Apple may be considering a restart of advertising on X
A quick blurb in a larger story about increased advertising spend from Amazon suggests Apple may have considered resuming ads on X, but recent controversial acts by Elon Musk may affect its decision.

The X logo that replaced the Twitter blue bird
It seems in the run-up to inauguration day, Apple may have at least considered or had discussions about returning advertising to X in some respect. As of this publication, it still hasn't returned and there is no information about how recent events have affected this decision.
The one-liner can be found in a Wall Street Journal report about Amazon increasing ad spend on X. Apple and other big tech companies paused ad spend in November 2023 after CEO Elon Musk promoted a post directed at the US Jewish community.
The post said "Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them." Musk responded "You have said the actual truth."
Since then, users have flocked to other platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky, with the latter proving to be more popular and mainstream so far at 30 million users. Apple never resumed advertising on X, but maintained its various accounts on the platform.
Musk has continued to be a controversial figure, posting about racism against white people, hoards of illegal immigration ruining the country, and his support of extremist right-winged values. He has been placed in charge of an office that operates outside of the federal government, but reports to President Trump, called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Apple CEO Tim Cook has attended dinners with President Trump, ones where Elon Musk was presumably present, and Cook even donated $1 million of his own money to the inauguration fund. It seems likely that during these in-person visits, resuming ad spend on X would have been brought up, and that fits the "recent weeks" timeline of the report.
However, since President Trump took office, things are moving quickly. Apple isn't exactly rushing to appease every demand, as it took a half-measure to show the Gulf of America in Apple Maps, but only when users search for the term.
Apple may have considered, and still may be considering, returning advertising to some small degree to X. Its initial concerns were about seeing its ads appearing near extremist views or even posts from self-proclaimed Nazis that call the platform home.
The situation is even more complex given that since the inauguration, Elon Musk rendered what has been described as two Nazi salutes, which he denies. Musk doubled down on the "joke" by posting multiple times on X referring to Nazis and other extremist leaders in a lighthearted way, including jokes about the Holocaust.
Don't say Hess to Nazi accusations!
Some people will Goebbels anything down!
Stop Gring your enemies!
His pronouns would've been He/Himmler!
Bet you did nazi that coming-- Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
Musk has also been promoting a lot of anti-LGBTQ, especially anti-trans, content on his platform. It isn't clear how Cook would account for these actions when deciding to resume ad spend.
X is "barely breaking even," according to Musk. After bleeding a lot of active users due to repeat controversies, the platform is clearly struggling to find its footing as the "global town square."
Time will tell what actions Apple and CEO Tim Cook take. It may decide that such controversies aren't enough to stop them from showing ads, or perhaps they'll sit it out and hope no one pushes back since companies like Amazon are making up the difference.
Read on AppleInsider

Comments
Still, I guess it shows there has been enough market fragmentation that any high value customers have left X. To consider going back to a culture context that has gotten more aggressive and insular.
1. Public is not liking thing B.
2. Company A wants to not tarnish its brand, so it cuts it's relation to thing B
3. The media cycle moves on, public discussion moves to other things
4. Company A quietly reestablishes relationship with thing B for money reasons, figuring that brand issues are less likely now that public attention is elsewhere.
I for one would like if Apple would continue to have no relationship with X at all going forward, whether it be advertising or anything else. I would love to see X starved of revenue and fall in value, and eventually become irrelevant as far as public discourse. The only way it'll happen is people vote by cutting their usage of X. That's fair market action, people are allowed to not use your goods/services for any reason they want, including things that have nothing to do with the good/service itself or it's price, you either compete in that arena that includes public sentiment, or you don't.
I'm just saying that's how it so often seems to go with companies' responses to public outcry over some non-monetary event, whether a one-time event or a change spread out over time. The world is just too complicated for people to hold their attention on a million things at once.
Of course by politically neutral you mean left-wing, when you say anti-transgender views if you wanted to say the truth you could have said controversial views on transgender issues, it's not anti-transgender whatsoever to say a man is a man and a woman's is a woman, it's an opinion so fact doesn't come into this whatsoever, I suppose my point is that as much as I completely disagree with Elon Musk, I could provide you with several examples where appleInsider just gets it wrong politically, especially when it comes to cover the UK, that aside you guys do great work and I try to ignore the unconscious bias that you guys clearly have
Doctors that feared that leaving a child born intersex would lead to social stigma and ostracism performed surgeries to assign them one sex or the other. Never giving that child a choice, and often, not even telling the parents it happened, and it still occurs today. Then if that child grows up feeling they are a gender that isn't represented by their sex, what do you call that?
Being transgender is quite rare (like less than a half of a percent) but it has existed in humanity since homo sapian took its first step. All these people have ever asked is to be allowed to exist. Science supports their existence. And science overwhelmingly states all they need is for us to accept them and call them by what they request, and let the doctors help them achieve their chosen presentation of that gender.
Calling trans people an opinion, an anomaly, or something that needs to be corrected is no different than saying vaccines cause autism. It is ignoring science, ignoring fact, and politicizing an entire group of people that just want to exist in peace.
There is only one group of people politicizing their existence, and it isn't the left.
Our "unconscious bias" as you call it is towards science, compassion, and in my case specifically, believing as a Christian that it is our job to love everyone and leave the judgment to God.
Your opinion is wrong. Facts prove that. Telling someone they are a man or a woman because it is your opinion changes nothing. That person is what they are because they know themselves, not because of some unnecessary binary modern society placed on sex.
The idea that there are only two genders and trans people don't exist is actually quite a new idea brought about by Christian puritan colonizers that erased most of the cultures around the world that believed otherwise. One of the first people targeted by Hitler in his rise to power were those that didn't conform with the puritan view of sex or gender. There's a reason why these "opinions" are tied to right wing politics and extremism.
But I'm glad you enjoy our writing even if you don't agree with the science or facts around trans issues. Being anti-trans is being anti-human and anti-science. It's quite simple.
You make the most neutral but ROI point (which may be tolerable to the polarized and tribalist readers)
My X and FB accounts have long been deleted for those toxic environments.
Roll on the day Apple opens shop and its news on BlueSky
To quote Michael Jordan : Republicans buy sneakers too.
I think that might be seen differently by many.
The simple fact of the matter is that Apple is in business and X has a very large and growing worldwide audience.
The only reason anyone is advertising on Twitter is to launder bribes for Musk and Trump.