Elon Musk places Twitter’s worth at simply $20 billion

Elon Musk has put the present worth of Twitter at $20 billion, lower than half the $44 billion he paid for the social media platform simply 5 months in the past, based on an inside e-mail seen by American information media.

The e-mail to workers handled a brand new inventory compensation program within the San Francisco-based firm and the attribution to workers of inventory in X Holdings, Twitter’s umbrella firm since Musk bought it in late October.

The compensation plan values the platform at $20 billion, barely greater than that of Snap ($18.2 billion), father or mother firm of Snapchat, or of social community and artistic web site Pinterest ($18.7 billion), each of which, in contrast to Twitter, are publicly traded.

An emailed question from AFP despatched to Twitter’s communications division generated an automated response within the type of a poop emoji.

In the inner e-mail, Musk describes the brutal contraction in Twitter’s worth. He says the platform confronted such grave monetary difficulties that at one level it was on the verge of chapter.

“Twitter was trending to lose ~$3B/year,” Musk mentioned in a message posted Saturday on the platform.

He cited a income drop of $1.5 billion a yr and a debt-servicing burden of the identical quantity — leaving it with “only 4 months of money.”

Musk, Twitter’s majority share holder, added merely: “Extremely dire situation.”

But he then mentioned that with advertisers — lots of whom fled the platform after the mercurial billionaire purchased it — now starting to return, “It looks like we will break even” within the second quarter of the yr.

Since taking management, Musk has sharply trimmed the group’s payroll, from 7,500 to fewer than 2,000 workers.

He mentioned within the e-mail that he sees a “clear but difficult path” to a valuation of $250 billion, with out saying how lengthy that may take.

Musk, who can be the chief government of Tesla Inc. and aerospace group SpaceX, mentioned that Twitter would permit workers of the social community to money in shares each six months.

Catch all of the Technology News and Updates on Live Mint.
Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates & Live Business News.

More
Less