London (CNN) — A record number of firms plan to cut advertising spend on X next year because of concerns that extreme content on the platform could damage their brands, dealing another blow to the financial fortunes of Elon Musk’s social media company.
A global survey by market research firm Kantar found that a net 26% of marketers plan to decrease their spend on X in 2025, the biggest recorded pullback from any major global ad platform. Only 4% of marketers overall think X ads provide “brand safety” — certainty that their ads won’t appear alongside extreme content — compared with 39% for Google ads, Kantar said in a report Thursday. CNN has contacted X for comment.
“Advertisers have been moving their marketing spend away from X for several years,” Gonca Bubani, Kantar’s global thought leadership director for media said in a statement, adding that “a turnaround currently seems unlikely.”
“X has changed so much in recent years and can be …