We just got our first real look at how small X's ad business is
Advertisers seem to be spending a whole lot less than they used to on the platform.
SpaceX just reported its first quarter of earnings as a public company and it shed new light on the state of X's advertising business, which, spoiler, has shrunk dramatically since Elon Musk's takeover in 2022.
The company brought in $367 million in advertising revenue between April and June of this year, the company reported. That's up a bit from the $343 million the previous quarter but down from the $426 million in revenue during the same period last year. The numbers highlight just how much the company's ad business has changed since Elon Musk took over in 2022. During the second quarter of 2022, the last time Twitter reported financial results as a public company, it had $1.08 billion in revenue from advertising.
During a call with analysts on Tuesday, SpaceX's CFO Bret Johnsen attributed the company's quarterly growth in ad revenue to an "overhauled" ad tech platform. It was the only time the ad business was mentioned during the hour-long call.
Of course, X's business has changed dramatically since Musk's takeover. The company now aggressively pushes premium subscriptions, including a Premium+ tier that eliminates ads on the platform. (SpaceX didn't report revenue from X subscriptions or how many daily active users it has.) Musk also cut thousands of employees early in his tenure and sued advertisers who pulled pack from the platform. He once went on an expletive-laden tirade and told ad buyers to stay away when publicly asked about their concerns.
More recently, X has claimed that many of its largest advertisers have returned. In January, the company's ads boss told Digiday that "97 of the top 100 advertisers have returned, and in some cases spending even more than they did before Musk's arrival." Even if that is true, advertising is now a very small piece of SpaceX's sprawling business. The company made $2.2 billion in revenue from its AI division (primarily from its deal with Anthropic), $4.3 billion from Starlink and $962 million from its "space" division.