The platform’s billionaire owner has seen its value plunge as advertisers run shy, revenues drop and user numbers fall
Two years ago, there was some trepidation among advertisers, anti-hate-speech groups and staff about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.
Those concerns have been borne out: advertisers have sharply reduced spending on the platform, Musk has sued nonprofits over their coverage of a rise in controversial content and about eight out of 10 employees have been sacked.
The service, now rebranded as X, is not worth the $44bn Musk paid for it on 27 October 2022 – later tweeting “the bird is freed” in a reference to its corporate logo. The plunge in value reflects the damage done to its advertising-dependent business model.
But its continued influence as a news source and its role as an outlet for broadcasting its owner’s rightwing views to his 200 million-plus followers, means the benefit to the world’s richest person does not need to be measured in financial benchmarks alone.
It will, for a while, as Trump bans every other news outlet.
However, as all authoritarians do, the circle will get smaller and X will get shut down in favor of Truth Social.
I really should’ve started breeding face-eating leopards. If Trump wins, the demand is going to eclipse the supply for a good few years.
Here in Portugal a country of 10 million people, the “in group” with the dictator was 9 families.
Scaling it up to the US and it’s 300 million people, it would be 270 families.
Absolutelly, it’s a wild estimate, but it should give a decent feeling for the rough size of the in-circle under Fascism.