Twitter ad sales down 59%, company valuation down 66%

[Flexystar]

Not at all surprised with this new. It was never a vision for Elon Musk and whatever business idea he had. He bought Twitter literally out of his wish because he thought he could play around it and create another income source. The problem/spark started when Elon became tweet lord Back in the year and during DOGE trivia. He saw how he could move the entire Share price for anything if he just tweets about it. Moreover, he thought that if just buys entire Twitter and play around it for moving such prices of stocks and god knows what devil plan he had. This is my theory but not sure who would agree upon it. What do you guys think?

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[Majestic-milf]

 I guess this is asserting that the company is not doing well as he was trying to make us believe. This plunge would leave a lot of work for newly appointed Chief executive, Linda Yaccarino since the state of Twitter's advertising makes for 90% of the company's revenue.
 Personally I don't see how a company which depends hugely on advertising could fire it's major sales execs, spreading conspiracy theories and bringing back banned accounts. This action would definitely send advertisers looking the other way.
 Who knows, maybe he's got something up his sleeves? But I feel he'd need to act fast else he could lose Twitter.

[el kaka22]

Shareholders of tesla or spacex can't be unhappy because he can't use directly their money, he would have to either sell his shares to get that money, or he would be paid basically, in all cases the money is his, he could buy worlds biggest building, or he could spend it on twitter, it's his choice.

However, I agree that him leaving makes more sense, he could just sell to someone else and that person could make it a lot more interesting once again. He had some ideas about what he will do with twitter when he gets it, he did those, and people disliked it so there is no turning back from that. If his ideas were to be liked then he would have been able to make a good amount of money from it, but they weren't so there is no reason why he should keep running it.

[Darker45]

This has been the case ever since Elon Musk took over the platform. Just days after Twitter changed hands, there was an exodus not only of mere users but also of advertisers. More than half of Twitter's top advertisers like Unilever, Coca-Cola, and others have left the platform. Billions were lost.

The way I felt it, even before the transfer of ownership finally took place, Elon was not really liked. Jack Dorsey was kind of loved. The transfer was controversial, even chaotic. Elon made unpleasant statements against Jack. He also made statements on the upcoming changes which were largely unwelcome.

If Elon really wants Twitter to stay alive, I guess the best way is for him to quit running the platform and stay away from it.

LOL.. I don't agree with the argument that Twitter lost billions. The share price has gone down, but that doesn't count unless the equities are sold. And regarding the fact that advertisers have gone to other platforms, it was somewhat expected. When left wing extremists such as Vijaya Gadde and Yoel Roth were in charge, they converted the platform to a place where Islamist lunatics like Mahatir Mohammad would make open genocidal threats. And they banned every account even remotely right-wing. Elon restored freedom of speech and it is natural that the left-wing doesn't like him a lot.

Well, this isn't an argument. I'm not stating this as a matter of opinion. I'm stating this as a matter of fact. There are data which support this.

I'm not talking of the falling prices of Twitter shares, not of the decreasing valuation of the company, and especially not of the subjective perceptions of the platform. I'm simply talking of the advertisement revenue of the platform. For whatever reason, it has significantly lose a lot. And advertisers are one of the main sources of Twitter's income. Twitter has since provided discounts for advertisers. So far, it hasn't really made a big difference.

1. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/10/tech/twitter-top-advertiser-decline/
2. https://www.thewrap.com/twitter-ad-revenue-plunges-elon-musk-bloomberg/
3. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/twitter-s-revenue-drops-amid-advertisers-concerns-over-elon-musk?
4. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-elon-musk-advertisers/

[sunsilk]

The blue tick will never be enough to cover the entire ROI for Musk. I guess he's aware of it or if it will ever do then there has to be the "all in" app that he's planning all along for Twitter.

But it's a completely new type of income that they didn't have before. Quite a good solution to generate profit from ordinary users, not only from companies and marketing campaigns.

Yeah, it's still like gonna be unknown if it will be successful but if that's the plan that he's proposing to his stakeholders and to everyone who uses Twitter we'll get to see how it will go.

But so far, we're not yet there and if ever they're working already on it behind it, there has to be some prototype because it's not a leak when he had mentioned it or someone has seen the plan.

