand want to associate with that? I mean, it's honestly baffling to think that he lacks self-awareness so much that he's still confused about why brands are not buying advertisements on Twitter to the point where he's berating executives. It's so delusional. I mean, this man is a dumbass. And he has Andy Noe essentially being Randall from recess. Remember the snitch who would always tell on the other kids? He has Andy Noe snitching on leftist accounts so he can personally ban them. I mean, it's a right-wing cesspool and this is why brands aren't coming back and they won't come back probably until you just stop making the website a far-right hellhole. Why don't you ask the owners of Gab and Telegram and Parlor and TruthSocial even why they're having a difficult time attracting advertisers? It's so hard for them to stay afloat. It's because brands don't want to advertise on websites when there's this proliferation of hate speech and anti-Semitism and fascism in general. What brand would want to associate with that when they know that there'd be backlash? It's just, again, it's genuinely perplexing that he's confused about the way that this works. Again, I'm not a business person, right? He's supposed to be the business genius, but even I can see that a brand, obviously, isn't going to increase their profits by reaching out and advertising on platforms where it's just right-wing extremists. So, yeah, he kind of made his bed and he's lying in it and he's trying to cope, but it's difficult because, again, his number one concern is making money. So he's trying to play it off and make it seem like everything is cup-asetic and everything's going the way he wants it to go. Either way, it's really fun to watch and I hope that Twitter continues to sink because even if I use the website and I don't necessarily want it to go the way of the dodo, I've got to admit it's very entertaining to see the way he's burning the entire platform to the ground. Thank you.