Elon Musk says Twitter's ad revenue is down 50% and cash flow is negative

New York CNN

Elon Musk revealed on Twitter that the platform has a negative net cash flow due to a drop of 50% in advertising revenues and a "heavy debt burden."

In response to a business tip from a fan, the billionaire owner responded on Saturday: 'Need positive cash flow before you can afford anything else.

The tweet is a stark contrast to Musk's tone from April, when he told the BBC that the platform was now 'roughly achieving break-even' and most of its advertisers had returned.

After Musk's takeover, advertisers have fled in droves. Ad revenue is a controversial issue. Advertisers worried about Twitter's uncertain future, content moderation and mass layoffs.

Linda Yaccarino is a former NBCUniversal Marketing Executive who recently took Musk's CEO position. He likely bets on her experience in advertising to bring the company back.

The New York Times reported, citing a presentation from Twitter's internal team, that the US advertising revenue for the five-week period from April 1 through the first week in May was 59% lower than the previous year. CNN has not seen the presentation.

According to the data that Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm, provided to CNN last month, only 43% of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers in September, just before Musk's takeover of the platform, were still advertising the platform by April.

Musk stated that it was a very difficult time in a livestream Musk hosted last month with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Our revenue has been cut in half as a result of not toeing the line. He said that Twitter has been struggling to break even.

Twitter is now under more pressure after Meta's Threads app, its main rival, reached 100 million downloads in less than a month after its launch.

Musk has implemented a number of measures to cut costs or to make money, such as adding blue checkmarks to Twitter Blue members and putting Tweetdeck in a paid-for area.

Twitter announced on Thursday that content creators will be able get a share of the site's advertising revenue. This is a move to encourage more creators join the site. To qualify, creators need to have Twitter Blue as well as at least 5,000,000 impressions in the past three months.

Andrew Tate is one of the online influencers who are now monetized by Twitter. He was charged in Romania with human trafficking and rape as well as setting up a criminal group.