--- title: "Twitter Finances Reportedly Tank Under Elon Musk’s Brilliant Leadership" description: "According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter's year-over-year revenue and adjusted earnings took a big hit in December not long after Musk took the reins." date: "2023-03-09" modified: "2023-03-09" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/twitter-finances-tank-under-elon-musks" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Finance" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "the digest" - "twitter" --- # Twitter Finances Reportedly Tank Under Elon Musk’s Brilliant Leadership ![]() *\Image: Getty Images\* ## Regressing Revenue How are Twitter's finances going since Elon Musk's controversial takeover? If a new [report from the *Wall Street Journal*]() is anything to go by, not so great. Because Musk [took the company private]() in October, it can be tricky to glean its shaky finances from the outside. But now, sources tell the *WSJ* that Twitter took a major hit in December, with both revenue and adjusted earnings plummeting by a shocking 40 percent year-over-year, according to an update to investors. Likely the biggest culprit for the sizeable dent in its earnings was the exodus of panicked advertisers, who [feared an uptick of hate speech and harmful content]() on the platform due to Musk's supposedly lax stances on "[free speech]()." as well as being scared off by the controversy Musk constantly incited — [and continues to stir](). According to an analysis conducted by Pathmatics, which the *WSJ* cites, more than 70 of Twitter's top 100 advertisers have paused spending money on the platform. Prior to Musk's takeover, the advertisers accounted for around 90 percent of Twitter's revenue. To say they will be sorely missed would be an understatement. ## Ignorance Is Bliss Nevertheless, either out of sheer ignorance, hubris, or an attempt to maintain a semblance of control, Musk maintains that, actually, he's steering the company's finances admirably. At a Morgan Stanley conference held on Tuesday, Musk [claimed]() Twitter would've gone bankrupt "in four months" if it weren't for his aggressive cost cutting, which includes [firing over half his workforce]() and [refusing to pay rent]() or [even bills](). "In the absence of action, Twitter would have had $6 billion in cost and $3 billion in revenue," he said, [as quoted by *The New York Times*](). Musk was happy to take credit for those gains, but sidled around owning up to the advertiser-shaped hole in Twitter's revenue, calling its decline "cyclic," "political," and blamed the media for the advertisers' loss of faith, according to the *NYT*. "Believe what you see on Twitter and not what you see in newspapers," he said. It's hard to reconcile Musk's claims. After all, Twitter seems to barely function, with [frequent outages]() and simple functions like [links and images outright breaking](). In other words, it certainly doesn't look like a company that's on the mend. **More on Twitter:** *[Elon Musk Finally Relents and Apologizes for Mocking Disabled Twitter Ex-Employee]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()