Hi everybody and welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast.
In today's episode, we delve into Twitter's rocky financial
landscape as Elon Musk reveals a nearly 50% decline in
advertising revenue coupled with a substantial debt burden, which
have kept Twitter's cash flow firmly in the negative.
Now, despite optimistic predictions in March that
Twitter could achieve positive cash flow by June, the reality
has been a tougher nut to crack. Highlighting that the aggressive
cost cutting measures undertaken since Musk's acquisition of
Twitter last October might not be enough, we'll be examining
the reasons behind the slump, including widespread criticism
over Twitter's content moderation policies that have
led to an exodus of advertisers. We'll also discuss Musk's
appointment of Linda Yancarino as CEO and the controversial
news scheme rewarding content creators with the share of ad
revenue move that has already seen high profile influencer.
Andrew Tate Pocket over $20,000, but don't go away.
We're just getting started, and we'll take a quick commercial
break and be right back with more indepth coverage of this
unfolding story. So stay tuned.
Twitter is in a slump. Now there's a nearly 50%
advertising revenue downturn and a substantial debt burden
continuing to throttle Twitter's cash flow, according to a
weekend statement by Elon Musk falling short of his optimistic
projection in March. The social media giant could
achieve a positive cash flow by June, they said.
Before we can indulge in the luxury of anything else we need
to attain positive cash flow, Musk responded to proposals of
recapitalization, underscoring the financial challenges his
company faces now. Musk's revelations reaffirmed
the tough road ahead for Twitter since its takeover in October
last year and as measures to reduce costs fall short and
shifting the platform into a profitable territory.
This hints at the recovery of Twitter's ad revenue being
slower than what Musk had initially anticipated in his BBC
interview in April, suggesting a strong return of advertisers to
the site. Now, after executing significant
layoffs and making cuts on cloud service expenses, Musk had noted
that the company managed to slash its non debt expenditures
to $1.5 billion, down from the projected $4.5 billion for 2023.
However. Twitter continues to bear the
brunt of a debt the resulted from the $44 billion deal that
privatized the firm with annual interest payments telling around
$1.5 billion. The must didn't provide a
definitive time frame regarding the 50% reduction in ad revenue,
but stated that Twitter was aiming to garner $3 billion in
revenue for 2023, the notable dip from 5.1 billion in 2021.
Critics have pointed it. Twitter's lacks content
moderation policies as a contributing factor to the
plunge and ad revenue. Following the withdrawal of
numerous advertisers reluctant to have their promotions
adjacent to inappropriate content and in an attempt to
boost ad sales, a crucial area for Twitter's future, Musk
appointed Linda Yakorino, the former ad chief at Comcast's NBC
Universal, as CEO, despite the concentrated efforts on ramping
up subscription revenue. Yakorino, who assumed her role
in June. Revealed to investors that the
company's focus would shift towards video creator and
commerce partnerships. Furthermore, preliminary
discussions have commenced with potential and enter edit this
out. Furthermore, preliminary
discussions have commenced with political and entertainment
figures, payment services and media publishers.
And in an innovative move to attract more creators to the
platform, Twitter announced on Thursday that select contact
creators would be eligible to receive a portion.
Of the ad revenue generated by the company Now this initiative
has already seen a high profile influencer, Andrew Tate
receiving over $20,000 a take currently facing rape and human
trafficking charges in Romania, publicize the screenshot of the
payment notifying stating every penny goes to tatepledge.com.
The funds distributed by Stripe represent Twitter share of the
ad revenue now after a previous ban was lifted by Musk.
State only resumed his Twitter activity on November, and the
British influencer had been expelled from the platform in
2017 due to violations of the terms of service with
provocative tweets. Upon Musk's intervention,
though, Tate, along with several other suspended accounts, were
reinstated to Twitter. What are representatives,
however, have remained very silent in response to requests
for comment from us regarding this issue, and Musk first
introduced the payment scheme for content creators in June.
Claiming that X slash Twitter will start paying creators for
ads served in their replies and with an inaugural round of
payments totaling $5 million. This scheme, however, is only
open to those verified on the platform.
The Washington Post reported that some of the first
beneficiaries appear to be high profile FAR influencers,
sparking a wave of inquiries from Twitter and edit this out,
sparking a wave of inquiries from Twitter users questioning
the selection criteria, 1 user said.
It's pretty lame. There is no payout coming my
way. That was Matt Navarra, social
media analyst who claimed his Twitter account generated 61
million impressions since February 3rd, 2023, underscoring
the ongoing controversy surrounding the platform's new
revenue sharing model. This scheme could lure such
people as Mr. Beast and other high profile Youtubers over to
the Twitter platform so they can make more revenue with the work
that they've done. And we're here to keep you up to
date on any new revelations that happen on Twitter or any other
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