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> troubled social media company I think it's interesting that this is the new narrative about the state of the company. I don't recall this being a common cons

> troubled social media company I think it's interesting that this is the new narrative about the state of the company. I don't recall this being a common consensus before the acquisition, but likely tied to the financial revelations made public during/after the acquisition.

aetimmes 4y ago
It's directly tied to the $1B/yr in additional interest payments being incurred by the debt used to finance the acquisition. Twitter pre-Elon was profitable. Twitter post-Elon is bleeding cash.
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  >Twitter pre-Elon was profitable. That is not exactly accurate, twitter has lost about a billion dollars since the ipo... https://www.netcials.com/financial-net-profit-year-quarter-usa/1418091-TWITTER-INC/ https://www.netcials.com/financial-net-profit-year-quarter-u...
  - acdha 4y ago
    If you look at their reports, they were profitable in 2019 and 2020. 2021 would have been profitable except for a one-time lawsuit payment, and there’s no reason to believe that trend was suddenly going to change.
    - pxmpxm 4y ago
      Twitter returned 30% since the IPO, versus ~200% Nasdaq in the same period. What you're saying is simply not accurate.
      - acdha 4y ago
        There’s a difference between “not as profitable as I’d like” and “unprofitable”. The rest of us are talking about the positive net incomes they reported in recent years and would have reported last year except for that lawsuit payment. Especially here, I would expect someone to be familiar with the way tech companies have often been marginally profitable for years because they were focused on other metrics like growth. Twitter was often subject to unrealistic comparisons with wildly popular companies like Facebook or Google but since they were already doing it it there’s little reason to believe they wouldn’t have been a profitable medium-sized company.
      - hef19898 4y ago
        I almost certainly think NASDAQ isn't measuring profits...
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        Returning more or less than the NASDAQ is an enitrely different issue than profitability.
      - jjav 4y ago
        > Twitter returned 30% since the IPO, versus ~200% Nasdaq in the same period. What you're saying is simply not accurate. Operating profit and stock share price are two different things.
    - twelve40 4y ago
      what about that losing $4mil/day quote? was that false
      - acdha 4y ago
        That number is curiously close to the reported cost of the new debt Musk added. I don’t have inside information but considering how the acquisition reportedly started deterring ad buys almost as soon as it was announced, it’s very easy to imagine that they were in fact losing money in November but would not have been had the deal never happened.
      - aetimmes 4y ago
        The $4M/day figure was based on the aforementioned $1B/yr in interest payments.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > It's directly tied to the $1B/yr in additional interest payments being incurred by the debt used to finance the acquisition. Twitter pre-Elon was profitable. Twitter post-Elon is bleeding cash. I think the loss of advertising revenue since (and because of) the deal is much bigger than the interest expense.
pnf 4y ago
Probably not unrelated to the ideological offenses of new ownership.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  Ideological offenses like not paying rent at offices?
  - SanjayMehta 4y ago
    Sounds like a tactic to get the landlords to evict Twitter rather than work through the original lease.
  - mypastself 4y ago
    Other than a lawsuit that’s as of yet unresolved, this seems to be the main source for your claim, from The New York Times: > To cut costs, Twitter has not paid rent for its San Francisco headquarters or any of its global offices for weeks, three people close to the company said. People who believe Musk is being hounded for ideological reasons also believe that NYT is among the culprits.
  - pnf 4y ago
    Heaven forbid!!! But why should the mainstream media give a shit about that?
    - nindalf 4y ago
      You think if Google or Toyota or Maersk or HSBC or AT&T stopped paying rent on their offices it wouldn’t be a major news story? It would be because it would have a dramatic impact on their perceived solvency and their share price. I’m quite familiar with the Elon fanboy who says “masterful move sir” when he sees Elon slam his dick in a car door. But you’re in a different category. Your response to dick destruction seems to be “nothing to see here, it’s a regular, normal activity. The mainstream media is persecuting Elon!”
      - 4y ago
statusgraph 4y ago
Well structurally taking Twitter private has increased expenses by $1bil (the interest on loans) against last year's ~$6bil in revenue, so that alone is going to change the health of the company. On top of that Musk has given guidance that he expects revenue to fall from $6b in 2022 to $3b in 2023. (This seems dramatic TBH) I don't think there were revelations (this is all public info), the transaction just changed the fundamentals.
- andrew_ 4y ago
  Good points. The interest isn't something I'd take into account.
- preommr 4y ago
  > $6b in 2022 to $3b in 2023. (This seems dramatic TBH) Holy shit, that's terrible. Can you give a source? A quick google search only shows articles about how Musk claims he prevented a 3bn shortfall through layoffs.
avbanks 4y ago
Twitter is having issues paying severance and rent, I think labeling it troubled is fair. Also fidelity slashed twitter’s valuation in half.
- twelve40 4y ago
  valuations are dropping across the board in tech (including as drastic as 378>120 for FB), so at least some of that is general market-related
pxmpxm 4y ago
