It’s only been a week since Elon Musk took over Twitter and fired senior executives in the process. Musk acquired the social media platform this year, and naturally automakers who are also on Twitter have already reacted to the move.
Volkswagen Group is the latest automaker to act after the Tesla CEO took over Twitter, telling its brands to suspend advertising on the platform, according to Reuters.
“We are monitoring the situation closely and will decide on next steps based on how it develops,” Volkswagen said in a statement, per Reuters.
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Audi of America, a unit of Audi, a VW Group brand, said it suspended its paid advertising on Twitter a day before the VW Group statement. Reuters reported that Audi of America “will continue to assess the situation.”
To date, the brands of the Volkswagen Group are Volkswagen (passenger cars), Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Škoda, SEAT, Cupra, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche and Ducati. The VW Group also owns several subsidiaries, such as Bugatti-Rimac, but we doubt the automaker will impose the said temporary Twitter advertising ban on those companies.
Days after Musk became “Chief Twit,” General Motors also announced that it was suspending its paid ads on Twitter while it assesses the direction of the platform under new management. The company’s interaction with its customers on Twitter will continue, however.
Ford, on the other hand, confirmed that it stopped advertising on Twitter even before Musk’s takeover. Fisker, on the other hand, took a harsher step, with the owner and CEO deleting his Twitter account as soon as news about Musk and Twitter first broke in April this year. Citroën aired its reaction to the Musk-Twitter fiasco through a one-line tweet.
