As we all have seen, Elon Musk officially owns Twitter. He paid a fortune for Twitter and is now busily destroying it -- firing half its employees and driving out even more, causing chaos on the platform, making advertisers flee, and threatening bankruptcy.

Immediately after taking over, racial slurs, nazi symbols, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ hate speech exploded across the platform.

The Network Contagion Research Institute, a group that analyzes hundreds of millions of messages across social media, said use of the n-word alone on Twitter spiked nearly 500 percent in just the first 12 hours.^[1]

Users changed profile pictures to include the Nazi swastika, others posted video montages glorifying Nazi Germany. Accounts promoted violence, election lies, and disinformation. Others called for the bullying and harassment of transgender people.

Twitter users associated with the Russian and Chinese governments started calling for Twitter to remove labels that identify them as "state-affiliated" media sources, a tactic used since the 2016 election to defend against foreign interference and misinformation.

And of course, Elon Musk himself is also a problem. Within days of taking control (and promising to keep Twitter from becoming a “hellscape”), Elon Musk used the power of his new platform to tweet (and then delete) a baseless and homophobic conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Twitter must fix this, but there’s likely only one way to make them do it: lost advertising revenue.

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has already prompted a slowdown of ad dollars. General Motors announced they’re pausing ads “to understand the direction of the platform under new ownership.”^[2] And only a couple of days later, ad giant, Interpublic Group, advised its clients, including Johnson & Johnson, American Express and a dozen others to ‘pause’ Twitter advertising, too.

This is a good start, but it’s nowhere near enough.

Twitter’s top 20 advertisers account for 90% of revenue and include some of the world’s biggest corporations.^[3] They’re spending millions supporting the platform and thereby paying to propagate the hate speech, lies, and misinformation to users worldwide.

Tell corporations, including HBO, Disney, Google, Pepsi and Amazon, along with IBM, Coke, Apple, Best Buy, and almost a dozen others, to suspend all Twitter advertising now.

^{[1] Network Contagion Research Institute Analysis
[2] GM pauses ads on Twitter after Elon Musk’s acquisition
[3] Ad Giant Interpublic Group Advises Clients to ‘Pause’ Twitter Ad Spending for a Week}