The Twitter platform decisions are making headlines and opening conversation, because Elon Musk is trying to retain his platform against all odds and not really working to solve his problem.  Several platform changes are taking place that are being less than honestly explained.  As interested CTH readers look on quizzically, perhaps it’s time for me to revisit the truth of Musk’s challenge as it has always existed so people can understand. [NBC ARTICLE HERE, that doesn’t understand]

Keep in mind, long before people realized the Dept of Homeland Security (FBI, DHS, CISA etc.) had a portal into Twitter, I was explaining how transparently obvious it was. {Go Deep – Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop} In part, the transparency of the problem is driven by CTH understanding of the costs associated with Twitter as a very unique platform in the sphere of social media. {Go Deep – Understand the Costs}

With the latest revelations we shared about the financial position of Twitter {Go Deep on FINANCIALS}, all of the moves now underway make sense.  Musk was on track to hit a date in/around October of this year where Twitter would be insolvent. If you had read those previous “Go Deep” links, you will easily see the problem. However, if you have not read those backgrounds, this could be difficult to understand.

[Source Link]

Musk is being disingenuous in his explanation here.  I’m being generous in not calling him a fibber.  His problem is multifaceted, and he is looking at it with two approaches.

First, by Musk’s prior admissions, he’s losing approximately $300 million/month and needs to grow revenue fast.  That’s why he hired Linda Yaccarino.  Second, he’s trying desperately to reduce operational costs for data processing.  Twitter has a systemic platform cost issue that will not change easily – due to his very unique issue of “simultaneous users,” in combination with no proprietary content.  That’s where he is being less than honest about these changes.

Twitter is a global discussion platform, essentially a global commenting system.  Elon Musk is trying to address the cost and utility of his platform at the same time that a similarly constructed META alternative is about to launch.  Yes, Mark Zuckerberg is JUST ABOUT to launch a Twitter version of META that will link Facebook, Instagram, and Google YouTube content into one big instant conversation and commenting system.

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Everything is connected to the economics and financials of the thing.  This is the one guiding truth that underlines every curiosity of human nature.  If you want to understand behavior, follow the money.

An example surfaces today [SOURCE HERE] highlighting the background hands of those who seek to control public opinion.  This is the psychological operation that we see through every mechanism under the command and control of interests who have vested financial stakes.  Notice the disclaimer.:

“Visibility limited: this Tweet may violate Twitter’s rules against Hateful Conduct”

Yeah, we can’t have people sharing honest, albeit softly critical, opinion of Ron DeSantis because they become a threat – ergo, hateful conduct.

Comrade, wrong thoughts require reeducation.  In the bigger picture, this is all part of the control mechanisms operating to influence the 2024 election.  And yes, Elon Musk is very much a part of it just like the DHS operatives that controlled the platform before he arrived.

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Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is locked in a contract dispute with his former network who took him off the air, but continues to enforce the contract he signed with them.  As the contract battle wages, and while litigation with the network continues, Carlson is limited in his options for platform broadcast.

As a result, Tucker Carlson’s personal Twitter account which existed prior to his Fox contract and is not subject to the terms and agreements, remains an outlet for him to use while not violating his non-compete clause.  Almost all other platforms represent what would be considered online competition to Fox Digital, so broadcasting a new show on any of those digital platforms would represent a potential legal issue and not an option. {Direct Rumble Link}

Tonight, Tucker Carlson aired a 10-minute monologue, what he calls “episode 1” from his Twitter account. While Tucker does not financially benefit from the Twitter platform, for the social media owner Elon Musk the broadcast represents much needed content oxygen. Tucker states at the end of his monologue that if Twitter suppresses or uses their internal fact-check mechanism known as ‘Community Notes‘ to control his content, he will exit the platform. WATCH: 

(Reuters) […] Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the collapse of the massive dam on Tuesday, which sent floodwaters across a swathe of the war zone and forced thousands to flee.  Ukraine said Russia committed a deliberate war crime in blowing up the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam, which powered a hydroelectric station. The Kremlin blamed Ukraine, saying it was trying to distract from the launch of a major counteroffensive Moscow says is faltering. (more)

Elon Musk, who not coincidentally entered an ideological alignment with Fox News CEO Rupert Murdoch on behalf of Ron DeSantis, has a vested financial interest in making sure his Community Notes police do not attach warnings and citations to the “controversial” dialogue of Carlson.  While there appears to be an ongoing CN notes war in the background, so far the Musk administrators have been able to keep the platform control agents from impeding the broadcast.

