According to an internal email seen by American news media, Elon Musk has estimated the current value of Twitter at USD 20 billion dollars, which is less than half the USD 44 billion dollars he spent on the social media network only five months earlier.
The email to staff members discussed a new equity compensation programme at the San Francisco-based company as well as the allocation of shares in X Holdings, Twitter’s parent company since Elon Musk bought it in late October.
The compensation plan values the platform at USD 20 billion, slightly more than that of Snap (USD 18.2 billion dollars), parent company of Snapchat, or of social network and creative website Pinterest (USD 18.7 billion dollars), both of which, unlike Twitter, are publicly traded.
When the news agency AFP emailed a query to Twitter’s communications team, a poop emoji was generated automatically in response.
Elon Musk outlines the dramatic decline in Twitter’s valuation in a confidential email. He claims that the platform had severe financial issues and that at one point it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
“Twitter was trending to lose – USD 3 Billion dollars per year,” Elon Musk said in a message posted on the platform.
He cited a revenue drop of USD 1.5 billion a year and a debt-servicing burden of the same amount — leaving it with “only four months of money.”
Elon Musk, who owns the majority of Twitter’s shares, simply added: “Extremely bad position.”
Since taking control, he has drastically reduced the workforce, lowering it from 7,500 to under 2,000.
Without specifying a time frame, he wrote in the email that he saw a “clear but tough route” to a valuation of USD 250 billion dollars.
Elon Musk, who is also the chief executive of Tesla Inc. and aerospace group SpaceX said that Twitter employees would be able to sell their shares for cash.
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