Twitter was a public company, so whatever financial issues were far more readily accessible before the acquisition. That alone should inform you of the true agenda of that narrative. The amusing part is that this narrative is ultimately getting checked by reality - with each passing month of the company not immediately failing as per the media hysterics, people will have to face that uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.
- krisoft 4y ago
  > That alone should inform you of the true agenda of that narrative. Agenda you say? You look at any business and see that they took on massive amount of debt, and said debt did not go to improve their bottom line. And calling that “financial issues” is an agenda now?
  - pxmpxm 4y ago
    Cashflow isn't the issue that people talk about re twitter? The narrative has very clearly been defined as "firing so many people that it won't be able to operate", where as the real agenda is purely ideological, as someone else mentioned. There have been structural issues related profitability literally since around 2012, which is not something that relates to capital structure.
  - aga98mtl 4y ago
    They switched equity for debt. This is normal when taking private a publicly traded business. Both the lender and the borrower know what they are doing better than outside commenters who have never spent any time studying "going private" financing.
    - pxmpxm 4y ago
      Finance 101 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theo...
    - acdha 4y ago
      It’s normal but paying considerably over the retail price is less common. Musk effectively gave TWTR shareholders a multibillion dollar bonus, which is why they sued to keep him from backing out of the deal.
matwood 4y ago
> I don't recall this being a common consensus before the acquisition The company had issues prior, but the financial blow Twitter took the day the deal closed may be impossible to recover from. These were not hidden revelations that came to light, they occurred because of the price paid. It's looking increasingly likely Twitter died the day the acquisition closed, and actions since are proverbial deck chairs. https://enersection.io/twitter/ https://enersection.io/twitter/
ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
More likely the extra debt that Twitter is now saddled with since the takeover. They're most definitely in a worse financial position as they have to make enough profit to service the debt as well as keep the company running.
mynameishere 4y ago
I don't know if you're understating the case on purpose, but yes, the MSM works in lockstep on every major issue, and coverage of Twitter is not exempt from that rule. When Musk bought the company, there was an immediate and total change in coverage about Twitter's technical and financial and political and ethical "problems", with stories of celebrities who've abandoned it and how "you too can find an alternative," etc. And all of that was because Musk (lamely) threatened to increase free speech on the platform. They don't like that, the media.
acdha 4y ago
Prior to the acquisition, they were described typically described as marginal: influential but their user growth seemed to have plateaued and their profits were measured in tens or low hundreds of millions rather than the billions Facebook was taking in. The only change after the acquisition is based on Musk’s decision to add new annual debt servicing on the order of 20% of their entire revenue and recognizing that removing moderation and welcoming extremists and sex traffickers back to the site probably isn’t the recipe for getting advertisers to significantly increase their spending.
andrew_ 4y ago
If you're downvoting, please explain why. This was a comment in earnest and there have been some very pertinent points made in response, which further makes the narrative interesting and I've definitely learned of a few things.
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  >If you're downvoting, please explain why. Same ideological reasons as your main point.
  - andrew_ 4y ago
    I inferred no ideaoligic reasoning in my post. I only referenced financials I hadn't thought were public (which I've since learned were). Perhaps ideology is being injected?
    - pxmpxm 4y ago
      People reading what you wrote are faced with uncomfortable introspection regarding the underlying ideology: "Twitter now allows stuff i disagree with, so them being in financial trouble is good, because stuff i disagree is bad". Where as your post forces them to think through how is it that twitter is in financial trouble all the sudden, but not before, and whether that is an accurate representation of reality versus a narrative to appeal to the aforementioned bias. People go out of their way to avoid cognitive dissonance, so downvote.
      - acdha 4y ago
        With all due respect, that reads more like projection than serious analysis. Twitter had concerns about its financial prospects going back to before its IPO and major shakeups were predicted for years. When the 2016 elections lead to a big uptick in usage, the coverage was often along the lines that Trump saved the company by giving so many people something to talk about.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
JohnTHaller 4y ago
The acquisition saw Twitter experience quite a bit of self-inflicted brain drain. The fact that they have no legal/compliance dept and are making moves in violation of labor laws in multiple countries and in likely violation of Twitter's consent decree with the FTC also bodes poorly. That plus large personalities continuing to embrace Mastodon to the point that Twitter started blocking links to it. On a personal note, Twitter feels more like Musk's personal platform now. Every single time I visit the Twitter website, the first tweet I see is Elon's. I don't follow him. Two people I follow happen to follow him. No matter how many times I select that the tweet isn't relevant, a new Elon tweet shows up. The only way to get rid of him from my timeline is to block him or unfollow everyone I follow that follows him, which seems pretty absurd.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dragon-hn 4y ago
Because Elon himself has said it could face bankruptcy. Sometimes it isn’t a grand mainstream media conspiracy.

