Apple Resumes Advertising on X

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/02/12/apple-advertising-x

by brcmthrowaway • 1 year ago

133 85 1 year ago

daringfireball.net

gnabgib3• 1 year ago

Discussion (72 points, 1 day ago, 36 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43031493

(41 points, 23 hours ago, 48 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43032112

ksec• 1 year ago

Thank You. At least some on HN knows

quyleanh4• 1 year ago

These two discussions are flagged, lol. I bet this one will be flagged too. Is there a group of people who don’t want this news to spread?

Eric_WVGG• 1 year ago

for real. I'd like some answers.

gnabgib3• 1 year ago

Yes it's curious, that - it's an interesting story (although the comments aren't always thoughtful and substantive). Perhaps an email to mods is in order?

dinp• 1 year ago

I think political news are not encouraged here, exceptions for when interesting discussions are possible.

Judging by the quality of comments here and in the linked submissions, it's a good thing.

ChrisArchitect• 1 year ago

It's also a dupe. Doesn't matter if they were eventually flagged, there was already a bunch of views, upvotes, and discussion. Flagging after awhile is annoying, but also discussion devolves. It's not nothing tho. All is not lost. Stuff moves fast around here. And discussion continues there also as ppl follow the links.

dang• 1 year ago

Thanks. These discussions are so unbelievably bad* that the user flags must be correct.

* By "bad" I mean bad for HN: low-substance, flamey, high-indignation, high-snark. Not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

juujian• 1 year ago

Easiest way to pay off Musk and his DOGE.

bamboozled5• 1 year ago

Free speech, pro choice, all the time.

pokstad• 1 year ago

Musk clearly learned his lesson. Since then, he’s been lying low, out of the public eye, and refraining from any sort of controversial statements or actions. He barely even tweets anymore.

Is this satire? I honestly can’t tell.

readthenotes1• 1 year ago

Satire. They forgot the satire font, aor even /s

troll_v_bridge• 1 year ago

Satire. He rarely criticizes apple directly, but I think he’s mindful that it’s required for Apple in the current politics to not become a target.

jlaternman• 1 year ago

I honestly can’t understand how you think this might not be satire. Musk has been lying low, out of the public eye, avoiding controversy? Barely tweeting?

relaxing• 1 year ago

If you can’t tell that is satire then you owe it to yourself to keep better informed about current events.

inatreecrown2• 1 year ago

It's interesting to see Gruber repeatedly mocking Apple's CEO. I also find it curious that so many in the tech blog / news sphere can't stop denouncing everything to do with the new administration. To me it seems like a sort of signaling "I will not bend, I have integrity", when in fact they are just being ignorant.

bccdee• 1 year ago

Ignorant of what? Everyone knows what Trump and Musk have been doing. That's why people are denouncing them.

ineedaj0b3• 1 year ago

This is good.

The truly worst websites are usually only found with a .tor browser. If Apple started advertising on Stormfront I'll get concerned, but right now X has fantastic discussion for ML devs and shows me stuff like this: https://x.com/Brittymigs/status/1889708756851634439

Opponents probably aren't using the site. Or have a fervor for something else and misdirecting it towards X.

bamboozled5• 1 year ago

Or have a fervor for something else and misdirecting it towards X.

Not allowed to have an alternate opinion anymore hey ?

It's interesting to me how the whole MAGA / Elon absolute "free speech" has now become the opposite of what it started out to be in favor of :)

immibis• 1 year ago

It's always been "we want to have the right to drown out your speech" - it hasn't flipped.

drak0n1c2• 1 year ago

I too remember that old slogan: "it's a private platform".

ineedaj0b3• 1 year ago

It's still the same, you're welcome to express it, and it's useful for finding those who've swallowed millennial psy-ops without a glass of water.

arvinsim• 1 year ago

[flagged]

WheatMillington• 1 year ago

The combined fandom of Elon Musk and Apple is a force to be reckoned with.

jader201• 1 year ago

I think it boils down to the fact that intelligent, curious discussion on topics like this can’t be held on the internet.

Even on HN, the comments on the previous threads, and already in this thread too, are getting downvoted and flagged (mine will soon follow, I’m sure).

Politics is an internet trigger. It can draw out the worst in even the most otherwise civil people.

wordofx2• 1 year ago

The left can’t understand people exist with a different view point or even fathom the concept that they could be wrong.

hyperhopper• 1 year ago

I think it boils down to the fact that intelligent, curious discussion on topics like this can’t be held on the internet.

They definitely can be. Usually, moderators dont want to deal with the shit slinging that comes with them though, and many intelligent people are too sensitive to allow bigotry and hateful comments to be allowed to be hosted.

I miss the old days where anything goes, and if you don't like it just close the browser. Better than censorship and sanitization.

csomar• 1 year ago

eh, we've been getting super-political when the discussions aligned with the establishment. This is tech-bros kissing the ring. We are living in the unfortunate timeline where one waits for China to save the day.

darth_avocado3• 1 year ago

Companies that have no political ideologies except to make as much money as they can, resume doing <insert whatever self serving behavior it is> the minute it’s profitable to do so.

There, I fixed the headlines for you.

programmerpass6• 1 year ago

It was profitable to do so a year ago, it was simply dangerous politically. Now given Trump is in office and aligned with Musk, it’s politically beneficial.

