Tag Archives: Elon Musk

Who’s Coughing Up the Cash for Full-Page Ads Touting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and flipping through the Boston Globe, when I came across this full-page ad on A3.

What the hell, Doc – this guy’s calling card is his anti-vaccine jihad, but no mention of it in this costly  five-figure advertisement? Is the Super PAC just trying to inoculate him?

– Vax Vexed

Dear VV:

First of all, you gotta admire any full-page ad in a major metropolitan newspaper that starts off with a quote about being silenced.

Beyond that, now that we know who the bad guys are, let’s take a look at the purported good guys, starting with the outfit that paid for the ad, American Values 2024. Its website fails to list any of the Super PAC’s good guy funders, but it does showcase Our Team.

The website also spotlights the bad guys at ABC News.

ABC News makes a point of letting viewers know they censored RFKJ

ABC News made a bizarre announcement that they censored RFKJ’s statements about COVID, vaccines and autism following an interview with him on Thursday, 4/27 that included a discussion of the ongoing censorship of him by the corporate media.

“We should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines,” ABC interviewer Linsey Davis said following the interview. “We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview.” Davis added.

At this point we will just quote Kennedy, “Show me where I am wrong.”

The group helpfully provides video of the offending segment.

Finally, there’s this boilerplate about the Super PAC.

(John Gilmore’s website provides exactly zero additional information.)

The American Values 2024 Twitter feed  (70 tweets, 301 followers) isn’t much help either.

But elsewhere on Twitter, the Super PAC has gotten a modicum of attention.

About a week ago, Slate’s Jim Newell took a look at those polling numbers.

Kennedy officially launched his Democratic primary bid on April 19, after a month or two of making noise about it. In an April 9 Morning Consult poll, 10 percent of those surveyed said they would support Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination. The day of Kennedy’s launch, a USA Today/Suffolk poll had Kennedy at 14 percent. The Fox News poll released April 26, referenced by CNN, showed Kennedy at 19 percent. Kennedy was at 21 percent in an April 27 Emerson College poll . . .

It’s not just Kennedy who has a little bit of traction, though. Marianne Williamson, in her second consecutive Democratic primary, is registering in polls as well. In the Fox News survey, Williamson was polling at 9 percent. She was at 8 percent in the Emerson poll.

The main reason these two eccentrics have a surprising primary polling foothold against an incumbent president, then, is because they are the only two warm bodies giving it a go against a president who a supermajority of Americans believe should not run for president again.

One final note: The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last asks, Why Is This Man Running as a Democrat?

If you haven’t read Mona [Charen’s] fantastic piece about RFK Jr., go do that right now.

For me, the most interesting question is: Why is this guy running as a Democrat?

As Mona demonstrates, RFK Jr.’s biggest fans seem to come from conservative world. He’s a Fox News / InfoWars kind of candidate . . .

And RFK Jr. is much closer to Alex Jones and Trump and even DeSantis than he is to Bernie Sanders or any other Democratic figure . . .

[It] seems possible that if DeSantis hollows out, the opening isn’t for Nikki Haley, or Tim Scott, or Brian Kemp—it’s for someone like RFK Jr., or Elon Musk, or Alex Jones to take from Trump by making him look like part of the establishment.

The Doc’s diagnosis? Forget Covid boosters – get yourself a Dramamine drip and settle in for the long run.

P.S. Still no idea who’s bankrolling American Values 2024, but it’s bound to come out sooner rather than later.

How Many Lost Advertisers Does It Take To Screw Twitter?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Joe Mandese’s MediaPost column, when I came  across this item about Twitter, consumer brands, and public opinion.

While its new owner Elon Musk has blamed pressure groups — as well as advertisers themselves — for discontinuing advertising on Twitter, half of American consumers believe it was the right thing to do since he acquired the company and began making it an even more toxic place for brand marketers and consumers alike.

According to a survey of 500 U.S. adults fielded by Pollfish  on Tuesday, 49% agree with the decisions of big brands to halt their Twitter ad spending, while 27% said they do not agree with their decision and 24% said they’re not sure.

