X

X, formerly known as Twitter, has lost over 71% of its value since April 2022, when Elon Musk bought the microblogging app, according to mutual fund Fidelity, a shareholder in X Holdings. Fidelity — which contributed over $300 million to Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover — originally marked down the company’s valuation in October, which decreased the value of its investment by nearly 65% over the first 11 months of Musk’s ownership.

News headlines are back on X, formerly known as Twitter, nearly three months after the platform cut them, forcing users and news outlets alike to manually write them on articles shared to X — although the return of the feature comes with smaller, slimmed down headlines for reposted articles.

X argued that the law improperly compels speech in violation of the First Amendment and is meant to pressure social media companies to remove content the government deems objectionable.

Here’s a look back at some of the biggest stories in social media in 2023 — and what to watch for next year. Pictured: Characters removed from a sign on the Twitter headquarters building are piled on a street in San Francisco on July 24, 2023. (Godofredo A. Vásque/AP)

A federal judge on Friday gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit against the social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, in which workers claim that the company promised but never paid millions of dollars in bonuses. (Noah Berger/AP)

The inquiry is perhaps the most substantial regulatory consequence to date of X, which has seen a rise in incendiary content on the platform, according to researchers.

The streamer had joined a group of big brands to suspend ads on the platform after the billionaire agreed with an antisemitic post.

Big U.S. companies including Walt Disney and Comcast increased advertising spending on Instagram after pausing commercials on X last month, according to Sensor Tower, as marketers flee the Elon Musk-owned social media platform over antisemitic content. Disney (DIS.N) and Comcast (CMCSA.O) lifted their U.S. spending on the app owned by Meta (META.O) by 40% and about 6% respectively in the two weeks from Nov. 20, Sensor Tower data showed. Paramount (PARA.O), meanwhile, tripled its spending on Snapchat.

Democratic candidates, including Elon Musk’s most vocal critics, have spent over a million dollars to run thousands of political ads on X.

On Monday, a federal judge advanced a lawsuit from investors who say they suffered losses when they sold their shares in Twitter, now known as X, because of posts from Musk claiming the platform has a major issue with fake accounts and that he could wiggle out of the deal because of it. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found that several of Musk’s statements were false or misleading, in part, because he waived due diligence.

Elon Musk has restored the X account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, pointing to a poll on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that came out in favor of the Infowars host who repeatedly called the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting a hoax.

X Corp. owner Elon Musk on Thursday told the Supreme Court that a restriction on his ability to tweet about Tesla violates the First Amendment. The restriction, which he agreed to as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, prohibits Musk from tweeting about his car company without first obtaining approval from its lawyers. Such a restriction “is a quintessential prior restraint that the law forbids,” his lawyers say in a petition urging the Supreme Court to review the restriction.

The social media platform has had preliminary talks with Amazon to sell ads through the e-commerce giant’s ad-buying software.

X boss Elon Musk called on Disney to “immediately” fire CEO Bob Iger on Thursday for allowing Mouse House ads to run on rival social media platforms that allegedly allowed child predators to target underage users. Musk’s escalated his feud with Iger — whom he told to “go f–k yourself” last week after Disney pulled its advertising from X — following a disputed report that its ads were running next to antisemitic content on the site formerly known as Twitter.

Walmart said on Friday it is not advertising on social media platform X, one of the latest brands to say it has dropped the Elon Musk-owned site. “We aren’t advertising on X as we’ve found other platforms to better reach our customers,” a Walmart spokesperson said.

Advertisers said on Thursday that they did not plan to reopen their wallets anytime soon with X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, after its owner, Elon Musk, insulted brands using an expletive and told them not to spend on the platform.

X, formerly known as Twitter, is in a pair of legal battles with Adeia, an entity spun out of Xperi that holds a trove of patents, including property with ties to TiVo.

Elon Musk’s “Go f–k yourselves” statement to advertisers leaving X was defended by the social media platform’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, who said that the owner “offered an apology, an explanation and an explicit point of view about our position.”

The former NBCUniversal ad sales chief thought she could manage the mercurial Elon Musk. Her former colleagues are baffled at the result: “She let her ego get the best of her.” (John Staley photo)

The decision follows owner Elon Musk’s bizarre embrace of the utterly debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory on Tuesday.

Internal documents show companies like Airbnb, Coca-Cola and Microsoft have halted ads, or may do so, after Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Of nearly 261 companies that spent over $1 million on advertising on X/Twitter from January 2022 to October 2023, 86% of them have reduced ad spending on the platform, according to estimates from MediaRadar. Brand-safety concerns remain a major problem, according to the advertising research firm. Top 10 advertisers — including AT&T, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Capital One, Nike, and Bank of America — have reduced spending by 70% to 97%, according to the report.

X filed a lawsuit against the liberal advocacy group on Monday, saying it manufactured a report to show advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi and white nationalist posts in order to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.”

Social media outlet X won’t mark the spot for Madison Avenue until its two top executives align around a single approach.

Sony Pictures has pulled the plug for now on any advertising on X/Twitter. In what is a rising tide, Sony is the latest Hollywood and tech company to leave the platform over X owner Elon Musk‘s retweet of a distinctly anti-semitic post about 48 hours ago. Musk’s promises Friday of new protections on X against hate speech has drawn some very rare praise from usual foil the Anti-Defamation League, but the moves seem to have done little to nothing to stop the growing corporate boycott.

Lionsgate Entertainment has suspended advertising on Elon Musk-owned X, a spokesperson for the company said on Friday. Apple is also pausing all advertising on X, Axios reported, after Musk backed an antisemitic post on the social media platform earlier this week.

IBM, a major advertiser on X, has pulled its spending from the social media platform, whose employees are grappling with what to tell its other advertisers, according to internal messages. X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, and others at the company scrambled on Thursday to contain the fallout.

Now rebranded as X, the site has experienced a surge in racist, antisemitic and other hateful speech. Under Musk’s watch, millions of people have been exposed to misinformation about climate change. Foreign governments and operatives — from Russia to China to Hamas — have spread divisive propaganda with little or no interference.

The unexplained decision removes the only symbol distinguishing the news organization from impostors and comes amid a flood of false information related to the Israel-Gaza war, some of which Musk has personally endorsed.

The company said late Tuesday that it has started trying out the annual subscription method for new and unverified accounts. The program, dubbed Not a Bot, won’t apply to existing users. It’s not clear why it only applies to New Zealand and the Philippines or why those countries were chosen.

Musk’s volatile leadership of the social-media platform has pushed down its prices — which might give it an edge.

On Monday night the safety team for X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, detailed what they say are recent actions taken to limit hateful and violent posts and combat misinformation following the Hamas attacks on Israel over the weekend. Among other things, the safety team said in a statement that it has removed “hundreds” of Hamas-affiliated accounts that were created after the attacks, and has “actioned tens of thousands of posts for sharing graphic media, violent speech, and hateful conduct.” (Adel Hana/AP)