Apple is back on X.
A tweet today from the account AdTech Congratulating Itself (@AdtechBrags) revealed an ad for Severance Season 2 on Apple TV+, confirming the tech giant’s return to the platform. This marks a notable shift, as Apple was among the major advertisers that pulled back from X over concerns about brand safety and content moderation. They’ve been off the platform for well over a year.
Apple’s move follows a broader trend of brands reconsidering their stance on X. Amazon has already returned, and recent reports suggest that political and economic factors—including Elon Musk’s growing influence and the platform’s financial turnaround—are making X harder for brands to ignore.
Why It Matters:
For years now, X has struggled to rebuild its advertising business after a sharp revenue decline driven by Elon’s approach to content moderation. Many brands, including Apple, distanced themselves over concerns about appearing next to hate speech and misinformation. But with a new political climate and X’s increasing role in public discourse (many X believers are also in key government positions), brands are clearly feeling the pressure to engage with the platform despite perceived risks.
Apple’s return could encourage other holdout brands to follow. I mean, it’s Apple. If X continues to attract major advertisers back, while delivering on SMB tools, expanding programmatic access, and adding more video inventory, it could further stabilize/grow its ad business. It could also reshape the social media ad market.
Experts React:
Not really expert reactions but relevant posts:
Our Take:
While Apple’s move doesn’t necessarily erase X’s brand safety concerns, it reinforces a reality we’ve been tracking: influence outweighs risk. X remains one of the most powerful platforms for shaping conversations, and brands—especially those with mass appeal—can’t afford to sit out forever. The floodgates may not be fully open yet, but Apple’s return signals that X’s ad business is in for a big year (as we’ve predicted).
One caveat, though: tricky timing for a return as Kanye West has spent the last few days posting some of the most extreme antisemitic comments of his career—praising Hitler and declaring himself a Nazi—to his tens of millions of X followers. X hasn’t taken any action beyond some condemnations. Ye’s posts do bring some of the “old” concerns right back into the spotlight.
