Elon Musk says Twitter's cash flow still negative as ad revenue drops
reuters.comFew months ago he said ad revenue dropped 50%.
Then a month ago or so he said all advertisers returned in full.
Now he's saying, today, that again ad revenue dropped 50%.
The guy is a pathological liar, you can't understand at all what's happening from his words. It's like listening to Putin's takes on reality. One day Wagner is just a myth, then he paid billions to them, then a week later they're a myth again.
This is why I watch what he does and what's happening to Twitter. And this is still one airplane nosediving directly to the ground as we speak.
>you can't understand at all what's happening from his words
Funnily I was just poring over his tweet with usage stats (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1679992267111809024), and I find it very suspicious that some numbers are exactly the same (with 4 significant digits!)
US Mobile Latest = US Mobile 7d Avg
Japan Mobile Latest = Japan Mobile 7d Avg
There are also very close numbers:
UK Total Latest 15.36B
UK Total 7d Avg 15.37B
EU Total Latest 63.67B
EU Total 7d Avg 63.66B
Seems like an incredible coincidence if these numbers are legit.
I would happily bet that there is some 'keep Elon happy' code running on Twitter servers at the moment with the express goal of showing him the figures that he wants to see.
as add revenue drops
The fundamental disconnect in Musk's business plan --- advertising is really not about "free speech" but rather the opposite.
Otherwise, Twitter shouldn't charge for it and advertiser's wouldn't be fleeing.
Offering a soapbox to extremists demonstrates a lack of focus and understanding of the nature of the business he bought into.
Clearly, his CEO also doesn’t have his ear on it, either, despite she is an advertising expert. All the stupid things that Twitter was doing before her, have continued seamlessly after her.
Twitter is very different from Musk's other businesses. Technology is involved ... but only as an enabler, not as the primary objective.
In order to become profitable, the primary objective of Twitter should be to create a medium that is attractive to advertisers.
This is not inherently a technical problem. You can't solve this by firing a bunch of people and threatening the rest. Inviting extremists and goof balls to the stage for some politically oriented "free speech" won't do it either.
For the first time in his business career, "success" is not about doing what Musk wants and stroking his ego. And he is not handling it well.
Bottom line: Advertising is not the ideal business for a "free speech absolutist". Watching Musk with all his wealth slowly and painfully come to this simple realization is actually kinda entertaining ... or maybe I'm just as disturbed and egotistical as he is.
A free speech absolutist wouldn't ban his opponents, journalists.
A free speech absolutist would not ban links to Mastodon, Instagram, Substack, Linktree, and most recently hide Threads from search and trends.
A free speech absolutist would not say things like "saying cis is a bannable offense."
So can we please stop giving credibility to this claim, because it's complete BS. Musk's idea of "free speech" is that "you can say anything you want, as long as I like it."
Yes. I put "free speech" in quotes in an effort to signify Musk's adulterated definition of it.
> Twitter should be to create a medium that is attractive to advertisers.
The problem for Musk is that a Twitter that is attractive to advertisers isn’t attractive to Musk.
Let that sink in, because advertisers are turned into public sentiment moreso than most, because their dollars are on the line. And where is public sentiment? Pro LGBTQ, pro abortion, pro BLM, anti MAGA, anti white supremacy, pro democracy. Essentially the antithesis of Musk. Musk is very un-American.
This is why Twitter must fail as a business for as long as Musk owns it. He wants it to be his personal playpen, but his ideal world is a white ethnostate where he is the boss.
And that’s why Twitter ads are now crypto scams and waifus pushing anime porn games. Because Musk’s Twitter audience is now Nazis, white supremacists, MAGAs, and Kremlin apologists.
The problem for Musk is that a Twitter that is attractive to advertisers isn’t attractive to Musk.
Exactly!
Buying Twitter wasn't about making a sound business decision --- it was mainly about Musk's ego. His ego built the trap that he now finds himself locked in.
It was capricious. He offered to buy Twitter on a lark. If you believe some accounts, because an ex girlfriend complained that the Babylon Bee was being excluded for some other reason than being religious bigots.
Then someone at Twitter had the presence of mind to hire lawyers that could write an airtight contract.
Then, fully expecting to prevail, Elon threw a public tantrum for months, with the goal of being told to go away. Instead he got taken to court to force him to follow through.
