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Twitter makes $5B in revenue with -$0.5B in income. Musk would need to turn it into a profit machine to recoup some of his investment. Per the annual report 20

Twitter makes $5B in revenue with -$0.5B in income. Musk would need to turn it into a profit machine to recoup some of his investment. Per the annual report 2019[1] Twitter spent - $1.8B in Cost of Revenue - $1.2B in R&D - $1.1B in Sales/Marketing - $0.58B in Administration - $0.76B in Litigation Unlike other tech companies, it looks like a private Twitter can be profitable. Elon could even do layoffs and move staff to cheaper locations like Europe. Salaries in States are much higher than they are in London/Ireland, for example[2]. [1] https://s22.q4cdn.com/826641620/files/doc_financials/2021/ar/FiscalYR2021_Twitter_Annual_-Report.pdf https://s22.q4cdn.com/826641620/files/doc_financials/2021/ar... [2] https://www.levels.fyi/companies/twitter/salaries/software-engineer https://www.levels.fyi/companies/twitter/salaries/software-e...

matwood 4y ago
Agree. Twitter should absolutely be able to make money with competent management. It vastly underperforms for the space is occupies. Musk overpaid, but going private and getting good management should get it to return something.
robswc 4y ago
*Salaries in certain metropolitan areas A lot of people will gladly take a "pay cut" to work fully remote or in a location they actually want to be. I will always be of the opinion that massive corporate campuses for tech companies are some of the most wasteful expenditures... but I'm also not the CEO of a massive tech company, lol.
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  > A lot of people will gladly take a "pay cut" to work fully remote or in a location they actually want to be. I thought Musk hates remote workers.
  - inlined 4y ago
    But he has flirted with moving everyone to Texas to try to rid Twitter of any liberal bias. Texas is much cheaper than their headquarters in SF.
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      That's a solid plan: Dallas-Fort-Worth and/or Austin are notorious conservative bellwethers.
- tommoor 4y ago
  Can't say I know many software engineers that would take a pay cut to work remote.
  - robswc 4y ago
    Well, maybe not directly, if given the proposition... but through agency, many do. I mean, someone has to be working the remote jobs to have such popularity.
mFixman 4y ago
What kind of R&D does Twitter do for $1.2b per year?
- silisili 4y ago
  Well...they added an edit button this year. That's worth something, right?
- paxys 4y ago
  R&D = all employees' salaries
- nullc 4y ago
  I understand they developed their own in-house OCR system in order to be able to index the text in the many images of text posted there.
insane_dreamer 4y ago
That's assuming he's in it to recoup his investment. Not sure that he is.

matwood 4y ago

Agree. Twitter should absolutely be able to make money with competent management. It vastly underperforms for the space is occupies. Musk overpaid, but going private and getting good management should get it to return something.

robswc 4y ago

*Salaries in certain metropolitan areas A lot of people will gladly take a "pay cut" to work fully remote or in a location they actually want to be. I will always be of the opinion that massive corporate campuses for tech companies are some of the most wasteful expenditures... but I'm also not the CEO of a massive tech company, lol.

jonny_eh 4y ago
> A lot of people will gladly take a "pay cut" to work fully remote or in a location they actually want to be. I thought Musk hates remote workers.
- inlined 4y ago
  But he has flirted with moving everyone to Texas to try to rid Twitter of any liberal bias. Texas is much cheaper than their headquarters in SF.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    That's a solid plan: Dallas-Fort-Worth and/or Austin are notorious conservative bellwethers.
tommoor 4y ago
Can't say I know many software engineers that would take a pay cut to work remote.
- robswc 4y ago
  Well, maybe not directly, if given the proposition... but through agency, many do. I mean, someone has to be working the remote jobs to have such popularity.

mFixman 4y ago

What kind of R&D does Twitter do for $1.2b per year?

silisili 4y ago
Well...they added an edit button this year. That's worth something, right?
paxys 4y ago
R&D = all employees' salaries
nullc 4y ago
I understand they developed their own in-house OCR system in order to be able to index the text in the many images of text posted there.

insane_dreamer 4y ago

That's assuming he's in it to recoup his investment. Not sure that he is.