Xcavated
Elon Musk’s X (the platform formerly, and often still, known as Twitter) has shed ~72% of its value since the billionaire took over, according to a monthly fund disclosure from investment giant Fidelity.
It’s been a tumultuous 14 months for the social media company since Musk completed the $44 billion acquisition in October 2022, with Fidelity cutting the value of its stake in the platform almost ever since the deal crossed the line.
Indeed, political controversy, a smattering of content and feature overhauls, and a somewhat heavy-handed response to an advertiser exodus have all contributed to a series of markdowns from the mutual fund. Fidelity now values its X investment at just $5.6 million, down from $19.7 million when Musk finalized the deal, although it’s worth noting that it’s not clear how much, if any, additional insight Fidelity has into X’s financial performance.
Ad hoc
While a number of sources, including comments from Musk himself, have reported that the company’s advertising revenue has dropped 40-50% in recent quarters, execs have been keen to tout X's newly diversified revenue streams, with subscriptions and data licensing deals making up some of the advertising shortfall. The company has also, presumably, reduced costs, given that some 80% of the workforce was cut after the takeover. Indeed, Musk has generally remained optimistic, seeing a path to a $1 trillion market cap for the company back in August — a figure that would make it worth more than Meta, and ~37x more valuable than Snapchat.