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The New York Times has gained insider information on the current advertising revenue for the social media platform Twitter. [Article Here]  Ignoring the nonsense narrative engineering and just focusing on the data itself, the revenue side for Twitter is half what we previously estimated.  This makes the overlay for decisions on platform content even more stark.

According to the data, ad revenue for the month of April was a lackluster $88 million.  That’s a pace of just over $1 billion a year.  With a pre-Musk operating expense of $4.5 billion, and pre-Musk revenue at $4 billion cited by the Twitter owner as the backdrop, here’s the outlook.

Assuming post Musk labor cost reductions saved $500 million, a decline in revenue to $1 billion/yr would be a $3.0 billion deficit, to wit you would need to add the $1.5 billion in debt service as part of the investor buyout structure.

That puts Twitter into a $4.5 billion loss ballpark per year.

This is the high end of what Musk previously estimated in public statements.  Now we see why.

(New York Times) – Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May was $88 million, down 59 percent from a year earlier, according to an internal presentation obtained by The New York Times.  (read more)

$1 billion per year in advertising revenue is a whopping 75% loss from the claimed $4 billion in revenue before the Musk purchase.  Perhaps the Fidelity estimate of company value at $15 billion is closer to reality.

If the value of Twitter has dropped to the $15 billion level, that means almost all of the $30 billion in personal equity Musk put into the company has been lost.

Current investor debt is $12.5 billion, with $1.5 billion in debt service/yr. A valuation of $15 billion would only leave Musk with around $2.5 billion in equity position.  If the valuation is accurate, Musk personally would have lost around $27.5 billion in this Twitter platform purchase.

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People often ask me why I seem to highlight datapoints and background events that do not trend to the media-driven narrative priority of the moment.  The answer is simple; everything is connected to the next thing that happens. If you do not outline the originating point, the accurate reference is missed when needed.

This approach is why I have focused significant research on Elon Musk’s financial situation with Twitter {GO DEEP}.

The issue of Twitter’s financial status speaks to the motives of Musk that later surface – like his relationship with Fox News billionaire Rupert Murdoch.  Once you see the connections, suddenly everything makes sense.  Musk and Murdoch have intersecting interests.

Elon Musk is in desperate need of revenue for his social media platform Twitter.  By his own admissions, Twitter is currently in the red on an annual basis between $1.5 to $4.0 billion; that may go as high as $5 billion, depending on what happens over the next six months.  Currently losing $100 million/mo, Musk is limited on how much he can pull from his other companies to support Twitter, and with $1.5 billion in debt service alone on the $12.5 billion borrowed for the Twitter purchase, Musk needs an income stream quickly.

Advertising revenue has dropped 50%. This is the motive for Musk to hire Linda Jaccarino, the former head of NBC Universal advertising, to bring urgently needed revenue to a platform currently considered too extreme for the DEI-minded corporate advertising executives.  Musk is also captive to contracts with Bezos’ Amazon (AWS) and Google cloud services for platform data processing support.  Those very expensive contracts – $1 billion and $2 billion respectively – do not expire until 2025.

In short, Musk needs revenue. For Twitter, this reality drives his decision-making.  Enter, Rupert Murdoch.

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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.

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Everything I have outlined about Twitter is going to surface as accurate over time.  There are two major elements: (1) DHS govt influence, now evidenced in the Twitter Files, and (2) the Twitter financial issues, which explain the recent hiring of Linda Yaccarino, which are soon to surface.

Yesterday, Elon Musk responded to criticism of Twitter censorship, vis-a-vis government demands, with this Tweet: “Please point out where we had an actual choice and we will reverse it.”

The Musk supporters are saying Musk has to comply with government demands if their national laws require it. However, that angle doesn’t take into consideration the choice that Musk/Twitter always have.

If the platform content is not approved by a government, and that govt then demands removal or censorship of that content, Twitter always has two options. One, to comply with the demand and block or restrict the user content (which is the direction they have taken) – or two, stop allowing the platform to operate in the country demanding the censorship. It is the latter option that everyone always avoids mentioning.