It's an optimistic upgrade and a good additional source for them as well but if it's not yet executed, they'll for sure struggle for their revenue.

[Sithara007]

Well, this isn't an argument. I'm not stating this as a matter of opinion. I'm stating this as a matter of fact. There are data which support this.

I'm not talking of the falling prices of Twitter shares, not of the decreasing valuation of the company, and especially not of the subjective perceptions of the platform. I'm simply talking of the advertisement revenue of the platform. For whatever reason, it has significantly lose a lot. And advertisers are one of the main sources of Twitter's income. Twitter has since provided discounts for advertisers. So far, it hasn't really made a big difference.

1. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/10/tech/twitter-top-advertiser-decline/
2. https://www.thewrap.com/twitter-ad-revenue-plunges-elon-musk-bloomberg/
3. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/twitter-s-revenue-drops-amid-advertisers-concerns-over-elon-musk?
4. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-elon-musk-advertisers/

Well.. if you look at my post, I didn't denied the fact that the Twitter revenues are down (especially those from the advertisements). But at the same time, their expenses are also down. They laid off close to 95% of all the employees and that saves a lot in the form of salaries. Even if we take a conservative estimate of 5,000 employees who got fired, that alone amounts to around $1 billion in savings. And as I mentioned, Twitter still retains the monopoly in micro-blogging domain. There are simply no competitors. As long as the situation remains the same, advertisers will return.

BTW, they have found new revenue sources as well, such as Twitter Blue.

[WillyAp]

At this rate Twitter will either file for bankruptcy or will be sold for 5-10 billion to new owners.

Well twitter is recently bought out and is kinda privately owned now by those investors shelling out $ to Elon Musk. 
I have no doubt they believe in him.  Share could go to 15 $ and if they believe in him so be it,

I think it matters much more to stop the bleeding of the company first. He could have been more sensitive but then its his game not ours.
Make the math. 5000 x 5000 US average wages of twitter staff, a month. Plus endless perks.

[Darker45]

~snip~

Well.. if you look at my post, I didn't denied the fact that the Twitter revenues are down (especially those from the advertisements). But at the same time, their expenses are also down. They laid off close to 95% of all the employees and that saves a lot in the form of salaries. Even if we take a conservative estimate of 5,000 employees who got fired, that alone amounts to around $1 billion in savings. And as I mentioned, Twitter still retains the monopoly in micro-blogging domain. There are simply no competitors. As long as the situation remains the same, advertisers will return.

BTW, they have found new revenue sources as well, such as Twitter Blue.

I was just responding to this:

This has been the case ever since Elon Musk took over the platform. Just days after Twitter changed hands, there was an exodus not only of mere users but also of advertisers. More than half of Twitter's top advertisers like Unilever, Coca-Cola, and others have left the platform. Billions were lost.

The way I felt it, even before the transfer of ownership finally took place, Elon was not really liked. Jack Dorsey was kind of loved. The transfer was controversial, even chaotic. Elon made unpleasant statements against Jack. He also made statements on the upcoming changes which were largely unwelcome.

If Elon really wants Twitter to stay alive, I guess the best way is for him to quit running the platform and stay away from it.

LOL.. I don't agree with the argument that Twitter lost billions.

So I don't know what you're responding to now. If you LOLed and didn't agree with my "argument" that Twitter is losing billions in ad revenue despite all the facts and now says you didn't deny that Twitter is indeed losing big time on ad revenue, I'm a little confused on what you're trying to say. You seem to be confused, too, and inconsistent.

And where did you get that 5,000 "conservative estimate" of Twitter employees who got fired?

Please note that I don't care much about Twitter and its fate. I'm just dropping my couple of Sats on this discussion about Elon's Twitter having falling ad sales.

[davis196]

The former Twitter shareholders are the luckiest people on Earth. Getting 44 billion dollars for company like Twitter was a gift from God.
Elon Musk clearly had lost his mind somewhere around 2021. Becoming the richest man on the planet had a negative impact over his mental health. He's definitely not a genius and he's not even a good businessman.
Perhaps most of the advertisers on Twitter were progressive, liberal and "woke" companies. Twitter going right-wing is something they never wanted. Musk will have to reduce the right-wing propaganda and try to please all the "woke" and progressive advertisers.

