Elon Musk, who recently added “chief Twit” to his tech portfolio, never claimed the $US44 billion Twitter takeover was about making money.
But the world’s richest man took an instant $US10 billion hit to his roughly $US210 billion net worth when the deal was finalised, according to figures from Bloomberg.
Social media company shares have generally crashed amid economic uncertainty and global interest rate increases.
According to the Solactive Social Media Index, which measures publicly traded social media companies, it is down almost 40 per cent across the board.
Twitter is not alone; Meta Platforms Inc – taking in Instagram and Facebook – have tanked 53 per cent since April, while Snap Inc (Snapchat) financially gutted its co-founders with a 70 per cent dive over the same period.
Despite this, Musk has claimed his purchase of the platform was never about financial gain but rather to “help humanity”.
In a message to advertisers on Thursday, Musk insisted the platform “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences” and that Twitter must be “warm and welcoming to all”.
Twitter investors who offloaded shares amid the deal, however, fared well after they were given a 20 per cent premium when Musk made his offer.
According to Bloomberg, the $US10 billion hit to Musk’s fortune brings his total losses this year to $US66 billion.
After going on a firing spree on Friday, Musk hinted at a looser new phase for the company.
“The bird is freed,” he wrote.
He later added, “Let the good times roll.”
Truth behind ‘laid off’ workers
The #TwitterTakeover looked as if it took a brutal turn after Musk took to his newly acquired platform to taunt fired employees.
On Saturday morning, Musk tweeted a photo of what appeared to be two fired data engineers, Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson, with the caption: “Ligma Johnson had it coming”.
The masses considered it a major swipe at the two employees amid what is undoubtedly a tragic life event.
News crews outside Twitter HQ interviewed Mr Johnson.
He convincingly took aim at Musk’s goals to relax moderation on the platform – lamenting the tech billionaire’s idea of free speech.
“If free speech is, you know, is Nazis saying that trans women shouldn’t use women’s locker rooms – then awesome, I guess, mission accomplished,” he quipped facetiously to reporters flocked outside.
But it was all a ruse. It was instead a pair of local pranksters who couldn’t help themselves when seeing the media horde.
One CNBC reporter had to correct herself after getting Twitter happy when the pair were seen outside the building.
“Entire team of data engineers let go. These are two of them,” Deirdre Bosa tweeted before correcting herself three hours later.
“We have not been able to confirm that they were actual employees or that the (company) has laid off anyone today.”
Bloomberg, the Daily Mail and NBC were among other networks to be duped by the faux-firing.
Musk’s intentions with the program have been lauded by many who believe that the platform had become too heavy-handed with its content moderation and account suspensions – meaning many took Saturday morning’s tweet as gospel.
“Hey Elon Musk, can we get rid of the trash at Twitter Singapore next?” fellow entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal wrote.
“Rehire them, or I’m deleting Twitter,” another wrote.
But while this instance was a joke, Twitter employees have feared for months that Musk would enact sweeping lay-offs at the company once his $US44 billion takeover was complete.
And for some, the fears have already become a reality, with Musk immediately firing several executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, in the hours after the takeover.
He denied reports that 75 per cent of staff could be ousted while meeting with Twitter employees earlier this week.
– with the New York Post
