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X may lose up to $75 mln by year-end on advertiser exodus - NYT
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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X was sold recently for $44 billion. $75 million is 0.17% of that. I'm sure X is quaking in its boots.
It wasn't worth $44 billion when he bought it. That's why he tried desperately to back out. The reason the company is in such a dire financial situation is specifically because it was bought at that price and now pays debt service far disproportionate to its actual worth.
You're also confusing company valuation with operating revenue. $44 billion isn't how much cash they have on hand and $75 million doesn't get subtracted from that, so expressing that percentage makes no sense. One number isn't a percent of the other.
Twitter's ad revenue is already down more than 50% since the takeover and this is $75 million more of lost revenue on top of that. The company was maybe on a path to profitability at full advertising revenue and without the debt service, but now it is burning cash even as revenues tank.
They have a billion of loan payments due each year. In order to pay that, someone has to come up with cash. Having a business that actually generates a profit would be the ideal way to do that.
My point is that $75 million isn't a significant amount either way at the scale that X is operating on.
Their ad revenue had already been rapidly shrinking. They brought in about 1.5 billion from advertising in 2021. After Musk gutted the company, while I'm sure expenses are lower, advertising revenue has already dropped by 70-55% depending on which source you go by. So, a generous guess is $750 million now, which would make $75 million 10%, and that is a significant drop.
Part of that money was paid by X itself (as debt), devaluing it in that process.