Somepalvelu X’s value is said to have collapsed.
Twitter has changed radically under Elon Musk’s reign. Illustration image. PDO
The value of the messaging service X (formerly Twitter) bought by Elon Musk has collapsed, reports Bloomberg. The company’s value is said to be less than half of the original purchase price.
According to a person familiar with the matter, the company’s value is now estimated to be $19 billion, while Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in April 2022.
After the deal, most of Twitter’s staff was fired and Musk renamed the company X. According to Bloomberg, he also changed some content rules and lost more than half of the advertising revenue.
Musk has hinted in the past that he would like to take X public, but the sharp drop in the company’s value may make that difficult.
Towards a paid service
Musk’s plan for X is to move away from advertising and move towards paid services. So far, however, the company has gotten less than one percent of users to sign up for its monthly paid service.
Musk has also said that X should be made into an “all-encompassing application”. The company introduced voice and video calls earlier this month.
It was previously reported that X plans to test charging an annual fee of one dollar to its users in New Zealand and the Philippines. According to X, paid customers can publish content, respond to publications, like, quote others’ publications and save publications to their bookmarks. Currently, the functions are free.
Musk warned at the end of September about the service becoming paid.
– We are going in the direction of a small monthly fee for users, Musk said at the time.