‘I’m a fan of advertising’: Musk

Elon Musk, chief technical officer at X, appeared on stage at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to declare himself a fan of advertising as he sought to build bridges following last November’s sweary outburst against advertisers. 

He was being interviewed by WPP boss Mark Read, whose first question tackled Musk’s “Go fuck yourself” comment. That wasn’t aimed at advertising as a whole, Musk responded, as he reiterated his freedom of speech argument and his refusal to “agree to be censored [by advertisers] for money”.

Musk on advertising 

• “Advertisers have a right to appear next to content that they find compatible with their brand. What is not cool is insisting that there can be no content that they disagree with on the platform.”
• “I’m actually a fan of advertising that is artistically interesting, that is entertaining,” he said. The “acid test” is whether, having seen an ad, “Do you regret seeing the ad? Do you want those seconds back from your life? Or do you think that was actually a really interesting ad?”
• “The usefulness of advertising varies dramatically. If you’re shown an ad for a product or service that you want, when you want it, that is content. If you’re shown an ad for a product that you would never buy, that is spam.”
• On X, “we’ve dramatically improved the ad matching to the person,” he reported, as he outlined an AI-based system that correlates the “vector spaces” of both ads and content posts. 
• Brand safety issues should no longer be an issue, he suggested: “every third-party reviewer has given us an A+ on brand safety.”

Musk on audiences

• X is the best platform to reach senior decision makers, he argued: users include “people [who] actually run companies, run countries, and are the intellectuals of the world … They’re not watching TV, they’re not doing TikTok videos.” 

Musk on AI 

• “I think you'll see quite radical changes, even next year, and very, very radical changes within five years.”
• “There’s going to be a significant disruption in internet search, because you’re really just looking for an answer. So if the AI can provide you with a better answer than a bunch of links, then you’ll prefer that over Google or Bing.” 
• “The most likely [long-term] outcome [of AI] is one of abundance, where goods and services are available to anyone… Work will be optional.” 

BEC