https://arstechnica.com/?p=1980053
Company is giving employees equity based on a share price of $45.
What's X? Oh right... he's still sticking with that huh?
"I told you, my name's not Steve anymore. You have to call me Dragon Master!"
Seriously. Brand recognition like Twitter is the dream. It's so strong, X will forever be known not as itself, but as "X, formerly Twitter".
This is what the company valued itself as being worth. Not what it's actually worth. So I'm not sure if Elon is trying to over or under value here, but I'm guessing over.
"Turning a profit early 2024" if they manage that it would be kinda impressive but I wonder if the platform has any chance of longevity after reducing the staff by over 80%? I can't imagine staying there if I was a skilled engineer, it just feels like such a cutthroat way of doing business and what do they stand to gain? When they could go to another, far more stable firm like Facebook, Google or Microsoft. And the longer they stay the more stained their CV is going to be I feel, unless X manages to defy the odds and actually succeed in this reconstruction of sorts.
On the other hand, the website's still up (I guess) so if you're part of the 20% that wasn't considered useless that might a big plus for you
If the equity is worth $19 billion, and the debt is worth $13 billion, that's a drop of $44 billion to $32 billion. Still hilarious, although not as dramatic.
The equity is merely an estimate; it's no longer a traded company so a public valuation is not applicable. The value is still a valid valuation, just as DJT's valuation of his properties were "valid," but it's not as if you can sell portions of the company tomorrow to generate cash that will settle in three days, like you could with Tesla. And the debt is secured by the $19B valuation, so it's not in addition to the equity; the company is "worth" $19B but caries a debt burden of $13B making it's liquidation value $6B (not really book value since that includes "good will" and "future performance", not just the value of it's real, personal, and intangible/code/patent properties).
The equity is merely an estimate; it’s no longer a traded company so a public valuation is not applicable.
Even for private companies, though, the valuation matters for all sorts of events that might happen in the meantime: employees with equity still might be forced to sell if they quit their job, so that value ends up actually supporting real transactions trading equity for cash, income tax will look to the fair value at the time of vesting (or grant, in some cases).
And the debt is secured by the $19B valuation, so it’s not in addition to the equity; the company is “worth” $19B but caries a debt burden of $13B making it’s liquidation value $6B
I don't think this is right. In a typical leveraged buyout, the debt is secured by the assets of the company itself, not by the equity in the company. In other words, the money is owed by Twitter Inc. (and secured by what Twitter owns), not by Twitter's shareholders (and not secured by the shares themselves).
The old owners got $44 billion. $13 billion came from lenders, not new shareholders. New shareholders agreed to the deal because it allowed them to pony up less money for 100% ownership of the corporation, but the corporation itself is now more burdened with debt. The enterprise value, however, is shareholder equity plus debt, so the enterprise value itself doesn't change with the debt. That's why I added the total debt to the total valuation of the equity.
It's not a surprise that his weird decisions and advertiser escapes has diminished the value. $19 billion is still quite a large company. As a practical example, the most expensive thing I own is almost a hundred thousand times cheaper.
Incidentally, Twitter stock price in March 2022, before Musk announced the acquisition, was about $32. So in a sense, it was worth $25 billion at that point.
It must be noted that this evaluation is only an internal estimate approved by the bigot.
The true value is very likely to be even lower.
Surely he's playing real-life "Brewster's Millions" here. Musk is almost as entertaining as Pryor and Candy. Almost.
Cool. So no one is asking why Elon is going out of his way publicizing the fact his new company shed over half its value?? This is a guy whose ego is fragile he can’t even be told no without throwing a world class temper tantrum.
And he’s going around making up these stories? 🤔
I think he's doing it, because he has no other option. This valuation is based on the equity he offered to the employees. And I don't think he would risk lying about it, since his relations with the SEC are already sour.
I assume that the valuation is what Elon can expect to recoup if he were to liquidate (sell off) Twitter for some reason. Even if he didn't, the amount is going to make it to the balance sheet of his lenders - representing a loss in the deal.