Elon Musk’s X could be worth as little as $8B according to industry expert – $36B LESS than he paid for it a year ago and $5B less than its debt

Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, could be worth about $36 billion less than what Elon Musk paid for it a year ago, according to a rough estimate.

Reuters media columnist Jennifer Saba estimated the company’s valuation this week at $8 billion, based on Musk’s public statements that advertising revenue has fallen by half since he took it private.

That’s less than the $13 billion in debt X owes creditors, and far less than the $44 billion Mush paid for the company last October.

While Snap.

Separate third-party data provided to Reuters supports Musk’s claims of declining sales, showing that monthly US ad revenue at

X has struggled to retain some advertisers since the acquisition, as brands were wary of rapid changes under Musk’s ownership, including his rebranding of the platform

X has struggled to retain some advertisers since the acquisition, as brands were wary of rapid changes under Musk’s ownership, including his rebranding of the platform.

Musk’s latest change this week angered some users after he removed headlines from links to news articles.

Linked articles now appear as an image and contain text in the left corner stating the domain of the link. Users must click on the image if they want to see the full article, which can lead to confusion.

The change led to harsh criticism from users who claimed it was difficult to distinguish between news and other types of information shared on the platform.

Journalist Tom Warren of The Verge criticized the move in a post on X: “It’s the latest in a long line of stupid changes to this platform.”

‘I can no longer distinguish between an image and a link to an article. why did this change,” one user wrote.

Another said the change “really ruins the UX (user experience)” and added that links now “look like someone just shared an image.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino was expected to meet Thursday with bank lenders that helped finance Musk’s acquisition to outline the company’s business plans, according to a person familiar with the plans.

The company’s U.S. ad revenue fell 78 percent in December 2022 compared to the same month the year before, the steepest monthly decline since the acquisition, according to ad analytics firm Guideline, which tracks ad spending data from major ad agencies.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino was scheduled to meet Thursday with bank lenders that helped finance Musk’s acquisition to outline the company’s business plans.

Links posted to the platform will no longer clearly display headings and descriptions below the preview image, but will instead look like the example above

Advertising revenue fell 60 percent year-over-year in August, according to the most recent data from Guideline. X declined to comment on the data.

Musk has previously acknowledged that the platform has taken a hit to revenue and has blamed activists for pressuring advertisers.

Last month, he accused the Anti-Defamation League of being the main cause of a 60 percent decline in U.S. advertising revenue, though he gave no time frame.

In a statement on Wednesday, the ADL said any accusation that it caused losses for X was false. The organization added that it was prepared to start advertising itself on the platform “to deliver our important message about fighting hate to X and its users.”

During an interview at Vox Media’s Code conference last week, Yaccarino said that 1,500 brands had returned to the platform in the past twelve weeks and that 90 percent of the top 100 advertisers were back on X.

She added that X could turn a profit early next year.

Musk rebranded Twitter as

This includes building peer-to-peer payment features and increasing the amount of video content on the platform, Reuters previously reported.