Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.19-050450/https://www.ft.com/content/d4616dec-c4c7-417f-8549-134710bbc5b1
Social media site X’s valuation has soared back to $44bn, underscoring the sharp turnaround in the company’s fortunes since its owner Elon Musk assumed the role of staunch ally to President Donald Trump.
Investors valued the platform at $44bn in a so-called secondary deal earlier this month, in which they exchange existing stakes in the company, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
X was also working on raising fresh capital in a primary round, which would aim to raise about $2bn through selling new equity and be used to pay off more than $1bn of junior debt that Musk agreed to take on to finance his buyout of the company, then known as Twitter, in 2022, several people briefed on the situation said.
We have to protest Tesla even harder.
Since taking over the group, Musk has loosened the platform’s moderation policies, something that prompted many advertisers to leave. Disclosures from Fidelity Investments in late September implied a valuation for the company that was below $10bn. Musk purchased Twitter for $44bn. The new $44bn valuation represents a rebound for Musk and the group’s investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, 8VC, Goanna Capital and Fidelity Investments. The deal would help set a price for the upcoming primary round
Great. Now I need to find a better handler for my retirement fund… ugh.
Another two people with knowledge of X’s finances said there were signs Musk’s cost-cutting plan for the company was working, and that revenues had been improving. A further person noted, however, that the ebitda figure was “wildly adjusted”.
Well, yea. You chase a major chunk of users off and collapse a company, any shred of viability looks great. The key here is the “wildly adjusted” bit.
Investor interest in the loans improved in the weeks following Trump’s election victory in November, given the billionaire’s proximity to the new administration as a confidant to the president and the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) intent on cutting government red tape.
So bribery.
A group of seven Wall Street banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays and MUFG have sold almost all the $12.5bn of loans Musk used to finance his takeover of Twitter in 2022. The lenders had been saddled with the debt while Musk sought to turn around X’s operations as equity investors repriced their stakes in the platform at dramatic discounts.
And they now want a piece of the bribery pie.
It also improved after Musk gave a 25 per cent stake in his artificial intelligence start-up xAI to investors in the social media company early last year. xAI has obtained a valuation of $45bn, and the novel arrangement has provided new security to X’s lenders and boosted the platform’s valuation. One banker close to the fundraising said the upcoming primary round would help X “clean up the last bit of debt”.
Again, bribery.
The banks agreed to give the company time to raise fresh equity or equity-like funding to pay down the remaining junior debt, instead of offloading it when they sold more than $11bn of the loans in January and February, two people said
For better democratic results, eject the C suit
In a further boost for X, groups such as Amazon have boosted marketing spending recently as Musk’s relationship with Trump has deepened. X recently added a number of brands, including Nestlé, Lego, Pinterest and Shell, to a lawsuit alleging the companies had previously illegally boycotted the platform.
This bullshit again.
A fool and their money is easily parted. Whoever paid out these kinds of dollars for equity, the rest of the street is lolz at them
I used to think that the worries about social media algorithms exerting some kind of profound mind control on the users were overstated, but holy fuck, what kind of perverted sci-fi brainwashing power does twitter have that people are still using it even in the year 2025?
There’s plethora of content on X like politicians, celebrities, media workers, quips, commentary on quips and commentary on commentary. They’re there because for those who made it that means money and influence. People enable it because they confuse politics with entertainment.
oh I would quit X, but I’d miss [ politicians / my friends / the latest gossip / the hottest memes / Stephen King ]
It might’ve seemed to make sense in 2016 but that bullshit doesn’t fly any more. It no longer takes any imagination or courage to see it for what it is. There are no more excuses.
Twitter is for those that want to be followed (aka those that want to be famous), and those that want to follow those people (be part of the hurd of fans). I do not understand it because fit into neither of these groups. However, it seems to be a common human thing. Seems very tribal. Being part of a group, elevating and worshiping some people, and wanting to associate with THE IN people. News media types seem to love twitter.
Oh yes I did fail to include a full catalogue of all the base instincts it obviously appeals to — but it’s as if people are eating a giant pile of shit for breakfast, and you’re helpfully explaining that well, we all need to eat.
By in large, people are emotional creatures that sometimes think.
Reason I say that is that in my small little envelope of life, most people are both a lot more educated and a lot more on the thinking side then is typical. Everyone has issues and blind spots, but mostly people in my circles are pretty fact based. At least for me, it is a good reminder that I should not be surprised by stupid shit from the wider world in terms of what people believe and do.
A bunch of smart people built the internet, then we let an amalgam of opportunists and very average people use it, what can we expect.
Babe wake up, new market manipulation just dropped
I’m not sure it’s new at all
Twitter is worth 3 Rubles & 6 sheets of toilet paper. Money laundering is happening.
Sounds like someone is in some financial trouble with TSLA dropping.
What_the_f.gif
That’s a very expensive Nazi bar.
elon shld hire me, i could make a nazi bar much cheaper! i read somewhere he likes efficiency after all
(slash s!!)
I’m not a stock trader so don’t know the terminology. Do I understand correctly that shareholders just say “From now on X would cost $44bn because we say that”
What it would mean is that someone bought some stock at that price/share.
There was only one person dumb enough to do that.
Well, it says investors said that, not shareholders, so that works pretty much as any market - shit is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it
What’s the calculation that investors / the stock market is making here? That in time Twitter will become less of a cesspit and that ads can be served? Or is this just YOLO money?
They’re trying to put a price tag on ability to influence societies. It does have value but I’m pretty sure everyone is guesstimating.
Interesting, well my evaluation is that it’s worthless, not priceless, worthless. You’d never catch me dead on that shit stain of a platform.
It seemed to be quite effective in influencing public opinion before elections. Which makes it even more disgusting to attach such a price tag to it.
ah, but there was a billion in junior debt 🤣