Seeing as how Twitter has normally gotten about 90% of its revenue from ad sales, that’s gotta leave a mark, eh Doc?

– Tweet Dreams

Dear TD,

Yeah, that survey just adds insult to (financial) injury.

Start with Musk’s whining about activist groups pressuring advertisers to ghost Twitter. As CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Jonathan Vanian have reported, Musk claims that a coalition of activist groups “broke an agreement with him by encouraging companies to halt advertising on Twitter.”

Here’s the dispute in a nutshell, compliments of Patrick W. Watson.

As the CNBC piece noted, those activist groups actively disagree.

Derrick Johnson, CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in response to Musk’s claims on Tuesday that the civil rights groups “would never make such a deal” and that “Democracy always comes first.”

“The decisions being made at Twitter are dangerous, and it is our duty, as it has been since our founding, to speak out against threats to our democracy,” Johnson said. “Hate speech and violent conspiracies can have no safe harbor.”

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Free Press, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center all say ditto.

So there’s that.

And then there’s this, according to NPR’s Halisia Hubbard.

Twitter has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Elon Musk took over, report says

Half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers appear to no longer be advertising on the website. A report from Media Matters for America states that these 50 advertisers have spent almost $2 billion on Twitter ads since 2020 and more than $750 million just in 2022.

Seven additional advertisers have slowed their advertising to almost nothing, according to the report, which was published on Tuesday. These companies have paid Twitter more than $255 million since 2020.

And perhaps the unkindest cut of all for our very own Muskie Muskrat is this Joe Mandese post at Red, White, and Blog.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei: Musk Won’t Own Twitter Much Longer

If the voice of the people really is the voice of God — as Elon Musk keeps tweeting — then he won’t own Twitter much longer.

According to a survey conducted by Pollfish for MediaPost on Tuesday, most American adults do not believe Musk will even own Twitter more than a year.

While a third believe he will own the social media platform a year or more, most consumers believe it will only be “a few months” or “until something else catches his fancy.”

So, will Musk and Twitter crash and burn?

Maybe even prob-a-bool.

Is Elon Musk a Twit Who’ll Drive Tesla’s Stock Into a Ditch?

by doctorads

Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and tooling around the interwebs, when I came across this Reuters piece by Lauren Silva Laughlin and Gina Chon.

Elon Musk probably won’t buy Twitter

NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Four years ago, Elon Musk vowed to set up a peanut brittle company to take on Warren Buffett’s iconic U.S. confectioner See’s Candies. Then he changed his mind. It wouldn’t be surprising if Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy social network Twitter went the same way.

Sure, the Tesla boss was clearly serious about acquiring Twitter as of recently. The financing from Morgan Stanley is shored up. The agreement includes a fee of $1 billion that he – or Twitter – would have to pay if they renege on the contract. And Twitter’s lawyers even wedged in a so-called “specific performance” clause, which could theoretically force Musk to buy the company if he threatens to back out, though in practice this could probably be settled by adding to the break fee.

There are good reasons for him to get cold feet . . .

What do you think, Doc – could Elon have actually musked this up?

– ElonGate

Dear ElonGate,

Let’s check in with Felix Salmon at Axios Capital, who ties Musk’s Twitter bid to his Tesla stock.

Tesla’s stock could fall much further

The recent decline in Tesla stock, possibly caused by worries about Musk’s successful bid for Twitter, has raised concerns that he barely has the liquidity to raise the $21 billion he needs to provide in cash to pay for his new platform.

By the numbers: If you exclude stock that Musk has pledged to secure loans, the value of his freely-sellable Tesla shares is only about $11 billion. In order to find the extra $10 billion, he might have to exercise some of his stock options. That’s expensive, since he’d need to pay income tax, rather than lower long-term capital gains tax, on such sales.

  • What goes down can go down much further: Tesla stock is about 33% below its all-time high. Yet Facebook has performed much worse than that, while rival electric carmaker Rivian is down more than 80%.

A continued decline in Tesla shares could cause margin calls and a lot of forced selling by Musk, which in turn would tend to drive the stock lower still.

The Doc’s diagnosis: Elon definitely might musk everything up.

Your tweet goes here.