Twitter is now worth half of the $44B Elon Musk was paid: Report

Elon Musk's social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is worth less than half of what the tech billionaire bought it for in October last year, according to an internal memo.

According to an Oct. 30 report from Bloomberg, an internal memo and sources familiar with the matter said that the restricted stock units recently paid out to employees are valued at $45, which is less than the company's value of about $19 billion. Half of the $44 billion Musk paid the company on October 27, 2022.

Musk has made a series of controversial moves since taking over, including changing the company's name to X, changing many of its content rules, and laying off an estimated 80% of the company's workforce.

Musk's drastic changes, such as his presence on stage, appear to have made the company unpopular with advertisers, with Bloomberg estimating that X has lost at least half of its current total ad revenue.

Meanwhile, the sharp decline in revenue has made Musk's debt service a concern for the company as a whole. As of press time, X reportedly owes $1.2 billion in interest payments on its total debt of around $13 billion.

Musk has made it clear that he wants to rely more on paid user subscriptions, but currently less than 1% of the platform's user base has decided to fork over money for a basic subscription — which is less than $120. million in annual revenue.

Cointelegraph reached out to X for comment but did not get an immediate response.

Related: Elon Musk Says Community Notes Posts Don't Get Revenue Share

On the other hand, some saw the benefits of Elon Musk's tenure at the company.

One of the more popular additions to Musk's platform is paying creators for their participation through revenue sharing.

Recently, Musk announced that any posts edited by the Community Notes feature will be “ineligible for revenue share” — a move that seeks to prioritize authentic information over viral and inaccurate content.

Making small changes to creative monetization:

Posts edited by @CommunityNotes will be eligible for revenue share.

The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensitivity.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2023

Musk, meanwhile, has repeatedly expressed his intention to turn X into “everything” — mainly inspired by super apps like WeChat, popular in Asia — that would see the social media platform expand to include a variety of financial services. Video calls and other lifestyle use cases.

There are also hopes that X will somehow integrate cryptocurrency in the future.

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