Elon Musk is personally ruining Twitter’s ad business
QuartzApr 12, 2023
After months of delays, Twitter on Thursday began removing blue ticks from verified users who did not sign up for its paid subscription service Twitter Blue.
Users who lost their blue ticks included popular figures such as Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey, and former US Pres. Trump.
Musk can sugarcoat it all he wants, but Twitter is an ad-reliant platform, and ad sales are projected to drop by around 28% this year over last. And the number one problem is Musk; advertisers can’t trust him, especially since he’s rolled back rules related to objectionable content and revamped the verification system. For Twitter to survive, it must do better than break even, which will only happen when the platform is separated from Musk’s personal brand.
Saving Twitter was a challenging task, but it looks like the worst is behind Musk and the platform. Twitter now has a sleeker workforce and a subscription model that'll help offset advertising losses. Moreover, many advertisers are returning after waiting to see what Musk would do with the company. In a matter of months, Twitter could be in the black.
There's a 25% chance that Twitter will have a corporate credit rating in the "C"s or worse before July 2023, according to the Metaculus prediction community.