X CEO signals ad boycott is over. External data paints a different picture.

When X CEO Linda Yaccarino took the stage as a keynote speaker at CES 2025, she revealed that "90 percent of the advertisers" who boycotted X over brand safety concerns since Elon Musk's 2022 Twitter acquisition "are back on X." Yaccarino did not go into any further detail to back up the data point, and X did not immediately respond to Ars' request to comment. But Yaccarino's statistic seemed to bolster claims that X had made since Donald Trump's re-election that advertisers were flocking back to the platform, with some outlets reporting that brands hoped to win Musk's favor in light of his perceived influence over Trump by increasing spending on X. However, it remains hard to gauge how impactful this seemingly significant number of advertisers returning will be in terms of spiking X's value, which fell by as much as 72 percent after Musk's Twitter takeover. And X's internal data doesn't seem to completely sync up with data from marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower, suggesting that more context may be needed to understand if X's financial woes may potentially be easing up in 2025. Before the presidential election, Sensor Tower previously told Ars that "72 out of the top 100 spending US advertisers" on Twitter/X from October 2022 had "ceased spending on the platform as of September 2024." This was up from 50 advertisers who had stopped spending on Twitter/X in October 2023, about a year after Musk's acquisition, suggesting that the boycott had seemingly only gotten worse. Shortly after the election, AdWeek reported that big brands, including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Lionsgate Entertainment, had resumed advertising on X. But by the end of 2024, Sensor Tower told Ars that X still had seemingly not succeeded in wooing back many of pre-acquisition Twitter's top spenders, making Yaccarino's claim that "90 percent of advertisers are back on X" somewhat harder to understand. According to Sensor Tower, "69 out of the top 100 spending US advertisers" on Twitter/X in October 2022 had "ceased spending on the platform" as of December 2024. This could reflect a modest influx of advertisers who previously stopped spending, as the total is slightly lower than the September 2024 data showing 72 had ceased spending. But Sensor Tower suggested that its data instead indicates that perhaps rather than wooing back advertisers, X "has cultivated a base of new advertisers." The firm found that "52 of the current top 100 spending US advertisers" on X in December 2024 were not advertising on pre-acquisition Twitter. For example, Temu—which launched just before Musk's acquisition in September 2022—was X's top advertiser in 2024, Sensor Tower found, "accounting for 3 percent of total US ad spend on the network."

Yaccarino promised “a lot higher”engagement in 2025

At CES, Yaccarino said that X's product innovation was helping to drive advertisers' interest in the platform, citing X's NFL portal's success as an example of why "the best brands" are wanting to partner with a company that's "transforming" like X. She also touted a new tool supposedly coming in "max" four or five months called TrendGenius, calling it the "holy grail" of marketing tools because it syncs ad campaigns to trending topics in real time. Such innovations—along with new advertiser controls to help prevent offensive or unfortunate ad placements—could attract more brands in 2025, when Yaccarino predicted that X's engagement numbers would be "a lot higher than they were in 2024." To achieve that engagement goal, though, Sensor Tower data suggests that X will have to reverse a downward trend that saw X's global daily average users down by 13 percent in the final quarter of 2024 compared to the prior year. "Sensor Tower data shows that X’s user base has shrunk materially over the past two years since it was acquired by Elon Musk," the marketing intelligence firm reported. And "despite the US presidential election stirring consumer interest on X, this timely event wasn’t enough to stop the continued loss of active users on the platform," declining by 6 percent from the quarter prior to the election to the quarter after. Although Yaccarino repeatedly said there is "no surrogate" for X at CES, during the same pre- and post-election period, rivals like Bluesky and Threads saw users spike by 185 percent and 22 percent, respectively. "Threads and Bluesky likely experienced material user growth in the US due to certain existing X users growing frustrated with the platform during the throes of the US presidential election," Sensor Tower reported. A TikTok ban could be a boon for X, Sensor Tower suggested, if its user base flocks to X as an alternative platform. That could potentially expand X's younger user base, especially since Yaccarino noted at CES that a recent Ad Age poll showed that Gen Z is already "really fueling the growth" on X. The Supreme Court will weigh the TikTok ban case starting tomorrow, but free speech advocates expect TikTok will make a strong First Amendment case to block a potential ban. Without a ban, X will likely rely on continued innovation to attract more users. At CES, Yaccarino said that X's AI assistant Grok and its payments product X Money would be the big rollouts in 2025. Musk and Yaccarino had previously promised to deliver X Money by the end of 2024, but that deadline came and went without a peep about the delay. Additionally, X has been quiet about the fact that it withdrew its money transmitter app in New York last year. While it's possible X Money could be rolled out state by state, Musk has said that it would be "irrelevant" to launch X Payments without a New York license.