X sold over $25 million in political ads in 2024

According to its regularly updated Political Ads Disclosure, accessed this week, Elon Musk’s X raked in at least $25 million from U.S. political advertisers in 2024. That’s a significant increase from the $3 million the company formerly known as Twitter earned from political and issue ads in 2018 before it decided to ban them altogether. As the company’s ad disclosure report is glitchy and sometimes omits key advertisers, X’s actual political revenue for 2024 could be higher. 

In August 2023, with newly appointed CEO Linda Yaccarino at the helm, the company announced it would lift its Twitter-era political ad ban and attempt to sell $100 million in campaign and issue advertising in 2024. The company missed that goal but sold ads to more than 585 U.S.-based campaigns, PACs, industry associations, and other political groups last year. 

As you can see above, the company’s sales were hardly bipartisan. An original analysis of X political ad data shows that more than 63% of U.S. political advertisers on the platform were Republican or conservative, while just 13% were Democratic or progressive. The highest-spending political account on the platform was @TeamTrump, which spent more than $1.5 million on ads last year. The next highest-spending accounts were @RBG_PAC, @LaraLeaTrump, @GOP, and @DutyToAmerica—all pro-Trump advertisers.

The types of ads each party ran also differed. For Democrats, the majority of advertising was for grassroots fundraising purposes. Republican campaigns were likelier to use ads on X for persuasion, voter registration, or get-out-the-vote efforts. 

“X has largely been valuable for reaching donors, not voters,” says Mike Nellis, whose firm, Authentic, was a leading ad buyer on the platform for several major Democratic campaigns. “For many clients, we saw strong returns and were netting money—but since the election, a lot of Democrats and moderate voters have migrated to other platforms, so we'll likely be doing less of it.”

New media in the briefing room

Amid the chaos of this week’s announcements from the Trump administration, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt held her first official press briefing on Tuesday. During her intro, she announced that the Trump White House would begin reserving a few extra seats in the briefing room for “new media voices who produce news-related content.” Typically, seats in the Brady Briefing Room are closely guarded by members of the legacy press and broadcast networks, who have received preferential treatment for years. The seating chart is determined by the White House Correspondents Association.

“We welcome independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators to apply for credentials to cover this White House,” Leavitt said. She invited people to do so via a form at whitehouse.gov.

By Wednesday afternoon, more than 7,400 bloggers, podcasters, and social media influencers had applied.

The Trump administration’s move to engage creators and emerging media voices is a continuation of the Biden administration’s historic creator engagement work. The Biden White House frequently held briefings for online creators, gave presidential interviews to independent media voices and podcasters, and brought in high-profile online personalities to promote key administration priorities.

More things you should read

• Right-wing internet personality Candace Owens is launching a new media endeavor called Club Candace.

• Ever wonder how much money writers are earning on Substack? The Press Gazette estimated that at least 50 newsletters are earning over $500,000 a year in recurring revenue. Based on my own estimates, I think that’s an undercount.

• Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has started to cash in on her old gig, joining an advisory board for crypto exchange Coinbase.

• Mark Zuckerberg and Meta’s capitulation to Donald Trump continues: The social media giant is now donating $22 million to the Trump Presidential Library as an apology for deplatforming him in 2021.

• In one of the first special elections of the Trump era, Democrats in Iowa flipped a State Senate seat on Tuesday that voted for Trump by 21 points in November. Most political watchers attribute this to an emerging trend that Democrats will continue to perform well in lower-turnout elections.

• Secretary Mayor Senator Pete? This week, we learned that there will be an open U.S. Senate seat in battleground Michigan next year, and Pete Buttigieg is thinking about running for it. 

One last thing: We live in bleak times

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