() — While several major brands have announced they will pause their advertising on Twitter after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company, the platform can now boast a new ad buyout from a well-known billion-dollar company: SpaceX, also owned by Musk.
Musk confirmed this monday on Twitter that his company SpaceX bought a social media advertising package for its Starlink internet service, though he downplayed the size of the acquisition.
This ad buy would be the first by any of Musk’s companies, including Tesla, that does not work with traditional advertising.
“SpaceX Starlink purchased a small, not large, ad package to test the effectiveness of Twitter advertising in Australia and Spain,” Musk wrote in a reply to a Twitter user. And he added that he did the same for competitors like Facebook, Instagram and Google.
His comments came after CNBC reported on Sunday that Musk had ordered “one of the biggest advertising packages available on Twitter” for SpaceX, citing unnamed sources who read internal documents related to the matter. SpaceX did not respond to Business’s request for comment.
In the weeks since Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter, some civil rights groups have called for an advertiser boycott of the platform, citing concerns about management under the new owner and reports that incidents of hate speech have increased on the platform.
Some major brands such as General Mills, The North Face and several car companies (which compete with Musk’s Tesla) have reported that they will suspend their advertising on the social network. Earlier this month, Musk said the growing pullback in advertiser spending has led to a “massive drop in revenue.” The new CEO described the situation as “a big mess.”
Musk has spent his first few weeks at the helm of Twitter pleading with advertisers to stay on the platform and also working to make the platform less dependent on ad dollars by adding more subscription options. Among them, a controversial option to pay for verification. This latest feature sparked a surge of accounts impersonating prominent brands on the platform.