[kryptqnick]

When Musk just bought Twitter and started mismanaging it, a friend of mine who works in the area of professional consultancy for corporations said that Musk will destroy Twitter, and eventually Twitter will cease to be among the top social media platforms that tons of people use. I thought it was an overstatement and that new policies would find a new audience, so in the end Twitter would be okay (as a company, commercially speaking), but it seems he was right. Musk's mismanagement is causing lots of harm, and his own controversial opinions further hurt the platform's reputation.
So I'm not surprised the value is going down, and at such an alarming rate. Twitter was far from perfect, but now it's much-much worse. I'm only sorry that the company was sold to Musk in the first place.

[WillyAp]

When Musk just bought Twitter and started mismanaging it,

A new manager will stir up the sleeping workers. Twitter being a News Social network plus Elon Musk not caring to get some scratches, is swimming against the current mainstream. Just watch the interview, BBC is a news network run by its employees. 

I think most advertisers will come back. Let's not forget that Twitter has no competitors. 

[tygeade]

When Musk just bought Twitter and started mismanaging it,

A new manager will stir up the sleeping workers. Twitter being a News Social network plus Elon Musk not caring to get some scratches, is swimming against the current mainstream. Just watch the interview, BBC is a news network run by its employees. 

I think most advertisers will come back. Let's not forget that Twitter has no competitors. 

I understand you may like the guy, you have 100% all the right to like the guy and think that he is doing the right thing. However, you need to also realize that people didn't like what he did and that's why he is losing money.

What he owns worths a lot less now because he made a mistake. His income doesn't come from mainstream media or anything else, it comes from you and me, people who put ads there, sure some of them are big companies, but a lot of them are regular people, and he is not getting ads that much anymore because of this reason. Facebook owns so much marketing stuff, and yet they do nothing like this and that's why they keep on profiting, he could have repeated the same thing and he would have a lot of money right now if he did that.

[doomloop]

Shareholders of tesla or spacex can't be unhappy because he can't use directly their money, he would have to either sell his shares to get that money, or he would be paid basically, in all cases the money is his, he could buy worlds biggest building, or he could spend it on twitter, it's his choice.

However, I agree that him leaving makes more sense, he could just sell to someone else and that person could make it a lot more interesting once again. He had some ideas about what he will do with twitter when he gets it, he did those, and people disliked it so there is no turning back from that. If his ideas were to be liked then he would have been able to make a good amount of money from it, but they weren't so there is no reason why he should keep running it.

It's true that he failed miserably in this, he is definitely a great businessman but he couldn't manage this one the way he might have wanted or expected from himself and people expected more from him too but he couldn't work up to the expectations of himself and the people. As you said, he probably should just give up at this point because the value of Twitter has dropped significantly since he bought it.

I don't know why but it just feels like he has earned a lot of hatters after buying Twitter with whatever he did, maybe he didn't really plan everything well and that is the reason why things didn't work out for him but something totally went off for him and this business from the beginning.

[pooya87]

You are right! There is a hope that he wants to keep free speech on Twitter but there is another problem, billionaire and free speech? A billionaire that pumped and dumped market for personal growth and made people buy Dogecoin? A real shitcoin? .

To be fair, in United States the term freedom of speech has always been part of the dictatorship because it always comes down to one definition: "you are free to say whatever you like as long as what you say doesn't have any conflict with the regime's interest". It is not up to Musk or anybody else either, it is the US regime's decision considering how US sees the internet as a whole, a military ground and it is even under the supervision and control of the armed forces of US (under Department of Defense) and even has a 4-star general in "control" of it.

His intention was the development of an AI and now he says that it's a threat,

To be fair that too is the US regime's new policy. The shift happened in the past year with mass advertising of AI as something "dangerous" and there has been lots of attempts to "discourage others" from doing any kind of development in this field while US does it under the radar to try and get ahead since US has fallen far behind in AI technology specially for military applications.

[Synchronice]

To be fair, in United States the term freedom of speech has always been part of the dictatorship because it always comes down to one definition: "you are free to say whatever you like as long as what you say doesn't have any conflict with the regime's interest". It is not up to Musk or anybody else either, it is the US regime's decision considering how US sees the internet as a whole, a military ground and it is even under the supervision and control of the armed forces of US (under Department of Defense) and even has a 4-star general in "control" of it.

