Twitter CEO Elon Musk has provided some convincing commentary about his willingness to forgo revenue in order to retain “free speech.” However, more recently he has qualified that outlook by saying, “Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of reach.” Musk noting Twitter will block, remove, censor, shadow ban, deboost, downrank and stop content from amplifying based on the determination of those in charge of Twitter content.
This controlled “freedom of reach” perspective, which is really shadow-banning in practice, is generally accepted and now admitted. Against this backdrop, it becomes important to understand the priorities of the platform to understand the guidelines of the platform. Within this context the financials are key to understanding what elements are included within “approved content.” {GO DEEP}
Twitter is now a private company, therefore understanding the financials of Twitter is a little more challenging than when they were required to post their financial statements publicly. However, Elon Musk gave an interview with the Babylon Bee yesterday and revealed some of the internal financial challenges. [VIDEO HERE] I am going to summarize the status of the Twitter financial position according to what Musk himself revealed.
♦ Twitter was initially purchased by Musk and his investors for around $44 billion. The company now estimates its value around $20 billion. Musk overpaid.
♦ Musk put roughly $30 billions of his own net worth into the purchase and financed the rest.
♦ Current outstanding debt on the financing for the purchase is around $12.5 billion. Per Musk statement.
♦ Current debt service, interest on the loans (from investors), is roughly $1.5 billion/yr. $120.5 million per month for debt service. Per Musk statement.
♦ Previous revenue (when public) was roughly $4 billion/yr. Twitter was generally breaking even.
♦ Advertising revenue, as a result of changes in industry in combination with concerns about Twitter, are “half” what they were during the acquisition phase, per Musk statement. That puts current advertising revenue around $2 billion/yr.
♦ Per conversation, current status of Twitter is -$3 billion/yr and could be as high as -$4 to 5 billion/yr. This makes complete sense if $4 billion in revenue was generally the breakeven point (before acquisition), and now they have $2 billion in revenue and $1.5 billion in additional debt service [as they trim operational costs (including labor) to offset].
♦♦ For the bottom line to be an operational loss of $3 to $5 billion (est) per year, Twitter is generally losing around $300 million per month.
♦ There is only so much Tesla stock Musk can sell to support Twitter. He has limits. Per conversation.
♦ Twitter has around $100 million/mo in liquid cash available. Per conversation.
Twitter is in locked contracts with AWS and Google cloud services through 2025 at roughly $300 million per year for both [AWS $100 million, Goog $200 million].
There’s your prism for platform content!
Elon Musk needs revenue desperately.
Twitter urgently needs advertising revenue.
Without revenue or acquisition of another platform (with assets) to offset the current status of Twitter, it is only a matter of time before bankruptcy. [Note, Twitter investors are backstopped with Tesla/SpaceX as collateral against default.]
The tightrope… Elon Musk must appease the Google advertising control agents and adhere to content rules and regulation (DEI etc.) in order to maximize his revenue. That’s where Linda Yaccarino comes in as a critical player.
Bottom line, Musk has to make decisions through one prism, THE ECONOMICS. Musk’s decision-making, pro freedom or not, is constrained by this financial dependency. Hence, a lot of the platform censorship elements remain (including some personnel) and now the outreach to appoint Google/WEF approved Linda Yaccarino in an effort to enhance the revenue.
When you are perplexed about Musk decision making…. THERE’S YOUR ANSWER.
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Musk thinks people who support the left are larger than people who support the right which isn’t even remotely close to being accurate .
75% of the country despises the left with it’s pro communist and anti USA rhetoric . The reason people like Musk are so easily fooled is because the left control the entire media and are heard a lot more than the rest but the fact remains the mainstream media and leftists in general are despised by the overwhelming majority of Americans.
Biden DID NOT get anywhere remotely close to 80 million votes , most people a lot smarter than I am say he got in the mid to high 30 million range of LEGIT votes the rest are clearly 100% fraudulent .
There is only one way to make revenue go through the roof and that is to be pro Trump , anytime a business or news network was fair to Trump their ratings and business went through the roof . That is a fact
Don’t believe it ? Try being pro Trump for yourself and you will find out how fast business skyrockets .
It’s not about the people. It’s about the advertisers chasing every perverted kook fad their buddies on the left can come up with.
Musk will comply or they won’t advertise there.
