Elon Musk Puts Twitter's Value At $20bn

The Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, Elon Musk, has put the current value of Twitter at $20 billion, less than half the $44 billion he paid for the social media platform just five months ago, according to an internal email seen by American news media.

The email to staff mentioned a new equity compensation program and the distribution of shares to employees of X Holdings, Twitter's parent company since Musk purchased it in late October.

The platform is valued at $20 billion under the compensation plan, which is somewhat more than Snapchat's parent company Snap ($18.2 billion) or Pinterest ($18.7 billion), all of which are publicly traded, unlike Twitter.

Musk stated that Twitter employees would be able to cash in their shares every six months.

An AFP inquiry sent to Twitter's communications department elicited an automatic answer in the form of a feces emoji.

Musk explains the devastating decline in Twitter's valuation in an internal email. He claims that the platform had such severe financial troubles that it was on the verge of bankruptcy at one time.

"Twitter was trending to lose $3 billion per year," Musk claimed in a message put to the network on Saturday.

He cited a revenue drop of $1.5 billion a year and a debt-servicing burden of the same amount -- leaving it with "only 4 months of money."

AFP