Yes, the meaning of freedom of speech is to talk anything about whatever is allowed, if your speech is against one specific idea, then you are evil, should say that, etc. The only place where someone has freedom of speech is his mind. Freedom of speech doesn't exist, has never existed and will never exist because it's impossible in humanity. An anarchy can't exist among social animals, we always try to centralize things, that's the reason.

To be fair that too is the US regime's new policy. The shift happened in the past year with mass advertising of AI as something "dangerous" and there has been lots of attempts to "discourage others" from doing any kind of development in this field while US does it under the radar to try and get ahead since US has fallen far behind in AI technology specially for military applications.

If we keep in mind how OpenAI promotes the capabilities of an AI and how there are rumors that real AIs are far better than publicly available ones, then it looks a little bit doubtful for me how many killed by an AI accidents we have in the military. I just don't know what's going on in this case but the game is very interesting (not desirable though).

[STT]

According to Travis Brown, there were 444,435 paying Twitter Blue subscribers by end of March 2023. That is around $42 million per year.

Reminds me of a little study I did years ago on Newspaper advertising, after all these years the same rule of commerce over consumer direct revenue would seem to apply to even the cutting edge tech development.
 Adverts are king, nice he got some revenue but this ship sails or sinks on its ability to integrate advertising profitably.  They thought the same of Facebook at one time, on IPO it halved in value on doubts any mobile usage could work out but it was not well founded.  If Twitter has users it should be ok longer term in much the same way, equity values arent hard ground to judge actual viability on.

[Accardo]

Elon musk is trying to run twitter Like other paying social media platforms. He just announced recently that content creators will have to get paid for the ads being attached under their comment boxes. So, he thinks with that more content creators will have to flock around twitter and it'll also increase the reach of Ads in the platform. Twitter users dropped drastically when Elon Musk started selling verification badge to everyone. The whole concept of that badge faded out, and it affected Twitter's growth. However, he is yet to master his new craft and soon his policies will begin to fit in and twitter will grow again.

[panganib999]

I'm not surprised by this news because basically some people also predict that Twitter will experience something like this because of the consequences of a shift in policy from the new owner. If Elon Musk really wants to go ahead and keep supporting Twitter - then he's probably going to be spending a lot of money in the next few years.

Considering how belligerent the guy is and his business practices, there's no doubt he'll either do something like this that will shoot the foot of his other companies, or he's just gonna pass the problem to someone else. There's been talks about it anyways, so that seems to be the most obvious answer as of now. In any case, this just goes to show how Twitter was shitty as it is now, riddled with all cryptobros, and the promise of bots being removed in the timelines of people only granted to those who paid 8 dollars per month instead of it actually being for everyone, among many other broken promises that Elon Musk made as he was appointed CEO of twitter. He lost his internet rep too and now everyone (except his meat riders) hates him lmao. What a time to be alive.

[Texac]

Not at all surprised with this new. It was never a vision for Elon Musk and whatever business idea he had. He bought Twitter literally out of his wish because he thought he could play around it and create another income source. The problem/spark started when Elon became tweet lord Back in the year and during DOGE trivia. He saw how he could move the entire Share price for anything if he just tweets about it. Moreover, he thought that if just buys entire Twitter and play around it for moving such prices of stocks and god knows what devil plan he had. This is my theory but not sure who would agree upon it. What do you guys think?

He's a businessman, I don't think he has such a narrow vision. spending $ 46 billion buying a social network just to manipulate Dogecoin?  Doge's market cap is less than $10 billion, and how much will he make even if he holds the entire supply of Doge in his hand?  even ordinary people like us can calculate this simple profit problem. Do you think he is stupid to spend $46 billion just to do it? Losing in business is normal, why many people do not understand.  In a crisis economy, many businesses failed miserably, and even some banks went bankrupt, TW has stood firm until now, and it is a success.

[dansus021]

You just discussed about ad sales down but dont know how much musk/twitter got profit from their monthly subscription. Since Twitter now considered as private company the data out ther might is outdated or not really accurate tho.

and besides that I don't think Twitter will bankrupt anytime soon, especially with the hand of Elon looking at the other private company like SpaceX or the boring tunnel it eating billion of dollar but still stand out.