aetimmes 4y ago

It's directly tied to the $1B/yr in additional interest payments being incurred by the debt used to finance the acquisition. Twitter pre-Elon was profitable. Twitter post-Elon is bleeding cash.

pxmpxm 4y ago
>Twitter pre-Elon was profitable. That is not exactly accurate, twitter has lost about a billion dollars since the ipo... https://www.netcials.com/financial-net-profit-year-quarter-usa/1418091-TWITTER-INC/ https://www.netcials.com/financial-net-profit-year-quarter-u...
- acdha 4y ago
  If you look at their reports, they were profitable in 2019 and 2020. 2021 would have been profitable except for a one-time lawsuit payment, and there’s no reason to believe that trend was suddenly going to change.
  - pxmpxm 4y ago
    Twitter returned 30% since the IPO, versus ~200% Nasdaq in the same period. What you're saying is simply not accurate.
    - acdha 4y ago
      There’s a difference between “not as profitable as I’d like” and “unprofitable”. The rest of us are talking about the positive net incomes they reported in recent years and would have reported last year except for that lawsuit payment. Especially here, I would expect someone to be familiar with the way tech companies have often been marginally profitable for years because they were focused on other metrics like growth. Twitter was often subject to unrealistic comparisons with wildly popular companies like Facebook or Google but since they were already doing it it there’s little reason to believe they wouldn’t have been a profitable medium-sized company.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      I almost certainly think NASDAQ isn't measuring profits...
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      Returning more or less than the NASDAQ is an enitrely different issue than profitability.
    - jjav 4y ago
      > Twitter returned 30% since the IPO, versus ~200% Nasdaq in the same period. What you're saying is simply not accurate. Operating profit and stock share price are two different things.
  - twelve40 4y ago
    what about that losing $4mil/day quote? was that false
    - acdha 4y ago
      That number is curiously close to the reported cost of the new debt Musk added. I don’t have inside information but considering how the acquisition reportedly started deterring ad buys almost as soon as it was announced, it’s very easy to imagine that they were in fact losing money in November but would not have been had the deal never happened.
    - aetimmes 4y ago
      The $4M/day figure was based on the aforementioned $1B/yr in interest payments.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> It's directly tied to the $1B/yr in additional interest payments being incurred by the debt used to finance the acquisition. Twitter pre-Elon was profitable. Twitter post-Elon is bleeding cash. I think the loss of advertising revenue since (and because of) the deal is much bigger than the interest expense.

pnf 4y ago

Probably not unrelated to the ideological offenses of new ownership.

hgsgm 4y ago
Ideological offenses like not paying rent at offices?
- SanjayMehta 4y ago
  Sounds like a tactic to get the landlords to evict Twitter rather than work through the original lease.
- mypastself 4y ago
  Other than a lawsuit that’s as of yet unresolved, this seems to be the main source for your claim, from The New York Times: > To cut costs, Twitter has not paid rent for its San Francisco headquarters or any of its global offices for weeks, three people close to the company said. People who believe Musk is being hounded for ideological reasons also believe that NYT is among the culprits.
- pnf 4y ago
  Heaven forbid!!! But why should the mainstream media give a shit about that?
  - nindalf 4y ago
    You think if Google or Toyota or Maersk or HSBC or AT&T stopped paying rent on their offices it wouldn’t be a major news story? It would be because it would have a dramatic impact on their perceived solvency and their share price. I’m quite familiar with the Elon fanboy who says “masterful move sir” when he sees Elon slam his dick in a car door. But you’re in a different category. Your response to dick destruction seems to be “nothing to see here, it’s a regular, normal activity. The mainstream media is persecuting Elon!”
    - 4y ago

statusgraph 4y ago

Well structurally taking Twitter private has increased expenses by $1bil (the interest on loans) against last year's ~$6bil in revenue, so that alone is going to change the health of the company. On top of that Musk has given guidance that he expects revenue to fall from $6b in 2022 to $3b in 2023. (This seems dramatic TBH) I don't think there were revelations (this is all public info), the transaction just changed the fundamentals.

andrew_ 4y ago
Good points. The interest isn't something I'd take into account.
preommr 4y ago
> $6b in 2022 to $3b in 2023. (This seems dramatic TBH) Holy shit, that's terrible. Can you give a source? A quick google search only shows articles about how Musk claims he prevented a 3bn shortfall through layoffs.

avbanks 4y ago

Twitter is having issues paying severance and rent, I think labeling it troubled is fair. Also fidelity slashed twitter’s valuation in half.

