Two years ago, there was some concern among advertisers, anti-hate speech groups and staff about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.
Those concerns have been confirmed: Advertisers have sharply reduced spending on the platform, Musk has sued nonprofits over their coverage of a rise in controversial content, and about eight in 10 employees have been laid off.
The service, now rebranded as The drop in value reflects the damage caused to its advertising-dependent business model.
But its continued influence as a news source and its role as a means of conveying its owner’s right-wing views to his more than 200 million followers means the benefit to the world’s richest person need not be measured solely in financial benchmarks.
“He continues to set the political agenda and has had some success in promoting his libertarian views,” says Nic Newman, senior research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
Global traffic on However, that figure amounted to 5 billion before the acquisition of the Tesla boss.
The platform’s growth is also slowing in terms of users, with the Financial times reporting that the number of global daily users in the second quarter of this year was 251 million, although it still represents an increase of 1.6% compared to the same quarter of 2023.
But under Twitter’s old model, those user numbers would be expected to attract advertisers eager to spread their message on a social media site valued for its ability to get people talking.
Yet advertisers have shunned a platform that, under the ownership of a self-confessed “free speech absolutist,” has allowed the reinstatement of accounts belonging to British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate, and theorist of the American conspiracy Alex Jones. .
Investment group Fidelity recently wrote down the value of its small stake in It is now worth $9.4 billion.. This reflects a drop in advertising revenue, a revenue stream that accounted for nearly 90% of Twitter’s $5.1 billion in annual revenue in 2021, the last year it posted annual results as a publicly traded company.
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Musk’s latest reaction to that boycott is unlikely to win back advertisers. In August,
Advertisement The company also has to pay off a $13 billion debt load, placed on its balance sheet as part of the financing for the acquisition, at a cost of $300 million per quarter.
Advertising experts say the platform remains out of reach for many big brands. “X has definitely fallen off the radar for many advertisers who previously would have included it in their media mix,” says Farhad Divecha, CEO of London-based digital marketing agency AccuraCast. “I don’t see them returning to X now that Musk has made it very clear that he doesn’t care about advertising revenue and would prefer to keep
Lou Paskalis, CEO of AJL Advisory, an advertising consultancy, says that under the Tesla billionaire’s ownership, X is “not brand safe at all,” which is “largely due to Musk’s rhetoric.”
Referring to its owner’s ambition to turn X into an “app for everything” similar to China’s WeChat, Paskalis adds: “I am sure there is a future business in But I haven’t seen any evidence of that.”
With a fortune of $270 billion, Musk can financially support X, but Newman says he will weigh the cost of the deal against publicity for his political views, his even higher public profile since the acquisition and whether his personal and financial support Donald Trump will bear fruit in the US presidential election next month.
“Whether all that was worth $44 billion remains an open question and may depend in part on whether a grateful Trump is re-elected,” Newman adds.
X has been contacted for comment.