Fidelity claims that Twitter is now just worth 33% of the $44 billion price that Tesla CEO Elon Musk paid for the company’s acquisition.
To recall, the Twitter investor first marked down the value of its equity stake in November, and further reductions followed in December and February. According to Bloomberg, this latest markdown removes $850 million from Musk’s $187 billion-worth wealth.
The report also said that it is unknown how the investment company concluded the valuation, but it is no secret that Twitter has been struggling since Musk started ruling the company. The billionaire’s decisions and significant changes on the platform caused panic among advertisers, with some of them leaving Twitter. In April, Musk said that advertisers started returning to Twitter, but the data and company statements opposed the claim.
Musk also tried to turn the company into a money-making machine by launching Twitter Blue, which currently seems to be failing. To recall, Twitter even removed the legacy checkmarks of some users, but reports showing the extremely low signup for the subscription (only about 1% of Twitter’s monthly users) prove the tactic is a failure. Worse, it even tainted the image of checkmarks, which the company tried to bring back to some user accounts. Celebrities and known personalities, however, expressed disgust over the matter and stressed they didn’t pay for the marks.
With all this, Fidelity’s recent (and perhaps — future) markdown should no longer be a surprise.
