The Numbers That May Have Convinced Elon Musk That Twitter Was Worth $44 Billion

Elon Musk is anything but conventional. Typically, when companies (or multi-billionaires) spend boatloads of money on acquisitions, they take their time reviewing internal documents and financial statements that aren’t available to the public—before making their offer to buy. But that’s not how Musk did it.

In the lead-up to his momentous $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, Musk, in the interest of speed, reportedly waived the opportunity to do a deep dive into Twitter’s finances. Granted, he says he’s purchasing the social media company not to make more money, but mainly to promote a set of lofty ideals related to freedom of speech.

Twitter has enormous global influence and has maintained steady user growth in recent years. But the company’s financial performance has been fairly lackluster recently. For the 2021 fiscal year, it posted a net income loss of $221.4 million, following a much deeper annual loss of $1.14 billion for 2020. Here’s a look at some of the facts and figures that likely convinced Musk (and his bankers) to pursue the deal anyway.

Twitter by the Numbers

 

Each day 500 million Tweets get sent out; some 70% of U.S. Twitter users say they get news on the platform.

 

 

Write to Lon Tweeten at lon.tweeten@time.com.