Those of us whose lives depend upon ad rates and clicks, etc, know the pain that comes when one sees the view rates drop or when ad rates drop. All of us look forward to November and December because the advertisers pay the highest rates and the weather gets worse, people stay home and read, all that.

Put simply; you expect December to be your best month. Not for Twitter, which saw its Ad rates fall 71%. From Reuters:

Advertising spend on Twitter Inc dropped by 71% in December, data from an advertising research firm showed, as top advertisers slashed their spending on the social-media platform after Elon Musk’s takeover.

The recent data by Standard Media Index comes (SMI) as Twitter is moving to reverse the advertiser exodus. It has introduced a slew of initiatives to win back advertisers, offering some free ads, lifting a ban on political advertising and allowing companies greater control over the positioning of their ads.

According to the SMI data, ad spending on Twitter in November fell 55% from last year despite these months traditionally being a time of higher ad spending as brands promote their products during the holiday season.

Uh. Wow. It is almost like Elon doesn’t know what he’s doing when he acquires a company that was fully formed and then breaks it. Good thing Elon has the money to cover such jaw-dropping losses, but between Tesla stock tanking, the high sale price, and the low ad sales on Twitter, purchasing Twitter may, in the end, cost Musk $100 Billion. And that is a lot of money even these days.
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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: FBI INTEL AGENT ARREST ISN’T AS BAD FOR THE FBI THAN IT IS FOR TRUMP

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9 COMMENTS

  1. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving fascist punk born into inherited wealth. May he wake up broke someday so he can get a taste of what life is really like for 95% of us. Then let him work minimum wage until he takes a dirt nap.

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  2. Way to make biz decisions there Space Karen. Keep on displaying this kind of business acumen and I’m sure you’ll get a real up-close and personal look at how the rest of us live. Although, now your decision to allow the other trust-fund baby failure back onto the platform sure as shit makes a lot of sense. All those racist pieces of shit too. yep, yep.

    16
  3. “Good thing Elon has the money to cover such jaw-dropping losses, but between Tesla stock tanking, the high sale price, and the low ad sales on Twitter, purchasing Twitter may, in the end, cost Musk $100 Billion. And that is a lot of money even these days.”

    Funny this. I was reading a listicle at Cracked.com this morning about “4 of the Biggest Losers in History, Statistically Speaking” and good ol’ Elon came in at #1 (the list wasn’t based strictly on money–one of the losers was the Chinese warlord Cao Cao who suffered a MASSIVE military defeat; another involved the infamous 222-0 whomping that Georgia Tech gave to Cumberland College way back in 1916–although money COULD have possibly prevented that).

    The whole bit on Elon is a bit much to copy-and-paste so here are some highlights:

    “Musk was delivered one of the Guinness’ least-desired world records recently, the uncomfortable crown of “largest loss of personal fortune in history.” (This piece was sourced from TheHill.com.)

    “Musk, since November, has lost an estimated $182 billion.”

    “Good thing he’ll be able to easily recoup that when Twitter becomes profitable. Oh, that’s right, Twitter hasn’t been profitable eight of the last ten years.” (This bit was sourced from the Wall Street Journal’s website.)

    (The whole article can be read at https://www.cracked.com/article_36716_4-of-the-biggest-losers-in-history-statistically-speaking.html . A little warning: If you have an ad-blocker, you’ll be greeted with a “dummy page” but you can simply click on “Continue without disabling” and read the piece.)

    And, on an even more schadenfreude note, Tesla hasn’t been holding its own either. (And you’ve gotta wonder how Mr Musk is feeling towards Wyoming and its Republicon leadership? A couple of legislators managed to get a bill introduced that would BAN THE SALES OF ALL ELECTRIC VEHICLES in the State of Wyoming by 2035. It is interesting that they didn’t want to make the ban a bit more immediate but the idea that a state run by members of a party that Musk has largely embraced would attempt to give Musk the big old middle finger.)

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  4. Dirty secret about Twitter is that it hasn’t been profitable consistently even before Musk got it. Why else would the board have been so quick to leave? They get to go off and do other things, he gets to eat the loss that they avoided. Add in how pandering to his spiritual brethren of the far right variety is greasing the skids, Twitter successor platforms are launching (shameless plug: Spoutible comes online next week) and advertisers are seeing less and less reasons to come back and…well, anything bad that happens to Musk from here is well-earned.

    12
    • You’ve raised an interesting point which largely got glossed over during the “OMFG what’s going to happen to Twitter if the sale to Musk goes through?” days. Most people have forgotten, if they ever knew that Twitter wasn’t some huge profit generator. Musk as I recall was all excited at first, but as he got into the due diligence part of the purchase got cold feet. Or at the very least developed serious concerns and not just because it was obvious to everyone he’d overpaid in his bid. But Twitter’s board was giddy over the prospect of taking the money and RUNNING. Musk was probably relieved when regulatory issues threatened the sale’s completion – even though he had a sort of “out” clause for a financial penalty. Like many egotistical assholes he didn’t want to pay it but the time came when he was willing to do so, and it was the old board at TWITTER that stepped up to force completion of the deal.

      I can recall suggesting that a settlement would probably be negotiated and the deal called off. I even thought Musk, given how rich he was would be wise to just cough up the entire penalty and walk away. I’m now wondering if he quietly floated the idea of doing exactly that with the old board. And they said no. So he pushed hard to “git er done” and here we are. Yes, even for someone as rich as Musk the penalty would have stung just a bit, more to his ego than anything else. But it was still not much more than tip money to him. At least back then. Now? It would have been far cheaper for him to cough up say TWICE the “deal’s over” penalty. The old Twitter board could have had their financial windfall (there would have been some way to work out those details that was legal, or complicated enough that no prosecutions would happen – such is white collar crime) and Musk wouldn’t now be worth what, half of what he was a year ago? And still losing money hand over fist?

      He’s probably had offers to sell by now. At a pretty damned big loss against whatever Twitter’s current value is. I can’t see any person/entity that’s reputable buying it even for the current valuation because it’s now such a damaged brand. And turning it back into the platform (as in cleaning up all the mess Musk has made and kicking off all those vile, disgusting people and groups he’s let loose there) it once was will be an expensive, hassle filled (complete with death threats mind you) proposition. At this point if there’s a viable buyer, one who would make it a publicly held company again and has good intentions (with a track record) he should dump his toy at a fire sale price – sell the software and infrastructure and let them start over under a new name.

      11
      • With the above in mind, Denis, is it wrong to fantasize Christopher Bouzy buying out Twitter and merging it with Spoutible in a few years? Even with these circumstances, it’s unlikely as hell. But the image of a rich kid who directly benefited from South African apartheid having to sell to an American black man is just delicious.

        6
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