X Is Worth Less than Half of the $44 Billion Elon Musk Paid for It

The 52-year-old SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur bought the app last October. However, recent evaluations suggest he’s lost billions in the venture.

Now known as X, the social media platform has heavily crashed in its valuation following its year under Musk.

Considering Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, that means the social media platform’s value has decreased by over half in less than a year.

X offered its employees stock in March at a $20 billion valuation.

Internal documents have revealed that Twitter suffered challenges, including an 80% employee turnover rate and billions in debt accumulated from the acquisition.

This comes as a result of changes in verification and content moderation rules.

This includes distributing new stock grants as restricted stock at $45 per share and cash payments of $54.20 for outstanding shares from the previous management.

On the anniversary of his buyout, Musk outlined his future vision for X as an all-purpose app that will offer multifaceted services. He has even been backed by X’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, who has recently encouraged employees to ignore the critics.

The buyout initially hit a wall following a stock crash that hit tech companies hard. By July 2022, Twitter’s stock had dropped from the $54.20 a share that Musk had agreed to pay to around $34 a share.

According to reports, it was suggested the Tesla and SpaceX boss would block access in the EU region over disinformation compliance issues with the International Digital Services Act.

He said the report is “utterly false” and labeled the site that produced the article as “not a real publication.”

Over the next year, we may see Musk implement further features to slowly morph the app into what he had planned when he decided to buy Twitter.