It may well be that Elon Musk’s strike for free speech on Twitter was not well received by many highly recognizable business in the country. According to CNN, more than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers in September were no longer spending on the platform in the first weeks of January.

Some 625 of the top 1,000 Twitter advertisers, including major brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Jeep, Wells Fargo and Merck, pulled their ad dollars as of January,  based on data running through January 25. Twitter had a $4.5 billion advertising business, according to CNN.

With his purchase of Twitter, Elon Musk pledged that going forward the company — noted for curtailing postings based on political agendas often at the urging of political figures — would cease such practices. He also laid off hundreds of staff. CNN said that “advertisers began to worry about the safety and stability of the platform,” with such transparency policies.