- X’s U.K. operations took a brutal hit following Elon Musk’s takeover, with revenue plunging by 66.3%, new financial disclosures show. The decline was largely attributed to lagging advertising revenue, which fell globally for the company amid concerns over brand security and the platform’s content moderation.
New U.K. financial filings are giving observers of Elon Musk’s X a glimpse of just how bad the revenue decline was at Twitter after Musk took over the company.
Recent accounts filed with Companies House show that X’s U.K. arm saw a 66.3% drop in revenue in the year following Musk’s takeover, falling from £205.3 million in 2022 to £69.1 million in 2023. The numbers are the most recent available under the UK’s financial disclosure rules, which allow months and sometimes years-long delays for companies to file.
Profits also suffered, with pre-tax profit down 74% to £2.25 million.
These declines were largely attributed to lagging advertising revenue, which fell globally at the company amid concerns over brand security and the platform’s content moderation.
Many major brands jumped ship from the social network after a series of turbulent changes, including an overhaul of X’s verification system—known as Blue Ticks—which rocked advertisers’ confidence in the business.
Musk later accused advertisers of using boycott threats as a form of blackmail amid a profanity-laden tirade during a session at the New York Times DealBook Summit in November 2023.
But X has rebounded since takeover dip
Things have improved for X globally since 2023, with some analysts predicting that X’s advertising revenue could see its first annual growth since 2021 this year.
According to research firm EMARKETER, X’s U.S. digital ad revenue is projected to jump 17.5% to $1.3 billion this year from $1.1 billion in 2024.
The research firm also estimated that X could generate $2.3 billion in global ad revenue this year, up 16.5% from last year.
X’s value has also rebounded recently.
As of July last year, the company’s value had cratered to less than 25% of the $44 billion Musk paid for it in October 2022, according to Fidelity’s Blue Chip Growth Fund.
When Musk bought Twitter, Fidelity invested $19.66 million, but last year, it said those same shares were worth just $5.5 million. However, in a surprising rebound, investors valued the social media company at $44bn in a secondary deal last month, the Financial Times reported.
Since then, Musk has said his xAI artificial intelligence startup had acquired the X platform at a valuation of $33 billion. “The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion,” the billionaire wrote in an X post in March. He said the value of X was now $45 billion when including $12 billion of debt, and that it was an all-stock transaction.
X’s U.K. branch narrowly avoided being struck off for late filings, submitting accounts for 2023 on Monday this week. The filing also showed that the company’s employment fell sharply from 399 to 114, with major cuts made to research and development roles.
Since taking over the platform, Musk culled a huge portion of X employees through a series of rolling layoffs. In October 2022, Musk told the BBC he had reduced X’s headcount from 7,500 employees at the end of 2021 to 1,500, a cut of around 80%.
Representatives for X did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment, which was made outside normal working hours.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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