Twitter’s ad business suffers another blow, this time with Microsoft announcing that it will be removing the app from its Digital Marketing Center management element, starting next week. Whatever could be Microsoft’s motive for warranting such a decision? Did Chief Twit Elon Musk say something to upset the bigwigs at Windows HQ?
No Birds
First reported by Mashable, Microsoft is removing Twitter as an option from its digital management platform, which provides a cohesive way for businesses to manage their Social Media presence.
Microsoft’s Digital Marketing Center provides access to various Tweet management capabilities, including post scheduling, as well as ad management. Within Microsoft’s integrated business platform. However, Twitter will soon be dropped, which could see many Microsoft Business Suite users reduce their Twitter Ad Spend.
Musk, who was an early investor in Open AI, which also created ChatGPT, has repeatedly expressed his annoyance that his $100,000 ‘donation’ to the company has been used to turn it into a $29 billion business. With Microsoft taking a large stake in OpenAI and integrating ChatGPT into many of its tools, it, too, now stands to benefit, with Musk eager to get his ‘fair’ share of the cake.
In response, Musk is supposedly looking to restrict OpenAI’s access to Twitter data, which has been used to fuel its generative AI models, while also increasing how much its costs for companies to access the same. That’s what Musk seems to be implying here, that Microsoft, as a beneficiary to OpenAI’s expansion, profits from Twitter data, which he’ll be looking to claw back. However, as noted, that could also impact Twitter’s ad business. Last month, Musk noted the app’s ad revenue has declined by more than 50% since taking over, due to concerns around the app’s various policy changes, as well as tougher economic times.
The Wrap
And despite the many cost-cutting efforts and money-making schemes Musk has laid down for Twitter, it still remains reliant on ad dollars to survive. Any further impact could be major at this point. Still, and what’s even more concerning is that a lot of Musk’s decisions seem to be driven by personal grievance, even going as far as to say that the $44 billion he paid to acquire the app will not factor into his thinking.
All in all, it seems like another factor that could impact Twitter’s bottom line. If Musk could somehow get back some of the revenue from AI developers, via increased API costs and possible litigation, then that’ll at least make the risk worth it. This marks just another addition to Twitter’s growing uneasy relationships with ad partners, which is crud for Twitter, but perhaps not so for the partners.
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