THEN, with insufficient planning due to a court date approaching, he decided to write the check, and he dragged along the banks that earlier thought they were on a cool adventure with Elon, not a spiteful tantrum episode. Maybe he thought he could "flip" Twitter and either make money or at least lose less than a settlement would have cost.
He was totally unprepared and got his ass handed to him.
Now it is just amusing to watch.
It's about as amusing as watching an occupied building on fire. You can't isolate your shadenfreude over Musk's comeuppance from the real world damage that he is doing.
> the primary objective of Twitter should be to create a medium that is attractive to advertisers.
which is what is really missing in every HN discussion of how you could rebuild twitter in a weekend.
that's only if all you see is the front end which is users talking to each other.
the backend problem of making advertisers happy is a whole different issue, which is a large data warehousing / analytics / reporting / billing problem.
and then there's content moderation, which is both demanded by a large subsection of users and advertisers and by political regimes that you operate under that you can't opt-out of.
and the content moderation task is made harder by the technological war with the 'bots' which requires backend tooling.
She just got her desk set up. And is wondering why it is sliding toward a glass cliff.
> Offering a soapbox to extremists demonstrates a lack of focus
Why doesn’t anyone consider, given what he’s done with Twitter, that turning it into a soapbox to extremists was the whole point? He obviously is very sympathetic to far right ideology and sees himself as a warrior, a general even, of right wing culture wars.
Seems to me that Elon Musk and all his transphobic, anti democracy, pro Putin, MAGA fans want to turn the USA into an apartheid state like Musk’s home country.
It’s the only rational lens that makes sense. Anything else requires Musk to have been bamboozled, or to be an abject idiot. I’m willing to go along with the latter explanation, but I think it’s not the whole story.
turning it into a soapbox to extremists was the whole point?
Maybe so. Political propaganda is sure to alienate at least half the audience so a 50% drop in revenue makes perfect sense.
Revenue dropping while simultaneously implementing a revenue sharing scheme for influencers? It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for ‘em.
If it doesn't make sense, look closer until it does.
The distributed amount is $5 million. That's not a lot by Twitter standards, they have 500k users, so that's $10 per user average.
However the money only goes to accounts which are large enough (5m impressions in 3 months or something), have a Stripe account, are in specific countries, and most importantly, approved by Twitter, which somehow resulted in approval of all the accounts Elon personally is communicating with, all his buddies pushing Tesla investors news, talking about how he's a genius, his rightwing buddies, even Andrew Tate somehow, and select minor celebrities which have also repeatedly announced they like Elon.
Currently Twitter is intensely distributing emails to their users, urging them to sign up for Twitter Blue, so they "don't miss out" on the revenue sharing program:
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1680185572730478592
This is a classic "pay fee to claim award" scam. The vast majority of these accounts will hopelessly be trying to get the impressions they need, and be approved by Twitter, and never will be.
But only 50k new subscribers will cover the cost of these $5 million distributed to the top brass.
Clearly Elon believes he can get hundreds of thousands to sign-up for Twitter Blue at the hope of getting money. Give money to get money.
Are there that many gullible users? I don't know. I think everyone gullible on Twitter is already a subscriber so this will fail, as well.
"There's a sucker born every minute." - PT Barnum
Usage up 3.5% week over week but revenue declining (according to Musk)
Seems like they’re successfully pandering to an audience that 1) Doesn’t want to pay and 2) advertisers don’t want to advertise to.
Wonder what that type of audience might be comprised of.
And 3) advertisers don't want their product associated with.
An online forum like Twitter is rather unique in that the audience also helps *define* the medium.
Imagine a TV equivalent of Twitter defined by "freedom of expression" --- where random members of the audience are allowed to take to the stage and "freely" say or do whatever craziness they want without restriction.
How long would advertisers support this free for all?
It exists and it’s called CSPAN. It’s a lot like Twitter actually, so good point.
Users went from being able to read 600 posts a day to 800 posts a day (or maybe it's fully relaxed?) in that week over week.
Went to 1000. But I don’t think there is any meaningful limit right now. Like most things Elon does on Twitter, this was reverted within 2 days. However the login wall is still mostly there. That surely has continued impact.