Twitter owner Elon Musk said Saturday that the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last October has lost roughly half of its advertising revenue.
“We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” the billionaire said in a post, responding to a user who was giving suggestions on financing for the platform.
Changes instituted by Musk since his takeover of Twitter have turned off users and advertisers alike.
The changes came as Threads, an app launched by Facebook parent Meta as a rival to Twitter, signed up more than 100 million users in its first five days.
Twitter is thought to have around 200 million regular users, but it has suffered repeated technical failures since Musk bought the platform and sacked thousands of staff.
Tesla rolls out its first Cybertruck
On another hand, US automaker Tesla on Saturday announced that its first electric pickup, a slick-looking silver Cybertruck, had rolled off the assembly line at its gigantic plant near Austin, Texas.
“First Cybertruck built at Giga Texas!” says a tweet from the company, accompanied by a photo of the futuristic vehicle amid a sea of helmeted and yellow-vested Tesla workers.
Plans for the vehicle, with its silvery, tortoise-like shape and unusual angles, were first announced in November 2019.
Tesla will be making three models of the Cybertruck, a vehicle that can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) in less than three seconds. The basic model will cost $39,900 and offer a 250-mile range between charges; the top-line truck will have twice that range and sell for $69,900.
Georges Haddad, with AFP
