Elon Musk reckons Twitter is worth $20 billion, less than half of its acquisition price

A difference of $24 billion. Elon Musk estimates the value of Twitter at 20 billion dollars, a sharp decline compared to the price of the acquisition of the social network by the entrepreneur – 44 billion dollars – five months ago, according to an internal document consulted by several American media, including the New York TimesSunday, March 26.

This internal letter to employees concerned profit sharing within the San Francisco group and the allocation of shares in X Holdings, the company that has overseen Twitter since its takeover at the end of October. The share grant program values ​​the platform at 20 billion dollars, close to the capitalization of Snap (18.2 billion), parent company of Snapchat, or the social network and creative site Pinterest (18.7).

In the internal document, Elon Musk justifies the brutal contraction of the valuation by the financial difficulties experienced by the group, a time on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, according to him. “Twitter was set to lose $3 billion a year”, wrote Elon Musk in a message posted on the platform on Saturday. This figure is explained, according to him, by a loss of turnover of 1.5 billion dollars and maturities of debt of an equivalent amount. “Now that advertisers are coming back, it looks like we’re going to break even in Q2”said the CEO and majority shareholder of Twitter.

In the internal document, Elon Musk says he sees “a difficult but clear path” towards a valuation of the group around 250 billion dollars, without mentioning a deadline.