However, the issue appears to be bigger and goes to the heart of the second aspect of Twitter we have noted.

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Despite previously having no issues with 3.3 million listeners for a Twitter Spaces event with BBC, it only took a few hundred thousand listeners for the collaboration between Ron DeSantis and Elon Musk to end in abject failure.

The goal was for DeSantis to use the edgy and cool Twitter Spaces tech to launch his campaign. The outcome was an embarrassing display of a billionaire funded national campaign trying too hard to launch a candidacy built on transparent fraud and political pretense.  The memes coming from the disastrous event are hilarious, and very fitting.

Fox News – Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign announcement was mired by repeated technical glitches on Twitter Wednesday evening, in a black eye for the social media platform.

The highly-anticipated announcement, set to be made via a conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk and tech entrepreneur David Sacks on Twitter’s “Spaces” feature, was delayed as it appeared the platform was overwhelmed. Twitter’s mobile app repeatedly crashed and users complained that they were unable to hear the broadcast.

Nearly 700,000 users logged in to hear the announcement roughly 20 minutes after it was launched. The event was then abruptly shut down without explanation.  […] Twitter users pummeled Musk over the botched rollout, and Democrats were quick to capitalize. (read more)

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The authoritarian government of Turkish President Recep Erdogan, a man of notoriously manipulative and unstable disposition intent on recreating the Ottoman empire, demanded that in advance of their elections Twitter remove the voice of the opposition party.  Elon Musk complied:

This decision is interesting because it shows that despite his questions about the need to defend democracy and free speech, Twitter owner Elon Musk is willing to support the removal of opposition political parties during elections.

Musk justifies this decision by saying the choice was between shutting down a political viewpoint or shutting down all of Turkish Twitter access.  Musk chose to simply eliminate one set of voices in opposition to the existing government in Turkey.

When Rumble was faced with a similar threat from France, Rumble stood with the principle of freedom and refused to block content the administration of Emmanuel Macron did not like.  Rumble left France rather than comply with authoritarian censorship demands.  Twitter remains operational in Turkey, willing to support the authoritarian censorship demands.  An interesting contrast.

I have fielded many calls in the past few days about this seemingly 180° reversal from Elon Musk in his ‘speech’ positions.  The hiring of Linda Yaccarino was one massive datapoint that seemed to indicate the priorities of Musk had changed.  The acquiescent to Turkish government requests less than 24 hours later is another datapoint.

The general questions all fall in the spectrum of ‘what has changed’?

I will answer here, what I have answered privately.

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Twitter platform owner Elon Musk has confirmed the hiring of Linda Yaccarino as CEO of Twitter. Many reactions are happening, but CTH analysis generally likes to stay ahead of the reactions and more into the future of what each datapoint means.  That said, here’s some context.

The general or more common logic, completely understandable, is to look at the hiring of Yaccarino as binary.  Either Musk was previously lying about everything he believed in, or the revenue situation is at a critical mass. Otherwise, it really doesn’t make sense to bring in Linda Yaccarino.

Before going deeper, it is critical to know just how ideological Linda Yaccarino is.  The former head of NBCUniversal is the apex voice in the system of promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) from an advertising perspective.   I’m not talking about a little bit ideological, I mean the full dna-level, metastatic, this is the core essence of what makes Yaccarino believe she has purpose in life.

Changing social culture by leveraging commercial enterprise is Yaccarino’s life work.

Literally Linda Yaccarino believes that advertisers should determine the product being sold. This is not a spoof, exaggeration, hyperbole or a spin on her outlook. Yaccarino believes marketing and advertising executives should be able to control the physical content, the actual stuff, created by the publisher they pay to advertise their product.

A traditional example might be Ford Motor Company telling Motor Trend magazine what positions to place ads for competitors in the auto industry as a contingency for their ad spend.  A modern example might be Disney telling Fox News what content may be discussed by Tucker Carlson.  This is the origin of DEI ideology controlling platform content.

To understand how this mindset applies to Twitter and Elon Musk, watch a few minutes of this previous interview between Yaccarino and Musk at a convention of advertisers. This is an example of how the NBCUniversal executive thinks.  WATCH (prompted):

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