Since Musk acquired X in 2022 and took the company private, financial disclosures from the company have been few and far between. The 2024 financial documents from the U.K. are the most recent insight into the social media company’s financial performance. 

X’s U.K. arm reported revenue of just $39.8 million for the year ending Dec. 31, 2024, down from $95.2 million in 2023. The stark decline represents the continuation of a catastrophic advertising exodus that began when Musk acquired the platform in October 2022. Revenue from U.K. operations had already plummeted 66% in 2023 from $282.9 million the previous year.​​

“The significant decrease in the performance of the company is a result of the decline of advertising revenue primarily driven by a reduction in spend from large brand advertisers due to concerns about brand safety, reputation and/or content moderation,” the company acknowledged in its strategic report filed with U.K. regulators.​

Workplace and culture expert Bruce Daisley, who previously served as Twitter’s vice president of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and as Twitter U.K.’s managing director, told Fortune that the U.K. market has historically served as a reliable proxy for the platform’s global health, despite accounting for only roughly 5.3% of its total revenue. “It’s a mature economy, and it’s reflecting what’s happening in the rest of the world,” Daisley explained, pointing to the developed network of e-commerce vendors and the U.K. economy’s diversified verticals. 

The revelation of X U.K.’s issues comes as Musk has adopted an unprecedented combative stance toward the very advertisers his platform depends upon for survival. In November 2023, during a profanity-laden tirade at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk told advertisers fleeing the platform to “go f–k yourself,” specifically calling out Disney CEO Bob Iger after the entertainment giant halted its advertising. Musk accused Iger of attempting to “blackmail” him with advertising money. 

That outburst followed Musk’s endorsement of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on X, which he re-posted to his own account. Major brands including Disney, Apple, IBM, Comcast, and Warner Bros. Discovery subsequently suspended their advertising on the platform. Musk has since apologized for his online comment, calling the post the “worst and dumbest” thing he has published on his account. (Representatives for X did not respond to a request for comment.)

Rather than seeking reconciliation, Musk doubled down, filing sweeping antitrust lawsuits against advertisers. In August 2024, X sued the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM)—an advertising industry initiative focused on brand safety—along with member companies including CVS Health, Unilever, Mars, and Orsted, accusing them of illegally conspiring to boycott the platform and collectively withholding “billions of dollars in advertising revenue.” The lawsuit effectively shut down GARM, which ceased operations citing limited resources to fight the legal battle. Unilever settled its suit with X (the terms were not disclosed).

Musk expanded the lawsuit in February 2025 to include additional major brands such as Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive, Lego, Shell, and Tyson Foods. “We tried peace for two years, now it is war,” Musk posted on X.​

“I can’t remember an example in the history of marketing where someone from a platform has threatened to go to law and sue people who don’t spend money with him,” Daisley told Fortune, describing the approach as “astonishing.” He characterized Musk’s strategy as “mafia-like,” noting that marketers he’s spoken with “just want nothing to do with the brand, the product, or the audience.”​

The advertising crisis represents a stunning reversal for a platform that generated $4.5 billion in global ad revenue in 2022. That figure collapsed to $2.2 billion in 2023—a 46% decline—and is estimated to have fallen further to approximately $2 billion in 2024. Had X maintained pre-acquisition growth trends relative to the broader social media market, its ad revenue could be more than double current levels, according to WARC Media analysis.

By comparison, competitors thrived during the 2024 financial year, with Instagram’s ad revenue growing 24.9%, Snapchat up 13.8%, and Pinterest increasing 18.1%.​

Daisley attributes the ongoing decline not just to brand safety concerns—where advertisers fear their ads appearing alongside neo-Nazi content or AI-generated pornography—but to Musk’s broader political provocations. “He’s funded far-right political parties across Europe. He’s been accused of election interference by the president of France,” Daisley noted, adding that Musk “insults the leaders of other Western European allies daily.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer have both criticized Musk’s support for far-right movements and interference in European politics.​

Despite the grim trajectory, Daisley believes the platform isn’t “beyond salvation” if leadership changes course. “It still remains a remarkably influential platform. It hasn’t yet been fully substituted,” he said. However, he sees little indication of reform: “It’s hard to see any revival of their revenues without change.”