X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is worth less than half of what Elon Musk paid for it a year ago.
Restricted stock units granted to employees value the company at $19 billion, or $45 per share, according to a person familiar with the matter. A year ago, Musk bought Twitter Inc. for $44 billion.
Since the acquisition, most of Twitter’s workforce has been laid off or resigned. Musk renamed the company X, changed some content rules and lost more than half of his advertising revenue.
Fortune previously reported on the valuation, citing an internal memo.
The company has struggled financially under Musk’s ownership. At the time of the acquisition, Twitter was valued at $44 billion, based on a mix of debt and equity. Musk’s purchase saddled the company with $13 billion in debt, and over time his erratic decision-making and looser content safety rules have driven away advertisers, contributing to a 60% decline in revenue. X also owes about $1.2 billion in interest payments per year on its debt, Bloomberg previously estimated.
Musk’s plan for X is to move from advertising to paid subscriptions. But so far the company has convinced less than 1% of users to sign up for the monthly premium service, which amounts to less than $120 million a year, Bloomberg estimates.
Musk has also been vocal about turning X into an “everything app” that could generate revenue from features like shopping and payments. The company introduced audio and video calling earlier this month, has a beta version of a recruiting service and announced plans to launch a newswire. Musk told employees that X plans to compete with Google’s YouTube, Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn and Cision’s PR Newswire.
When Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino met with bankers this month to craft the company’s financial plan, she shared ideas for X’s new products and services, including the launch of advertising levels. In the past, Musk has hinted that he would like to take X public, but the company’s steep decline in value could make that difficult.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)