Elon Musk tries to convince wary advertisers to stay on Twitter

Marketers including General Mills Inc., Pfizer Inc., Mondelez International Inc. and General Motors Co. have said they are pausing their advertising with Twitter since Mr. Musk’s takeover late last month, largely either out of concern that Mr. Musk might weaken content moderation, potentially leading to more hate speech on the social-media platform, or because of the uncertainty surrounding the company’s direction. That prompted Mr. Musk to say there has been a “massive drop in revenue" in a tweet last Friday.

Market-research firm Insider Intelligence on Wednesday cut its annual revenue outlook for Twitter by 40%.

Mr. Musk said in the question-and-answer event that he understands why some brands have paused their advertising until they have a clearer understanding of Twitter’s evolution. But he said the platform has been more active in clamping down on bad behavior since he took over, and suggested that marketers with questions should simply tweet at him.

“I understand if people want to, you know, give it a minute and see how things are evolving," Mr. Musk said. “But really, the best way to see how things are evolving is just to use Twitter. If there’s something that you don’t like, reply to one of my tweets and I’ll do my best to respond."

Mr. Musk also said advertisers shouldn’t be concerned about Twitter’s brand becoming indistinguishable from his own.

“Obviously Twitter cannot be simply some extension of me, because then anyone who doesn’t agree with me will be put off," Mr. Musk said.

The event followed several private meetings with top executives at ad agency holding companies and their clients in a bid to shore up Twitter’s advertising business. In those meetings, Mr. Musk’s tone differed sharply from recent tweets in which he threatened a “thermonuclear name & shame" of brands that pull their ads from the platform, according to two agency executives who attended the events this week and last week.

In the event on Wednesday, Mr. Musk was joined by Robin Wheeler, Twitter’s vice president of U.S. client solutions, who led the call, and Yoel Roth, senior director of safety and integrity.

Despite a surge in hateful activity on Twitter immediately following news of Mr. Musk’s takeover, overall hate speech on Twitter has declined by about 95% compared with before the acquisition, according to Mr. Roth. It wasn’t possible to independently verify the figure.

Brands and marketers, like most users, will have to pay to have their accounts verified, Mr. Musk said in response to a question from David Cohen, chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, an industry trade organization. The only viable solution to Twitter’s revenue challenges is a “paywall for prominence" that will lead to feeds that consist overwhelmingly of paid subscribers, or verified accounts, Mr. Musk said.

Earlier Wednesday, Twitter rolled out a gray check mark for verified accounts, but hours later Mr. Musk tweeted that he had killed it, saying the $7.99 blue check mark would be “the greater level."

In the advertisers’ event, Mr. Musk said the success that he and his other companies, including electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc. and rocket firm SpaceX, have found by posting on Twitter should encourage brands and their executives to use the platform more freely, in addition to buying ads.

“Brands should tweet more, executives should tweet more. I would encourage people just to be more adventurous," he said. “That’s certainly what I’ve done on Twitter with Tesla and myself and SpaceX, and it’s worked out quite well."

In response to a prompt from Ms. Wheeler, Mr. Musk also told attendees, which included several top auto brands such as Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co., Porsche AG and GM’s Chevrolet, that he wouldn’t use his ownership of Twitter to benefit Tesla at the expense of its automotive rivals.

GM was the first company to announce that it would be pulling its ads from Twitter last month, saying it wanted to better understand Mr. Musk’s plans for the platform.

Mr. Musk said Twitter hasn’t always satisfied advertisers’ needs, such as ensuring that ads are relevant to targeted users and providing reliable ways to measure their performance. Twitter is attempting to better address these issues by considering changes like integrating paid ads into so-called recommended tweets, which are based on a given user’s activity on the platform, said Mr. Musk.

Other potential new features include letting verified subscribers post high-quality videos that are up to several hours long, according to Mr. Musk. Twitter also plans to begin allowing both brands and creators to earn revenue on their accounts by enabling product sales directly in the app, he said.

Twitter’s pivot toward subscriptions and e-commerce could also help minimize trolls and fake accounts, according to Mr. Musk. If most users’ feeds consist primarily of tweets by paid profiles, and each verified account must use a legitimate credit card or bank account, then it will be more difficult for hostile governments or other parties to conduct large-scale harassment or influence campaigns, he said.

The ultimate responsibility for Twitter’s success as an ad platform, as well as sensitive decisions like whether to ban individual users, falls to Mr. Musk as its owner, he said.

“I am the chief twit here, so the responsibility is mine. If things go wrong, it’s my fault, because the buck stops with me," he said.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text