We lose because won’t don’t inflict SUSTAINED economic damage on these companies. Tranheuser-Busch will go back to printing flags on their cans and some phony “pro military” propaganda, and half our friends will start buying Bud again. Just ask the NFL.
Twitter should be dropped into an active volcano. It’s the only way to be sure.
Fox News / News Corp will buy Twitter when they deliver DeSantis 2024 and convert the Trump MAGA base over to Cultural MAGA
https://www.culturalmaga.com/p/138-cultural-maga-manifesto
Cultural MAGA Manifesto
And he was promoted as such a tremendous guru of business and finance. He obviously can’t do simple math on the fly and only sounds intelligent. Wittiness is not to be confused with intellect. Remove all the government financing he has enjoyed and he’s just another guy peddling a business plan.
Hard to believe Musk could be “uninformed” regarding the loser he was dumping his personal wealth into. If there wasn’t some backroom government padding assurances, nothing about him acquiring the platform makes sense. The deep state globalist leftists own him now.
Agreed. I recall not long ago there was some connection made between Epstein and Musk. I think he was blackmailed but he could just as easily be a globalist who was “told” to “save” Twitter and try to tank Truth Social?
Everything is now a disastrous and manipulative mess in the US and globally.
Dr. G just played an audio of Ron DeSantis professing to build the wall—-WHAT?
Did Jebby approve that? Because if I remember correctly, Trump was the originator of BUILDING THE WALL
yet the stodgy backstabbing GOP never helped him one bit, they helped him with NOTHING.
So after 2025 he will be free from google!
Another back of the envelope calculation for all you finance guys
An EBITDA margin on a lets call it a software company is around 25%
So at $4B of revenue or the midpoint we get to $1B of cash flow for fixed charges
So we have the $1,000,000,000
Less Material Fixed Charges:
Interest: $1,450,000,000
AWS $300,000,000
Google $300,000,00
Pro Forma Free Cash Flow Loss $1,050,000,000
So I’d say his little free speech toy is losing $1B or more a year. Tesla shares should be under pressure.
At that rate, he’ll be broke in 200 years
Much sooner, it’s paper.
You really need to get a better understanding of finance.
Well if DS is financing it, let’s keep it going (so DS has to sink more $$ to keep it afloat) to run the ship aground ASAP. This house of cards isn’t going to last very long.
Musk needs to go back to David Sachs and ask him to explain profitability rules and performance measurement.
The Rule of 40, a company’s growth rate plus profitability margin should be equal to or greater than 40%.
Elon noted that Twitter code has been stripped to 90% of its original amount. It was loaded with censorship coding going back years.
I don’t believe it’s possible to have a singular site that’s going to be 100% available to all. It too is subject to the ideologic and spiritual battle between us. We all get outnumbered and lose our unfettered access to certain platforms.
Elon said he himself is the company constitution and Linda will be accountable to him. The Bee boys were happy to go from Twitter jail to interviewing the owner. We’ll take what we can and use it while we can.
More recently qualified that outlook? I called this out a year ago when he said the same thing:
June 16, 2022
“It’s free speech within the context of the law. So it’s not – I’m definitely not suggesting that we flout the law cause we’ll get shut down if that’s the case. And I think there’s also there’s freedom of speech or freedom of reach.”
“So I think that people should be allowed to say pretty outrageous things that are within the bounds of the law, but then…(it) doesn’t get amplified, it doesn’t get a ton of reach.”
He told us this. When he bought the thing. Not new. Anybody surprised now wasn’t paying attention then.
This is where I get interested. Remember how he was practically forced to buy it. Who in their right mind buys a money pit? I’ll answer for us all, no one.
So Elon was either snookered and bought a money pit, which is why he’s coming up with all of these excuses regarding free speech, which I seriously doubt, or he was assured that it would all work out, if he towed the line.
And now he’s receiving DS money to further the status quo and hence his excuses.
He could have fought the forced acquisition and discovered a lot of the problems in court via discovery. I admit that this is difficult with hack judges. That’s why I think he chose option two.
And now Twitter is still not truly a free speech platform. I sincerely hope that it goes the way of MySpace and people figure out that it’s everything that Sundance has told us.
It was to kneecap Truth Social at a pivotal moment in its growth trajectory. Keep the sheep inside the controlled information corrall. Just a little free-er speech to keep the sheep from busting through the gate before it’s all the way closed.
