• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 11, 2025

Major movie studios have started buying advertising time on X, the social-media platform controlled by Elon Musk, according to a number of reports.

The question is why -- after just about a year-long absence on the site due to a number of studios finding their ad messages next to content that touted Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party and other controversial posts, as per a report a year ago by Media Matters for America.

Over the last few months Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Apple, Amazon, Comcast and Lionsgate, among others, have resumed advertising. Why?

The Wall Street Journal cited an incident recently where an attorney for X allegedly demanded that advertising conglomerate Interpublic Group get its clients to “spend more on Elon Musk’s social media platform, or else.” 

Or else? Interpublic Group needs government approval of its merger deal with Omnicom Group, expected to close in the second half of 2025. But the deal needs to get approval from antitrust enforcers of the Department of Justice.

Insiders believe Musk will use his influence to make it tough sledding for these media agency groups. Omnicom clients include Disney Studios, Marvel Studios, and 20th Century Fox; Interpublic has Amazon MGM Studios. Apple TV+, for one, has been placing ad content for its show, “Severance” on the platform.

All the parties involved are not speaking about this as yet, but many believe this is part of the increasingly transactional nature of the Trump Administration.

That seems to expand on why the heads of the major media/technology companies showed up at the inauguration for Trump’s second term -- including Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet. 

This high-profile executive attendance comes in the continuing wake of governmental regulation talk floating around these companies for more than a decade now.

Social media has been a major component of movie studios' media plans for more than two decades. It works well in trying to attract movie studios' core, crucial younger audience -- especially for major fantasy/sci-fi franchise movies.

Content considerations aside, that alone and X's still sizable social media presence make it an somewhat easy buy.

But one wonders whether some of those ads now might still find some adjacency -- mistakenly -- next to controversial content. Perhaps Musk has made some cuts in the X staff that typically oversees undesirable content?

But wait -- it isn’t just media companies.

Business Insider says 13 ad industry insiders expressed that they were upset for all brand advertisers as well -- that advertising on X seemed to be a cost of doing business in a politically charged era with Musk a central force in Donald Trump's White House.

Watch out! More drama ahead. On all screens.