Two years ago, Elon Musk acquired social media platform Twitter (now known as X) in a $44 billion deal. The deal began as a one-sided offer, and was completed six months later after a series of splits and rejections. In the midst of court proceedings in Delaware.
At the time, many industry watchers said Mr. Musk, who remains at the top of Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires, was overpaying the company. But the technology entrepreneur, who also heads stocks such as SpaceX, Tesla and NewAlink, said he intends to unlock Twitter’s untapped value.
“Free speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is a digital town square where issues of vital importance to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement accompanying his initial takeover offer in April 2022. said. By enhancing our product with new features, open sourcing our algorithms to improve trust, defeating spambots, and authenticating everyone, Twitter is better than ever.
“Twitter has huge potential, and we look forward to working with the company and our community of users to unlock that potential.”
The platform, which was rebranded as It shows how much it has fallen in 24 months.
In Fidelity’s prospectus released last week, the financial giant said its investment in Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, worth about $20 million at the time, would be worth $4.2 million at the end of August 2024. reported to have decreased. This reflects a staggering 79% drop in value since Musk purchased the platform. Estimating Fidelity’s losses shows that X’s valuation is now approximately $9.2 billion.
Although Mr. Musk added new ways to make money for Company X, such as charging premium members, advertising revenue, the company’s main source of revenue, slumped during Mr. Musk’s ownership. And that’s largely due to the tech giant’s laissez-faire approach to content management. Many advertisers have reduced or stopped advertising spending on X, fearing that their products or services will be promoted alongside offensive or objectionable content.
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Musk’s own actions on X also led to an exodus of advertisers from the platform.
Last November, Musk responded to X’s post by saying that the Jewish community is “imposing the very dialectical hatred against white people that we say we want people to stop using against white people.” insisted.
Musk’s tweet in response to the post was, “You told the truth.”
A few weeks later, Musk said at a New York Times event that the tweet was the worst of the tens of thousands he had ever posted.
“I mean, uh… I’m sorry about that post,” Musk said, according to CNN. “That was a stupid thing for me to do. Out of 30,000 posts, this may literally be the worst and stupidest post I’ve ever made. And I made six points clear from Sunday. I tried my best to make him, but at least I think it’s clear that he’s actually a philosopher, far from being an anti-Semite.”
While Musk apologized at the event, he also criticized the advertisers of Company X, which suspended operations after the anti-Semitic incident, saying, “I want them to stop advertising” and “I want them to stop advertising.”
“If someone tries to blackmail me with an ad, blackmail me with money,” Musk said, using profanity to essentially tell them to leave.
And Company X’s declining reputation could mean worse days ahead.
CNN reports that a recent global survey by Kantar found that a net 26% of marketers plan to spend less on X next year, the most of any major global advertising platform. It is said to be a rapid decrease. Only 4% of advertisers say they think X ads provide “brand safety” (certainty that their ads won’t appear near extremist content), compared to 39% of Google .
