X's Bargain Basement Advertising

A tracker published by marketing agency Gupta Media reveals the extent to which the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has been struggling to generate advertising revenue since it was officially acquired by entrepreneur Elon Musk in October 2022. Specifically, the release reports on the development of the cost per thousand impressions (CPM), an indicator used to compare the value of advertising space.

As the study's authors describe, when a platform's CPM falls, as was the case for Facebook during the Covid pandemic in 2020, its advertising revenues also tend to fall. Conversely, when CPM rises, as is usually the case during Black Friday and Cyber Monday for example, advertising sales tend to follow the same curve.

As this infographic shows, Twitter/X's CPM plummeted by over 75 percent when the social network came into Musk's hands, falling to $0.51 in October 2023 (from $5.77 in September 2022), its lowest level in three years. At the time of the company's Q2 results in July 2023, Musk had admitted to "a drop of around 50 percent in advertising revenues" since the platform's takeover. Since then, X had a stronger 2024, culminating in a CPM of more than $7.00 in the U.S. presidential election month of November. However, presumed ad revenues started to plummet again in 2025, reaching a low of just $0.54 in CPM again this August and standing at $0.86 most recently.

Over the covered period, Twitter/X saw by far the biggest annual drop in CPM of all the platforms studied. Under the leadership of the polarizing billionaire, X has seen a significant reduction in moderation teams coupled with an upsurge in misinformation and hateful conduct on the platform. Advertisers have as such become increasingly concerned and many have halted their advertising activity there.