Elon Musk certainly seems to have brought down something on Twitter, though it is not the number of bot accounts or the hate speech, or even the video playing error being seen recently.
The thing brought down is the current value of the company which as per reports stands at $20 billion which is less than half of the original $44 billion that Musk had paid during the acquisition done barely 5 months ago.
The numbers are according to an email memo sent to company employees that has been leaked and are in relation to Musk’s new stock compensation program for employees first reported by Platformer and the Information. The stock grants program is actually to incentivise employees to bring the company’s valuation to a certain level after which they can sell their shares for cash.
Twitter under Musk did not just slash the employee count from 7,500 to just 2,000 but recent reports claim that office furniture and kitchen appliances are being sold or auctioned, janitors are being laid off, and rent is not being paid in certain locations.
Loss Of Advertisers
Digital marketing analysis firm Pathmatics according to reports has stated that out of the top 1,000 advertisers that were on Twitter around 625 of them had stopped advertising on Twitter. Some of these include big names like Coca-Cola, Unilever, Wells Fargo, Merck, General Motors, Pfizer, Volkswagen Group, Ford, Jeep, Nintendo, Eli Lilly.
The firm also observed that only 6 out of the pre-acquisition top 10 advertisers on Twitter where still putting ad dollars on the platform, the rest have pulled out.
In November of 2022, Musk had even had a tiff with Apple, calling them out for reportedly stopping advertising on Twitter that he tried to use the ‘free speech’ spiel but experts believed was out of the major hit the company was taking because of so.
Besides this, apparently, companies are also not very keen on associating with Musk himself, after his condescending and contradictory tweets, mocking users including a disabled Twitter employee although he ended up apologizing but only after there was a massive backlash against his words.
Read More: Twitter Ex-Employees Share Stories Of Entire Teams Getting Wiped Out Across The World
A Vox report also had an ad executive saying that “I don’t know if the person I’m negotiating with today will be there today, tomorrow, or by the end of the week. Trust is such an important currency in advertising. I don’t trust Elon at his word.”
Musk’s defensive and attacking stance when in critical situations is also not appreciated by advertisers considering how he himself threated to “thermonuclear name & shame” advertisers if they left Twitter.
According to one advertiser “There are other places I can spend my money without having to worry that I’ll be attacked by Elon, or my clients will be, or that he will say something that will force me to turn off my ads.”
Investment Firm Slashes Stake Value By 56%
Elon Musk didn’t just buy Twitter with his own personal money, instead, he had around a dozen investors backing his deal and providing large chunks of the funding required for his acquisition of Twitter valued at around $44 billion.
One of those was Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund which committed over $316 million at the time of the takeover, however, as per reports the investment firm cut down the value of its stake in Twitter by 56% going from $19.66 (October) to $8.63 million (November) in 2022.
This along with the growing lack of belief in Musk’s leadership, his erratic tweets and more are being seen as a reason why Twitter is constantly losing its valuation as a company.
The start of Twitter Blue and now putting necessary features behind a paywall has just driven the platform to constantly lose its credibility as per reports.
Recently, Musk tweeted that “Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations. The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle. Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.”
But he also added that “That said, it’s ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service & don’t impersonate a human”.
Image Credits: Google Images
Feature Image designed by Saudamini Seth
Sources: New York Times, Hindustan Times, India Today
Find the blogger: @chirali_08
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