Expedia, Airbnb and Uber Stop Advertising on Elon Musk’s X

Among big-name travel and transportation brands, Expedia Group, Airbnb, Uber and Disney have pulled their advertising off X, formerly known as Twitter.

Expedia Group told Skift Monday that “we have paused advertising at this time” globally on X. Expedia Group declined to elaborate on its reasoning.

The New York Times reported Friday that Airbnb and Uber had stopped campaigns that amounted to $1 million and $800,000, respectively.

These moves followed X Executive Chairman Elon Musk endorsing another user’s post that was seen as antisemitic.

Critics have argued that antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate speech have been amplified on social media platforms, including X and TikTok, since Hamas’ October 7 attack against Israel.

On Monday, Musk met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a trip The New York Times characterized as “aimed at calming the outcry over his endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory on X, the social media platform he owns.”

Update: November 30: For its part, Tripadvisor doesn’t advertise on X and has no plans to do so, a spokesperson said Thursday, adding that it’s not a marketing channel that the company has prioritized.

Airbnb and Uber didn’t respond to Skift requests for comment on their thinking behind discontinuing their X advertising. Booking Holdings didn’t answer requests for comment on their stance toward advertising on X.

The Times reported last week that X could see $75 million in advertising dry up from the likes of Airbnb, Uber, Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft, Apple and Disney. X told the publication that only $11 million was in jeopardy as other companies increased their advertising.

X didn’t immediately respond to a Skift request for comment.