Elon Musk’s social media platform X experienced a 58% revenue drop in its U.K. operations during 2024, according to newly filed financial disclosures with Companies House. This marks another difficult year for the company, formerly known as Twitter, as advertisers continue to withdraw amid concerns about the brand and its billionaire owner.
Since Musk acquired X in 2022 and took the company private, financial disclosures from X have been sparse. The 2024 U.K. financial documents provide the most recent glimpse into the social media company’s financial performance.
X’s U.K. division reported revenue of just $39.8 million for the year ending December 31, 2024, down from $95.2 million in 2023. This steep decline reflects the continuation of a severe advertiser exodus that began when Musk acquired the platform in October 2022. Revenue from U.K. operations had already plummeted 66% in 2023, falling from $282.9 million the previous year.
“The significant decline in the company’s performance stems from a reduction in advertising revenue, primarily driven by decreased spending from large brand advertisers due to concerns about brand safety, reputation, and/or content moderation,” the company stated in its strategic report filed with U.K. regulators.
Workplace and culture expert Bruce Daisley, who previously served as Twitter’s vice president for Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and as Twitter U.K.’s managing director, told that the U.K. market has historically acted as a reliable indicator of the platform’s global health, despite accounting for only roughly 5.3% of its total revenue. “It’s a mature economy, and it’s reflecting trends occurring worldwide,” Daisley explained, noting the developed network of e-commerce vendors and the U.K. economy’s diverse sectors.
The revelation of X U.K.’s challenges comes as Musk has adopted an unprecedentedly confrontational stance toward the very advertisers his platform relies on for survival. In November 2023, during a profanity-laced outburst at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk told advertisers fleeing the platform to “go f–k yourself,” specifically singling out CEO Bob Iger after the entertainment giant paused its advertising. Musk accused Iger of attempting to “blackmail” him with advertising funds.
That incident followed Musk’s amplification of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on X, which he reposted to his own account. Major brands including Disney, , , , and subsequently halted their advertising on the platform. Musk has since apologized for his online comment, calling the post the “worst and dumbest” thing he has shared on his account. (Representatives for X did not respond to a request for comment.)
Rather than seeking to reconcile, Musk doubled down, filing broad antitrust lawsuits against advertisers. In August 2024, X sued the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM)—an advertising industry initiative focused on brand safety—along with member companies including , , Mars, and , accusing them of illegally conspiring to boycott the platform and collectively withholding “billions of dollars in advertising revenue.” The lawsuit effectively shut down GARM, which ceased operations citing limited resources to contest the legal action. Unilever settled its suit with X (the terms were not disclosed).
Musk expanded the lawsuit in February 2025 to include additional major brands such as Nestlé, , , , and . “We tried peace for two years, now it is war,” Musk posted on X.
“I can’t recall an example in marketing history where a platform representative has threatened legal action against those who don’t spend money with them,” Daisley told , describing the approach as “astonishing.” He characterized Musk’s strategy as “mafia-like,” noting that marketers he has spoken with “want nothing to do with the brand, the product, or the audience.”
The advertising crisis represents a dramatic reversal for a platform that generated $4.5 billion in global ad revenue in 2022. That figure dropped to $2.2 billion in 2023—a 46% decline—and is estimated to have fallen further to around $2 billion in 2024. If X had maintained pre-acquisition growth trends relative to the broader social media market, its ad revenue could be more than double current levels, according to WARC Media .
In contrast, thrived during the 2024 financial year, with Instagram’s ad revenue growing 24.9%, up 13.8%, and increasing 18.1%.
Daisley attributes the ongoing decline not only to brand safety concerns—where advertisers fear their ads appearing alongside neo-Nazi content or AI-generated pornography—but to Musk’s broader actions. “He’s funded far-right political parties across Europe. He’s been accused of election interference by the president of France,” Daisley noted, adding that Musk “insults the leaders of other Western European allies daily.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer have both criticized Musk’s support for far-right movements and interference in European politics.
Despite the grim trend, Daisley believes the platform isn’t “beyond redemption” if leadership changes course. “It remains a highly influential platform. It hasn’t yet been fully replaced,” he said. However, he sees little sign of reform: “It’s difficult to envision a revenue recovery without change.”