The advertising woes at soon-to-be-no-longer-SF-based Xitter look to be persistent, and a woefully small segment of advertisers has any remaining faith that their brands are safe when they might end up appearing next to some offensive content.

A new survey of marketers by research firm Kantar suggests that as many as one quarter of X's current advertisers plan to cut their spending on the platform next year. And this is not great news for owner Elon Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarrino, the ad exec Musk pulled in last year to help right the ship when it comes to ad revenue.

Of course it's Musk's own behavior on and off the platform, and his apparent lack of concern for maintaining a robust trust and safety department, that are likely most to blame for any ongoing advertiser angst. Musk has made a very vocal turn toward right-wing politics over the last two years, since taking over the company. And after he — he says regrettably — endorsed an antisemitic post by a white supremacist last fall, prompting advertising pullbacks by Apple and other large companies, he doubled down a few weeks later and told advertisers to go fuck themselves — equating their choice to pull their ads with "blackmailing" him.

Kantar's survey, which included interviews with 1,000 senior marketing executives around the globe, further found that only 4% of advertisers believe that X provides them with brand safety — namely, keeping their ads from appearing next to extremist, racist, or otherwise brand-damaging content. That's compared to the platform with the highest brand safety, according to the survey, which is Google, with 39% saying their ads seem safe there.

Musk has filed lawsuits and argued vigorously in multiple venues, including on X itself, that his changes with regard to removing "censorship" on the platform came with algorithmic de-prioritizing of such content. And he's insisted that watchdog complaints about ads appearing next to offensive content are overblown — because very few, if any, users are every going to see the ads next to that content, which frequently has very few followers anyway.

That argument clearly hasn't been something that Yaccarrino has had an easy time selling to advertisers.

"Advertisers have been moving their marketing spend away from X for several years. The stark acceleration of this trend in the past 12 months means a turnaround currently seems unlikely," says Gonca Bubani, global thought leadership director at Kantar, in a statement.

"Marketers are brand custodians and need to trust the platforms they use," Bubani adds. "X has changed so much in recent years and can be unpredictable from one day to the next — it's difficult to feel confident about your brand safety in that environment."

Meanwhile, Musk is closing down the company's San Francisco headquarters, effective at the end of next week, claiming this is because of a new trans-student rights law in California. He pledged nearly $200 million to helping Donald Trump get reelected — though it's unclear if he's following through with all that cash. And he's filed a lawsuit against advertisers who pulled money from X, in federal court in Texas, calling this an illegal boycott.

Way to woo those ad dollars.

Previously: WSJ: Elon Musk’s Deal to Buy Twitter Rated Worst Deal for Banks Since the 2008 Financial Crisis