Social Media Platform X Has Lost 71% Value, 15% Of Users Since Elon Musk’s Acquisition

In a significant setback for the social media platform X, it has been revealed that the company has lost 71% of its value since it was purchased by Elon Musk.

Mutual fund Fidelity, which holds a stake in X Holdings, disclosed that it has marked down the value of its shares by 71.5% since Musk’s acquisition. Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 and subsequently rebranded it as X in July 2023. Fidelity’s assessment would place the current value of X at approximately $12.5 billion. The number of monthly X users dropped by 15% in the first year after Musk’s takeover, primarily due to concerns over the proliferation of hate speech on the platform.

Since Musk assumed control of X, the company has implemented drastic measures to cut costs, which included reducing staff by at least 50% and scaling back moderation efforts.

In September, the European Union issued a warning to Musk after it was found that X had the highest proportion of disinformation posts among all major social media platforms.

Fidelity’s revised valuation of X was based on a disclosure that extended until the end of November 2023.

The disclosure likely encompasses the aftermath of numerous major companies pulling their advertising from X when Musk endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory. In response to the boycott, Musk brazenly told the companies to “go f— yourself” in an interview at an event in New York.

Musk, the world’s wealthiest individual as reported by Forbes, with a net worth of $251 billion, initially stated that he acquired Twitter “to try to help humanity.”

Since he took over the platform, Musk has reinstated several individuals who were previously banned, such as former president Donald Trump and right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Trump currently faces over 90 criminal charges related to the subversion of the 2020 election, retention of government secrets after his presidency, hush-money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels, and civil lawsuits concerning business affairs and a rape allegation that a judge deemed substantially true.

Meanwhile, Jones recently proposed to pay $55 million over ten years to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting. The families had sued him for spreading falsehoods claiming that the 2012 tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, was a hoax orchestrated to promote gun control measures in the United States.

Jones’s offer followed a Texas judge’s ruling that he could not invoke bankruptcy protection to evade the nearly $1.5 billion he was ordered to pay to the victims’ families. The families endured harassment and threats from believers of Jones’s baseless claims, making the situation even more distressing.

Last week, a judge ruled that X had breached employees’ contracts by failing to pay their bonuses.