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Elon has said repeatedly he doesn't care if X makes money. Its not the reason he bought it. Saying its lost a ton of revenue doesn't matter to Elon or the peopl

Elon has said repeatedly he doesn't care if X makes money. Its not the reason he bought it. Saying its lost a ton of revenue doesn't matter to Elon or the people who use the platform. Its kind of funny to see the discussion here about X. First it was the platform has lost too many users. Doesn't matter, its still very popular. Celebs, politicians and companies still advertise on there. If the platform didn't generate revenue for these companies, nobody would be advertising on there, would they? No they wouldn't. Then I pointed out it still generates billions in revenue. You said, "Well, it used to generate a lot more." Well, it also had massive overhead operating costs which Elon cut to the bone, so back before he bought it, the platform needed to generate a lot more because of the amount of people who did little or anything productive for the platform. If you take into account the reduction in human capital, and the overall reduction in other overhead costs, the profit margins are still very close to what they were pre-acquisition.

ben_w 2y ago
> Elon has said repeatedly he doesn't care if X makes money. You, however, responded to a claim about number of users with a statement about revenue. > If the platform didn't generate revenue for these companies, nobody would be advertising on there, would they? No they wouldn't. Many did in fact stop. That is specifically why the revenue is down, that they stopped. > Then I pointed out it still generates billions in revenue. You said, "Well, it used to generate a lot more." I specifically denied that it generates billions in revenue, linking to a statement of 114 million in a quarter: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/x-is-still-far-from-profitability/722602/ https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/x-is-still-far-from-pr... Your claim of "$4.4B in revenue" is what it did, past tense, in the year before Musk bought it — it's not the revenue it achieves now. > If you take into account the reduction in human capital, and the overall reduction in other overhead costs, the profit margins are still very close to what they were pre-acquisition. Not even close. The purchase added $1.2 billion in annual costs for debt servicing, which is — all by itself even if it had zero servers, zero staff, zero other costs of any kind — 2.6x the total revenue. The profit margin before the purchase was also a loss, -221m on a revenue of 5,077m in 2021. So, even though I don't have a full financial report, I can say that at best it's now got a loss of at least -744m on a revenue of 456m. Probably worse because that's calculated on the assumption he's replaced all his staff with an LLM, has no bandwidth costs, no hosting costs, no rent, no electricity, and no lawsuits like the one in Brazil or all the previous staff who are suing for un-paid contractual obligations.
yunwal 2y ago
Perhaps try making whatever point it is you’re trying to make directly instead of falsely claiming the platform is growing and that people who feel the opposite are out of touch.

ben_w 2y ago

> Elon has said repeatedly he doesn't care if X makes money. You, however, responded to a claim about number of users with a statement about revenue. > If the platform didn't generate revenue for these companies, nobody would be advertising on there, would they? No they wouldn't. Many did in fact stop. That is specifically why the revenue is down, that they stopped. > Then I pointed out it still generates billions in revenue. You said, "Well, it used to generate a lot more." I specifically denied that it generates billions in revenue, linking to a statement of 114 million in a quarter: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/x-is-still-far-from-profitability/722602/ https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/x-is-still-far-from-pr... Your claim of "$4.4B in revenue" is what it did, past tense, in the year before Musk bought it — it's not the revenue it achieves now. > If you take into account the reduction in human capital, and the overall reduction in other overhead costs, the profit margins are still very close to what they were pre-acquisition. Not even close. The purchase added $1.2 billion in annual costs for debt servicing, which is — all by itself even if it had zero servers, zero staff, zero other costs of any kind — 2.6x the total revenue. The profit margin before the purchase was also a loss, -221m on a revenue of 5,077m in 2021. So, even though I don't have a full financial report, I can say that at best it's now got a loss of at least -744m on a revenue of 456m. Probably worse because that's calculated on the assumption he's replaced all his staff with an LLM, has no bandwidth costs, no hosting costs, no rent, no electricity, and no lawsuits like the one in Brazil or all the previous staff who are suing for un-paid contractual obligations.

yunwal 2y ago

Perhaps try making whatever point it is you’re trying to make directly instead of falsely claiming the platform is growing and that people who feel the opposite are out of touch.