When Elon Musk bought Twitter, many celebrated it. It was a company that offered losses every year and some investors wanted a charismatic and daring leader. Unfortunately, Elon Musk has turned out to be the worst possible owner.
Problematic, bully, disrespectful, irrational, etc. Elon Musk’s attitude at the helm of Twitter can be summed up in one word: chaos. This made him trust someone else to act as CEO of the company a few months ago, but the decisions are still up to the owner of Tesla and SpaceX.
Since its arrival, Twitter has not stopped devaluing in the markets. And if a few months ago it was worth half of what it cost at the time (it paid 44 billion for the company), now it is not even worth 30% of its price in 2022.
A 71% drop in the stock market in just one year
Fidelity, which holds a stake in X Holdings (Twitter’s parent company), said in a disclosure obtained by Axios that it had marked down the value of its shares by 71.5% since the purchase from Musk.
Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 and renamed the platform as X in July 2023. Fidelity’s estimate would place the value of X at around $12.5 billion.
In its revealing data, the monthly number of X users dropped by 15% in the first year since Musk’s acquisition, amid concerns about the increase in hate speech on the platform.
Since the acquisition by Musk, X has cut at least 50% of its workforce and reduced moderation. And in September, the European Union issued a warning to Musk after discovering that X was the biggest disinformation platform among all major social networks.
The revised valuation of X by Fidelity came from a disclosure that extended until late November 2023, Axios reported.
That revelation would cover the consequences of several major companies withdrawing their advertising on X after Musk supported an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Musk responded to the boycott by telling the companies “to fuck off” during an interview at an event in New York.
Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, according to Forbes, with a net worth of $251 billion. When he acquired Twitter, Musk said he was buying the company “to try to help humanity.”
Since its acquisition, Elon Musk has reinstated several people to the platform whom he had previously banned, including former President Donald Trump and right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Elon Musk’s drift, without clear ideas and with measures that users do not approve, is costing the life of the social network that amazed the world during the last decade.