twelve40 4y ago
valuations are dropping across the board in tech (including as drastic as 378>120 for FB), so at least some of that is general market-related

pxmpxm 4y ago

Twitter was a public company, so whatever financial issues were far more readily accessible before the acquisition. That alone should inform you of the true agenda of that narrative. The amusing part is that this narrative is ultimately getting checked by reality - with each passing month of the company not immediately failing as per the media hysterics, people will have to face that uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.

krisoft 4y ago
> That alone should inform you of the true agenda of that narrative. Agenda you say? You look at any business and see that they took on massive amount of debt, and said debt did not go to improve their bottom line. And calling that “financial issues” is an agenda now?
- pxmpxm 4y ago
  Cashflow isn't the issue that people talk about re twitter? The narrative has very clearly been defined as "firing so many people that it won't be able to operate", where as the real agenda is purely ideological, as someone else mentioned. There have been structural issues related profitability literally since around 2012, which is not something that relates to capital structure.
- aga98mtl 4y ago
  They switched equity for debt. This is normal when taking private a publicly traded business. Both the lender and the borrower know what they are doing better than outside commenters who have never spent any time studying "going private" financing.
  - pxmpxm 4y ago
    Finance 101 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Miller_theo...
  - acdha 4y ago
    It’s normal but paying considerably over the retail price is less common. Musk effectively gave TWTR shareholders a multibillion dollar bonus, which is why they sued to keep him from backing out of the deal.

matwood 4y ago

> I don't recall this being a common consensus before the acquisition The company had issues prior, but the financial blow Twitter took the day the deal closed may be impossible to recover from. These were not hidden revelations that came to light, they occurred because of the price paid. It's looking increasingly likely Twitter died the day the acquisition closed, and actions since are proverbial deck chairs. https://enersection.io/twitter/ https://enersection.io/twitter/

ndsipa_pomu 4y ago

More likely the extra debt that Twitter is now saddled with since the takeover. They're most definitely in a worse financial position as they have to make enough profit to service the debt as well as keep the company running.

mynameishere 4y ago

I don't know if you're understating the case on purpose, but yes, the MSM works in lockstep on every major issue, and coverage of Twitter is not exempt from that rule. When Musk bought the company, there was an immediate and total change in coverage about Twitter's technical and financial and political and ethical "problems", with stories of celebrities who've abandoned it and how "you too can find an alternative," etc. And all of that was because Musk (lamely) threatened to increase free speech on the platform. They don't like that, the media.

acdha 4y ago

Prior to the acquisition, they were described typically described as marginal: influential but their user growth seemed to have plateaued and their profits were measured in tens or low hundreds of millions rather than the billions Facebook was taking in. The only change after the acquisition is based on Musk’s decision to add new annual debt servicing on the order of 20% of their entire revenue and recognizing that removing moderation and welcoming extremists and sex traffickers back to the site probably isn’t the recipe for getting advertisers to significantly increase their spending.

andrew_ 4y ago

If you're downvoting, please explain why. This was a comment in earnest and there have been some very pertinent points made in response, which further makes the narrative interesting and I've definitely learned of a few things.

pxmpxm 4y ago
>If you're downvoting, please explain why. Same ideological reasons as your main point.
- andrew_ 4y ago
  I inferred no ideaoligic reasoning in my post. I only referenced financials I hadn't thought were public (which I've since learned were). Perhaps ideology is being injected?
  - pxmpxm 4y ago
    People reading what you wrote are faced with uncomfortable introspection regarding the underlying ideology: "Twitter now allows stuff i disagree with, so them being in financial trouble is good, because stuff i disagree is bad". Where as your post forces them to think through how is it that twitter is in financial trouble all the sudden, but not before, and whether that is an accurate representation of reality versus a narrative to appeal to the aforementioned bias. People go out of their way to avoid cognitive dissonance, so downvote.
    - acdha 4y ago
      With all due respect, that reads more like projection than serious analysis. Twitter had concerns about its financial prospects going back to before its IPO and major shakeups were predicted for years. When the 2016 elections lead to a big uptick in usage, the coverage was often along the lines that Trump saved the company by giving so many people something to talk about.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

JohnTHaller 4y ago

The acquisition saw Twitter experience quite a bit of self-inflicted brain drain. The fact that they have no legal/compliance dept and are making moves in violation of labor laws in multiple countries and in likely violation of Twitter's consent decree with the FTC also bodes poorly. That plus large personalities continuing to embrace Mastodon to the point that Twitter started blocking links to it. On a personal note, Twitter feels more like Musk's personal platform now. Every single time I visit the Twitter website, the first tweet I see is Elon's. I don't follow him. Two people I follow happen to follow him. No matter how many times I select that the tweet isn't relevant, a new Elon tweet shows up. The only way to get rid of him from my timeline is to block him or unfollow everyone I follow that follows him, which seems pretty absurd.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dragon-hn 4y ago

Because Elon himself has said it could face bankruptcy. Sometimes it isn’t a grand mainstream media conspiracy.