Elon Musk, investors reportedly lose more than $24B on X acquisition
Elon Musk and his investors in X have seen the value of the social media platform plunge 72% — resulting in $24 billion in paper losses — since the tycoon purchased the company less than two years ago, according to a report.
Musk and his partners committed $33.5 billion toward the $44 billion purchase for the site formerly known as Twitter in October 2022 — with that initial payout now valued at a paltry $9.38 billion, the Washington Post reported.
The rest of the $44 billion sum was paid with loans from banks that have not been able to get rid of the debt from their balance sheets, according to a recent analysis by financial services firm Fidelity Investment cited by the publication.
X’s financial woes could be attributed to the exodus of advertisers that have grown uncomfortable with Musk’s freewheeling content moderation policies — which have also run afoul of authorities in Brazil, who have banned the site for refusing to censor political speech.
“Elon’s done a tremendous amount of wealth destruction since he’s purchased Twitter,” Ross Gerber, who said he invested less than $1 million, told the Washington Post, adding he now considers the stake worthless.
“For the people who put capital into him for any amount,” Gerber said, “trying to explain to people how he lost” so much money “is not a fun conversation.”
Fidelity held a $19.66 million stake in Twitter before Musk bought the company.
But the firm now says the valuation is 72% less than what it paid, down to $5.3 million.
When Musk was gathering his group of investors, Fidelity added a little more than $300 million to the mogul’s $44 billion takeover.
But the firm’s 72% markdown of the value of its stake puts its position at $88 million as of Friday.
Among Musk’s partners who took the biggest financial hit from their investment in the social media company is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, who rolled his nearly $2 billion stake in Twitter into the deal that took the firm private.
According to the recent numbers released by Fidelity, the Saudi royal has lost $1.4 billion on his investment.
But Alwaleed told the Washington Post that he believes his stake in X is the same as when Musk first bought the company — $1.9 billion, which he termed a “conservative” estimate.
“In our books, on my books personally, we are valuing at minimum [at] the entry level that we entered with,” Alwaleed told the newspaper.
“There’s no devaluation whatsoever.”
Alwaleed insisted that “we are very happy with the alliance” with Musk and that “we categorically reject any discount to [the] company.”
Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder and former CEO, invested $1 billion in X — though Fidelity marked his stake’s value down to just $280 million, or a loss of $720 million.
Initially supportive of Musk’s vision for the site, Dorsey said last year he didn’t think Musk “acted right after realizing his timing was bad.”
“It all went south,” said Dorsey, who has since backed rival platform Bluesky.
Larry Ellison, the billionaire Oracle co-founder and Musk friend who put in a $1 billion stake, also lost a sizable chunk, according to Fidelity.
Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm that has backed Apple, Google, Oracle and YouTube, lost $576 million off its initial $800 million investment, while Vy Capital saw its $600 million investment shed $504 million in value, the Fidelity analysis found.
The cryptocurrency exchange Binance lost $360 million; Andreessen Horowitz lost $288 million; and Qatar Investment Authority lost $270 million, the Washington Post reported.
Dorsey, Ellison, Sequoia, Binance, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity and Qatar Investment Authority declined to comment.
