Disney, Apple pull advertising on X over Musk comments

Nov. 18 (UPI) -- Apple and the Walt Disney Company became the latest major corporations to suspend advertising on social media platform X, when both cut ties late Friday.

The news came in response to comments made earlier in the week by X owner Elon Musk on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Some view the remarks Musk made as antisemitic.

The European Union, IBM and Lions Gate Entertainment all confirmed Friday they were immediately suspending advertising on the site.

The X account belonging to Apple had been wiped clean of all posts as of 12 p.m. EST Saturday, despite retaining 9.6 million followers. The California-based tech company had not issued an official statement on the situation as of Saturday afternoon.

A report published Thursday by the web-based non-profit organization Media Matters found advertisements on X from major brands were being placed next to posts promoting the ideology of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

"We have seen an alarming increase in disinformation and hate speech on several social media platforms in recent weeks, and X is certainly quite effective on that," European Commission spokesperson Johannes Bahrke told reporters Friday.

Musk stood by his actions in a post late Friday.

"The split-second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company," the billionaire wrote in the post.

Musk on Wednesday seemed to endorse an anti-Semitic post on X, leading over 160 Jewish leaders to appeal to Disney, Apple, Amazon, and other major advertisers, to stop funding X through their ad spending.

The White House later criticized Musk's online interaction, calling it "unacceptable."

Meanwhile, Palestinians and their allies are boycotting many of those same companies for being pro-Israel amid the war.

The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions movement is calling people to put "pressure" on Disney, Amazon, and Google while boycotting and divesting from more than a dozen other major companies.