Twitter’s financial decline remains grim due to a nearly 50 percent drop in advertising revenue and significant debt, Elon Musk he said on Saturday, dashing expectations in March that Twitter could be profitable by June.
“We have to get good money before we have other things,” Musk said in a tweet in response to speculation about a reinvestment.
This is the latest sign that cost-cutting measures have taken place since Musk’s acquisition Twitter in October alone isn’t enough to make Twitter good, and it shows that Twitter’s ads haven’t rebounded as quickly as Musk said in a press interview in April. BBC that many advertisers returned to the site.
After laying off thousands of employees and cutting costs for cloud operations, Musk said the company has reduced its non-debt capital to $1.5 billion (about Rs. 12,300 crore) from $4.5 billion (about Rs. 37,000 crore) in 2023. Twitter is also facing annual interest payments of about $1.5 billion (about Rs. 12,300 crore) for the debt it took on $44 billion (about Rs. 3,61,400 crore) that took the company private.
It’s unclear when Musk was referring to the 50 percent drop in advertising revenue. He added that Twitter was on track to post $3 billion (about Rs. 24,600 crore) in 2023, down from $5.1 billion (about Rs. 41,900 crore) in 2021.
Twitter has been criticized for its lack of content, followed by the exit of many advertisers who did not want their ads to be seen near inappropriate content.
Musk’s hiring Linda Yaccarinothe former head of advertising at Comcast’s NBCUniversal as CEO, pointed out that advertising sales are important to Twitter even as they work to increase subscription revenue.
Yaccarino started working on Twitter at the beginning of June and told investors that Twitter is planning to focus on video, creative and commercial products and is in initial discussions with political figures and entertainment, paid services, as well as news and media.
On Thursday, Twitter announced that select creators will be eligible to receive a share of the company’s revenue as it tries to attract more creators to the site.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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