SHRINKING BIRD: Twitter now worth just one-third of what Elon Musk paid to purchase it

06/01/2023 / By Arsenio Toledo

Twitter is now valued at just about one-third of what owner Elon Musk paid for it last year, according to a financial services company.

Billionaire and tech giant Musk took over the social media platform in October 2022 by paying a whopping $44 billion for the company, including $33.5 billion paid in equity. Now, Boston-based financial services company Fidelity Investments noted that the company’s value has shrunk by around 66 percent since then. (Related: Elon Musk steps down as Twitter CEO, taps WEF globalist vaccine pusher Linda Yaccarino as replacement.)

Fidelity, under its Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund, was one of a group of outside investors that helped Musk finance his takeover of Twitter. The company’s stake in Twitter, which now exists under Musk’s X Holdings Corporation, was valued at $19.7 million in October at the time Musk took ownership of the social media platform.

Since then, Fidelity has repeatedly marked down the value of its stake in the social media platform. In November, the stake’s value was reported to have shrunk massively to around $8.63 million. By Jan. 31, the fund’s value had shrunk to $7.8 million. And as of April 28, the holding was now valued at nearly $6.55 million.

It is not entirely clear how Fidelity arrived at the new, lower valuation of its stake on Twitter or whether it receives any non-public information from the company. But Musk himself has admitted recently that he believes Twitter is now worth less than half what he paid for it.

In a leaked email, Musk stated that he believes Twitter is now worth less than $20 billion, which tracks with Fidelity’s estimated value of the company at around $14 to $15 billion.

Despite this, Musk believes the social media platform still has “incredible potential.”

“Although obviously, myself and the other investors are obviously overpaying for it with Twitter right now,” he said.

Dan Primack, business editor at Axios, further warned that Fidelity’s mark down of Twitter shares is on a one-month lag, and it will be interesting to see how Musk’s decision to replace himself as the platform’s chief executive officer will impact the company’s valuation. The result of this turnover won’t be seen until the end of June once Fidelity and other investment companies that have stakes in Twitter release their reports.

Twitter has been dealing with financial issues since Musk takeover

Twitter has been struggling financially ever since Musk took over, with the transition to his ownership saddling the company with over $13 billion of debt.

Musk’s own erratic decision-making and other challenges have led to advertising revenue falling by more than 50 percent. In 2021, a year before Musk’s takeover, more than 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue came from advertising.

In the last two months alone, the top 50 advertisers on Twitter only spent around $83 million on the platform, down from the more than $102 million they spent in the same period last year.

“Many advertisers don’t trust him based on past behavior or don’t want to be associated with him,” said market research company Insider Intelligence Principal Analyst Jasmine Enberg.

An attempt to recoup some of this lost revenue by selling subscriptions through the Twitter Blue program has so far failed to take off. At the end of March, less than one percent of Twitter’s monthly active users have signed up for the program.

Earlier this month, Musk named former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s new CEO as the company struggles to reverse a massive slump in advertising revenue and navigate an overhaul that has turned the company’s ability to operate and generate revenue upside down.

Musk’s own investment in the social media platform is now worth less than $9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which used Fidelity’s own valuation to calculate the value of his holding.

The latest markdown from Fidelity has erased about $850 million from Musk’s own massive $187 billion fortune – which is up more than $48 billion this year, thanks to a 63 percent surge in Tesla’s share price.

Find the latest news about Elon Musk and Twitter at ElonMuskWatch.com.

Watch this short video exposing the truth behind Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, an active member of the World Economic Forum.

This video is from the ThriveTime Show channel on Brighteon.com.