That seems to be the truth.

ramraj07• 1 year ago

If anything it's politically dangerous not to advertise there.

darth_avocado3• 1 year ago

It was profitable to do so a year ago, it was simply dangerous politically.

Explain? Because if it was politically dangerous, it automatically means it wasn’t profitable.

bko• 1 year ago

The world is healing.

Seriously though, I certainly don’t want my companies to have political ideologies. Follow the law, be good to customers and serve everyone.

programmerpass6• 1 year ago

Agreed.

scarface_744• 1 year ago

Apple isn’t following the law right now either. They just brought TikTok back to the App Store based on Trump’s promises. But it is still breaking the law.

wnevets3• 1 year ago

This comment is so funny to me because obviously Apple is only returning to Twitter because of politics. Twitters owner is in the Whitehouse.

lenerdenator2• 1 year ago

I'd say that this is pretty political[0]

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-antisemitic-comments-...

GuB-42• 1 year ago

The corollary is that advertising on X is now profitable for Apple. Which is useful information.

Of course companies put money before political ideology, as a public company, it can be considered an obligation to their shareholders. The part that matters is that their customers may have political ideologies, and it is important for a company to match the ideologies of the customers who make them the most money, at least in appearance.

fredophile3• 1 year ago

My uniformed guess is that this is profitable to Apple in the same way that money spent on lobbyists is profitable.

JeremyNT• 1 year ago

Yeah, bribing your industry's top regulator seems highly likely to have a positive ROI.

programmerpass6• 1 year ago

There should be a law in place whereby if you a prove a company was engaged in profitable advertising or activities and stopped doing those activities in response to political stances the company can be prosecuted.

Not sure where this would fit into the law though something like this would certainly curtail cancel culture like activity.

darth_avocado3• 1 year ago

Companies also have first amendment rights.

scarface_744• 1 year ago

You’re going to make a company work with another company?

etchalon• 1 year ago

It'd also be blatantly unconstitutional.

felixgallo• 1 year ago

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/compelled-speech/

prawn• 1 year ago

Have advertising rates on Twitter changed significantly over recent years? I wonder if that is a factor at all.

lenerdenator2• 1 year ago

Well, most don't have an ideology.

Twitter does, though.

quyleanh4• 1 year ago

The original comment by gnabgib was flagged after a while, so I will post it again for those who come later. I think this comment will be flagged soon. I don’t know why some people don’t want this news to spread.

Two previous discussions were flagged as well:

[1] Apple Resumes Advertising on X | 44 points by greyadept 23 hours ago | 49 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43032112

[2] Apple is once again advertising on X, more than a year after stopping all ads | 76 points by ksec 1 day ago | 38 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43031493

gabeio• 1 year ago

This site is not about just any news anyone wants to hear about, there is a focus behind it. And honestly the reason I frequent this website is specifically because political garbage is usually down voted, flagged or removed fairly quickly as it typically just causes flame wars with no actual actionable things and nothing of value is learned from it.

quyleanh4• 1 year ago

Could I tag @dang moderator for asking removing flag?

metadat• 1 year ago

Tagging / @mentions don't trigger anything unless a mod happens to see it (which is rare / unlikely, given the volume of posts every day). However, you can email the staff: hn@ycombinator.com.

Be sure to include your reasoning for what is wrong with or unfair about the tag and why the story warrants special treatment.

ks2048• 1 year ago

It’s often cited that Twitter/X lost 80% of its value since Musk took over. Is this possible to confirm? If it’s private now, are there ways to judge its success or estimate its value?

snowwrestler2• 1 year ago

There were news reports last year that Fidelity marked down their equity holdings in X by over 70%.

drak0n1c2• 1 year ago

Pre-Aquisition Twitter $5 billion revenue $682 million EBITDA

2024 X $2.7 billion revenue $1.25 billion EBITDA

Last week Alwaleed bin Talal a longtime Twitter and X investor said his holdings have held value after the acquisition and he considers it in the process of doubling. Some banks also reported selling their debt in 2024 for 97 cents on the dollar.

Interview: https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1887210068485009599

https://www.semafor.com/article/02/07/2025/musks-x-doubled-i...

xiphias2• 1 year ago

While this is true, (and I don't want to try to be politically neutral here), if we look at Elon's enormous increase in power and also significant increase in wealth, it would definately be positive ROI for him.

He went through a lot of stress thought being leveraged in the stock market crash.

raydev• 1 year ago

Where are you getting the $2.7 billion number? This article from Jan 30 says 1.2 billion: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/x-financials-under-musk-signa...

senordevnyc• 1 year ago

That 2021 figure is after a legal settlement. If you don’t include that, the EBITDA was $1.47 billion.

threeseed• 1 year ago

Not surprising.

Economic war is coming between the EU and US companies once Trump imposes tariffs.

And Apple needs Trump and Musk as allies rather than enemies.

snowwrestler2• 1 year ago

They left because of fears about reputation damage, but since no one cares about reputations right now, there’s nothing to fear anymore. Might as well pick up a few additional sales.

sinoue• 1 year ago

Cook is a smart man. Showed up at Trump's inauguration after paying $1 million. Advertising back on X so they have some leverage to prevent damaging tariffs and sanctions that would impact Apple's manufacturing in China.

Apple Resumes Advertising on X

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