CEO Linda Yaccarino and others at X (formerly Twitter) have repeatedly tried to boast that advertisers are returning to the platform, but a new Media Matters analysis tells a different story: Since Elon Musk took over the company, it has earned 42% less ad revenue and had 28% fewer individual monthly advertisers than before his leadership began. Additionally, in the 12 weeks of Yaccarino’s tenure as CEO, the majority of the company’s top 100 advertisers pre-Musk spent a fraction of what they did in the 12 weeks prior to Musk’s acquisition. For example, Visa — which Yaccarino cited as an example of a “returning” advertiser — has spent just $10 in the past 12 weeks, compared to roughly $77,500 in the 12 weeks before Musk bought Twitter.

tl;dr They’re spending 90% less over the past 3 months than they did 3 mo before acquisition

  • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
    0·
    1 year ago

    Jack Dorsey, a clutch of Saudis, and at least one bank have multiple billions of dollars still invested. When I read that Dorsey was leaving a bit over a billion on the table by not cashing out at $54.20. I assumed that he had done a back room deal where Musk agreed to redeem Dorsey’s shares at $54.20 no matter the current valuation, and that recently came out as being the case. I assume he had to make a similar agreement with the Saudis, but the bank has already marked down their investment by about 70%.

    Still, Musk remains the most fucked since he’s not only on the hook for the $1B per year interest payments but also is still the largest single investor. I suspect between hemorrhaging money, guaranteed buy backs, and loss of value versus TSLA or whatever else he used for collateral that he’s going to lose more than his $40B stake. That would be quite the feat, and I’d love to celebrate it by sending a bottle of champagne to him at Twitter HQ.