If Elon Musk wasn’t involved, Twitter would have made more money over the past few months. At least, that’s what the business claims in its Q2 earnings announcement this morning, blaming Musk for its revenue results, which decreased year over year to $1.18 billion from $1.19 billion.
Twitter is having issues with revenue for other reasons as well. The business also points to issues with the advertising sector, such as Snap’s dismal performance yesterday, and the overall state of the economy. The most Twitter-specific issue on the list, though, is “uncertainty relating to the anticipated takeover of Twitter by an affiliate of Elon Musk.”
In April, Musk agreed to buy Twitter, and a few short weeks later, he has been attempting to back out of the deal. The two parties will now go to court in October after Musk filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month in an attempt to legally terminate the contract. Twitter wants Musk to go through with the acquisition, which would cost more than the stock price at the moment.
However, for the time being, the disorganised acquisition appears to be making it more challenging for Twitter to sell advertisements. Ad Age recently reported that the turmoil had put the company’s ad sales in “disarray,” while Bloomberg earlier said that Twitter was doing its best to allay advertisers’ concerns about how Musk would modify the platform.
Despite the fact that Twitter’s overall revenue decreased, its ad revenues were still up 2 percent from the previous year. However, the business must increase ad sales revenue far more quickly. Twitter’s net loss for the quarter was $270 million, compared to a profit of $66 million in the same period last year. When comparing the revenue amount to the growth trend, the situation is far worse. Twitter’s income increased by 74% from this time last year. It’s now getting smaller.
Twitter won’t give Musk credit for one thing, though. user expansion More than 237 million users each day, up from 229 million over the previous quarter, were reached by the service. Of course, “ongoing product upgrades” were to blame for that.
