It seems Musk’s ratings are low outside the chattering circles of media and creative professionals, as four in ten (42%) people who use social media platform X daily have a negative view of it, according to fresh YouGov findings which explore public perception of the platform.
The research, which comes just as Elon Musk has threatened to sue boycotting advertisers, highlights that concern about the platform extends far beyond adland.
They mark the worst satisfaction ratings for the platform since Elon Musk first declared his interest in taking over in 2022.
Only half (51%) of daily X users say they have a favourable view of the social media platform, which drops to just 38% when including all who ever use the service.
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Notably, almost four times as many Britons as Musk (64%) have a negative view of him as do a positive one (17%).
However, despite much conversation over Musk’s statements during recent riots, the results were largely the same during the height of the riots (7 and 8 August) as they were a year previously (July 2023).
Moreover, just 12% of the wider public believe X gets the balance between freedom and moderation just about right, whilst 5% think X it is too draconian in its moderation of content.
Amongst users, just 20% think that moderation and freedom are fairly balanced, while only 6% feel that X is too strict.
Emphasising just how unpopular Musk’s takeover and rebrand to X has been with the public, seven in ten (70%) Britons still say they generally refer to the platform as Twitter whilst another 12 to 14% say they use both names at the same time when writing it.
Musk and X: Timeline of a turbulent affair
- February 2023: A few months after buying the platform, then Twitter, in October 2022, Musk was already under scrutiny for featuring too many irrelevant and annoying advertisements. He apologised.
Sorry for showing you so many irrelevant & annoying ads on Twitter!
We’re taking the (obvious) corrective action of tying ads to keywords & topics in tweets, like Google does with search.
This will improve contextual relevance dramatically.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023
- November 2023:
- After a loss in advertising revenue X CEO Linda Yaccarino travelled to London to woo top advertising dogs.
- A swathe of brands including IBM, Disney, Apple, and even the British government, pulled advertising from the platform after Musk was embroiled in an antisemitism scandal.
- Musk told advertisers to “go f*ck themselves” over their decision to pull out.
- June 2024: Musk spoke at Cannes Lions, taking to the stage with WPP’s Mark Read, and told advertisers that his previous remark was about freedom of speech over being “censored for money”.
- August 2024:
- Musk is forced to shut San Francisco headquarters due to “processing payments”, and shares plans to relocate both X and Space X to Texas.
- X takes legal action over advertisers boycotting the platform calling the behaviour, with CEO Linda Yaccarino sharing an open letter calling the behaviour a “stain on a great industry”.