Elon Musk's Twitter is now worth a third of its $44 billion price tag, Fidelity says
Twitter is now worth only $15 billion, nearly a third of the $44 billion that Elon Musk paid for the platform in 2022, according to Fidelity.
The asset manager, which owns an equity stake in Twitter under X Holdings Corp., had previously slashed its valuation by more than 55% at the end of last year, about one month after Musk acquired the platform.
Musk's purchase was soon followed by the bungled rollout of a subscription service and the banning of journalists, which scared off advertisers and resulted in more than half of them halting spending on the social media company.
With the cost of Twitter shares continuing to drop, the billionaire finally appointed former advertising media executive Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO earlier this month in an attempt to increase revenue.
In December, Musk released a poll on Twitter asking users to vote on whether he should step down from his role as CEO. More than 57% of respondents voted yes. Yaccarino's appointment came six months later.
Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022
Under Musk, Twitter has undergone mass layoffs, with under 2,000 people now working at what was once a 7,500 person company. Musk has also faced multiple lawsuits pertaining to hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid rent on Twitter's office spaces.
Musk's attempt to launch an encrypted messaging service earlier this month was also widely-criticized by security experts.
The platform has also been plagued by technical difficulties. Just last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' announcement of his 2024 presidential bid on Spaces was rocked by glitches. The event was also seen as indicative of Musk's desire to shift the platform towards a more conservative user base.
Tucker Carlson also announced recently that he would be bringing the next iteration of his show to the platform, following his abrupt departure from Fox News.
"There aren't many platforms left that allow free speech," the controversial host said in a three-minute video posted from his Twitter account. "The last big one remaining in the world, the only one, is Twitter."
Ironically, Musk most recently came under fire for giving into censorship demands from the Turkish government, amid a contested election that was ultimately won by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today.
— Twitter Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) May 13, 2023