Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44bn – and it’s now worth less than half
Elon Musk’s ownership of twitter/X has seen its value crash by more than half, the company all but admitted in an internal note to staff yesterday.
A new employee share scheme effectively values the company at $19bn.
The news was first reported in the US by Fortune magazine.
Musk’s year at the top of the social media giant, which he intends to turn into a super-app along the lines of Asian titans Weibo, has not been without controversy.
A host of advertisers have moved spend away from the platform, with Musk’s unique brand of ownership spooking major brands by association.
But despite a decline in users and discontent among advertisers, one look at X tells you it is far from dead — even if 16.5m of its users are bots. Meanwhile, prodigies Mastodon and Meta’s Threads, hailed by some as “Twitter Killers”, are yet to slay the giant.
Daily active users (DAUs) now number 225m, as revealed by X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, at Vox Media’s Code 2023 tech conference in September. Twitter had 254.5m DAUs just before Musk’s takeover last October.
Since then, the billionaire’s controversial decisions have included reinstating banned accounts, such as Graham Linehan, opting for a paid subscription service called ‘Twitter Blue,’ and even scrapping the beloved Larry the Bird logo.
The most recent change caused a 16 per cent drop in UK DAUs between July and October, from 6.1m to 5.1m, according to data from GWS. Although X is not the only platform facing engagement challenges; Facebook and Snapchat also witnessed declines in DAUs over the same period, by six and 10 per cent, respectively.
“The jury is still out on whether Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now X, has been a success,” said Paul Carter, chief executive of GWS.
“While user figures are down, Musk has been able to hold off the rise of a ‘Twitter killer’ some predicted would arrive, especially with big hitters like Threads launching in recent months.”
He continued: “Perhaps most importantly for X, our data shows that those who remain are still highly engaged with what the platform has to offer – these loyal users seem to be just as happy to spend their time on X as they were prior to his takeover.”
GWS figures show users who remain on the site are highly engaged, with time spent on the platform up seven per cent to 17.8 minutes per user daily over the last quarter.
But not everyone is optimistic about Musk’s impact, with social media commentator Drew Benvie telling PA News Agency he “couldn’t imagine it going any worse”, especially as misinformation on the platform is rife.
X has struggled to retain advertisers and monthly US ad revenue has plummeted by at least 55 per cent year on year since Musk’s takeover, according to Reuters.