Excitement ran high when Tesla founder Elon Musk plunked down more than $40 billion for Twitter. The acquisition isn’t over yet, but Musk isn’t known for thinking small. Of course he already has big plans. He wants to significantly increase Twitter’s sales and plans to achieve annual sales of $26.4 billion by 2028, reports the New York Times citing documentation for investors. In 2021, the short message service will generate sales of just five billion dollars.
Above all, Musk wants to significantly reduce dependence on advertising revenue. The advertising share of sales should drop to 45 percent, from 90 percent in 2020. Advertising should then bring in twelve billion in sales, and another ten billion dollars should come from subscriptions. Cash flow is also expected to increase to $3.2 billion in 2025 and then to $9.4 billion in 2028, the newspaper reports. Musk expects the number of Twitter employees to increase from around 7,500 to around 11,100 by 2025. Musk could not be reached for comment, and Twitter initially did not comment. Musk wants to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Just last week, the US short message service agreed to the takeover by Musk. At the moment, Twitter has around 217 million users. According to the information, Musk plans to have 600 million users in 2025 and around 930 million users by 2028. In addition, a new offer called X is to be launched, which is not further described.
There has always been speculation that after Musk’s takeover, one of the most famous users could return, namely former US President Donald Trump, whose account has been since January last year. In the legal battle against the blocking of his Twitter account, he has now suffered a temporary defeat. A federal judge in the US state of California dismissed a corresponding lawsuit by Trump at the end of last week. However, the judge gave Trump and his lawyers the option of resubmitting them in a modified form. The plaintiffs would not argue from a strong position, it said in the verdict. Twitter is a private company and the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression, applies to government interference – but not to alleged interference by private companies, it said.
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube blocked Trump’s accounts in January 2021, shortly before the end of his term. The trigger was the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 by Trump supporters – and that he expressed sympathy for the attackers. He also claimed – even now – without any evidence that his victory in the November presidential election was stolen through fraud. He heated up the mood in the country. Twitter, where he was followed by more than 80 million users, was his most important communication platform up to that point. The ex-president has been fighting against the blocking of his account for a long time. Trump recently said he didn’t want to go back to Twitter, even if he could.