Elon Musk's Social Media Platform X Valued at Less Than Half of Purchase Price

According to Cointelegraph, an internal memo has revealed that Elon Musk's social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), is now worth less than half of the $44 billion he paid for it in October 2022. The memo and sources familiar with the matter stated that restricted stock units recently paid to employees were valued at $45 a share, putting the company's value at around $19 billion. Since taking over the platform, Musk has made several controversial moves, including rebranding it to X, changing content rules, and laying off about 80% of the workforce. X's daily active user count has declined nearly 20% since Musk's takeover.Bloomberg estimates that X has lost at least half of its total advertising revenue, making it less popular with advertisers. The significant drop in revenue has also made servicing Musk's debt worrisome for the firm, as X reportedly owes around $1.2 billion in interest payments on its roughly $13 billion in total debt. Musk has expressed a desire to rely more on paid user subscriptions, but currently, less than 1% of the platform's total user base has opted for a premium subscription, generating less than $120 million in annual revenue.Despite the challenges, some benefits have emerged under Musk's leadership, such as paying individual creators for their engagement through revenue-sharing payments. Musk recently announced that posts corrected by the Community Notes feature would become ineligible for revenue share, aiming to prioritize accurate information over sensationalism. Additionally, Musk has expressed plans to transform X into an 'everything app,' inspired by Asian super apps like WeChat, which would expand the platform to include various financial services, video calls, and other lifestyle use cases. There are also hopes that X will integrate cryptocurrency in the future.