I’d Like to help him but he keeps locking me out.
sounds like he got ripped off to the tune of 24 billion. how is that smart?
Elon Musk is completely silent on the value of using the recorded twitter conversations to train his Artificial Intelligence platforms. If Musk can make AI pay off the way he wants it too, the losses at Twitter will be insignificant.
Of all the targets to talk about, why go after musk? He openly says he’s voted for Biden and still made twitter 20X better. You’re letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Both Desantis and Musk are chasing the Babylon Bee…
possible that Musk is pro-Desantis and therefore anti-Trump.
Good reason to go after Musk. Trump must win. Our currency depends on it.
Wait a minute, Musk actually admitted he voted for Biden ? That is mind boggling , nobody voted for that moron , at least not on purpose they didn’t.
AND that Old Musky was a guest a Pedo island 👍
He changed his tune quickly ,once the CIA let him know they had the goods on him
Not purely financial .
Really?!
It’s always about the money.
Why did Musk buy Twitter?
I think everyone knew the price was to high.
He hired a left wing nut job to run the company?
I’ve been wondering how much money the $8. per month per blue check mark earns?
How much does that offset Twitter’s financial liabilities?
Is Twitter bringing in big money with ads and other fees?
Musk is a game-playing master. Look at his social status and who he has to play with.
Yeah, well he just played!
How convenient for an election year.
A trial run of not going along with the census gods would get him the money he needs.
As is, still same old same old and his boy candidate, Ron, gets the benefits of his GDS Privilege, Global Deep State Privilege.
Begone e-lon.
If twittteee bird disappeared overnight, America would wake up tomorrow and wouldn’t miss a beat.
Hear! Hear!
Musk is not bringing free speech to Twitter. What more do you need to know.?
Daily Wire and Tucker Carlson are bringing their full-length shows to Twitter— meanwhile I remain permanently suspended on the platform as I have been since July 2021 with apparently no chance of appeal. This is not free speech!
https://t.me/nickjfuentes/11043
Tens of millions of Trumpers also remain permanently suspended just for supporting Trump .
If Elon had a clue he would know being pro Trump is by far and away the fastest way to rake in the $$$ .
…platform content is determined…
Just this small portion of the description of Twitter is all we need to hear to know it’s NOT an open marketplace of ideas/public town square.
Use as you wish. Just know it for what it is.
And still conservative voices are the target. Who holds the purse strings for Twitter?
All Elon had to do was read about Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop here and he would not have overpaid. He might not have bought it either, but I doubt he realized it was not much more than a vector for PsyOp political tricks.
gov’t subsidy Elon, such a trooper for ‘freedom’ while he continues the censorship and gov’t backdoor control. imaginary heroes.
Musk proved that the new Twitter is the same as the old Twitter with Matt Walsh’s “What is a woman” documentary .
Disappointing on many levels. Something always seemed a little “off” with Mr. Musk.
What’s the old saying, Money talks and Bullshit walks!! Elon has been spewing some “get headlines” bullshit about free speech. Actions speak louder than words. Another corporate fraud.
You cannot understand the mind of a billionaire, a murderer or a mass killer. He lost the greatest sum of money in a single day than anyone else in Stock Market history. He still wears a smile.
The -$3 billion was the initial trend before the layoffs and restructuring. He said Twitter is running roughly break-even now (but still negative). -$3 billion is not “roughly break-even,” it’s bankruptcy.
15:31 He says close to break-even.
Sounds like Elon was schooled by the Cabal. Live and learn. Let’s see how he extracts leverage moving forward.
in the end musk is just another non entity ruled by his earthly master “the $$$$ – Benjamin’s” in my estimation he is nothing more than a polished, fast talking graduate of the bernie madoff school of lying dustraction”!!
musk’s support of de – sanctimonious shows that he gives off the appearance of propriety and champion of “We the People – globally” he is ruled by the new world order scum an locally by the decepticon uniparty” world traitors
His lips are constantly moving – therefore he lies!!
tmUSK IS NOTHING MORE THAN A fake – phooey and fraud – he “talks the talk BUT DOES NOT WALK THE WALK”!!
I still believe only Twits Tweet. Nothing has really changed.
The corporate
executivesorganizers of these Blackrock neo-fascist monopolies do not generate revenue, they simply allocated capital which flows in accordance with global governance priorities.