Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, Twitter and electric car maker Tesla, watches a speech during his visit to the Vivatech tech startup and innovation trade fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16, 2023. (Photo: Alain JOCARD/AFP) ) (Photo credit: ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images)
Alain Jocard | AFP | Getty Images
Tesla Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CTO and Twitter’s executive chairman, said early Saturday morning that the company’s cash flow was still low due to a nearly 50% drop in advertising revenue and “heavy debt.” said to be negative.
“You need to achieve positive cash flow before you have the luxury of doing anything else,” Musk wrote in response to the tweet.
Musk bought Twitter last October for a deal worth about $44 billion, including about $13 billion in debt. He sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock as part of financing the deal.
Hundreds of advertisers were on Twitter by January as Musk slashed the company’s headcount and responded to changes to the platform, notably restoring previously banned accounts and changing its approach to content moderation. reduced or stopped advertising spend on
In April, Musk told the BBC that “almost all” advertisers had resumed buying ads on Twitter. He also claimed at the time that the company was “almost at breakeven” and expected to be cash flow positive within the next quarter.
His statement about Twitter’s cash flow problems comes today, just over a month after former Twitter head of global advertising, Linda Yaccarino. Comcast’s NBCUniversal becomes CEO of Twitter. NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
Yaccarino’s appointment has raised hopes among media industry players that Twitter will address pressing challenges to its advertising business.
In recent days, Twitter has begun donating a portion of its advertising revenue to select content creators on its platform. Musk’s remarks came in response to followers wanting to know why its revenue-sharing program was so limited in scope.
A number of widely followed accounts on Twitter posted that they were disappointed that they were not yet eligible to earn income from the program. As The Verge previously reported, the revenue sharing program will only available Paid to users who paid for an authenticated subscription to Twitter Blue, with the amount paid “driven by advertisements placed in replies to Tweets.”
Influencer Andrew Tate — who endorses misogynist view Twitter posted that he paid more than $20,000 to him, who is on trial in Romania for rape, trafficking and forming a criminal organization that sexually exploits women. Tate filed charges against the accusers who made these accusations.
Fans and promoters of Tesla stocks and products, including Omar Kazi (who uses the handle “@WholeMarsBlog” on Twitter) and Sawyer Merritt, as well as several right-wing influencers, have also posted about accepting payments on Twitter. , each posted a profit of more than $5,000. .
Mainstream and other influencers who have shared details about their Twitter earnings include Brian and Ed’s Classenstein, Mr. Beast, and the account @interneth0f (which stands for Internet Hall of Fame). The Internet Hall of Fame posts and redistributes screenshots of other people’s popular posts from social media.
It’s not clear how much Twitter paid creators in total for this first payment. Twitter responded to CNBC’s request for comment on Saturday with an automated reply containing crude symbols. Twitter’s parent company, X Corp., faces numerous lawsuits from former employees and vendors over unpaid bills and severance payments.
