As people close to the process reveal Twitter’s release of numbers for the past quarter, there is somewhat of a sense that these postings don’t matter as much, because it’s all going to be Elon Musk’s problem soon.
TechCrunch and other sources report that Twitter showed $1.2 billion in revenue, up 16%, but not quite up to prior estimates.
“Analysts were expecting revenues on average of $1.22 billion on an average EPS of $0.03 (but the range was huge for the latter: between $0.15 at the high end through to a loss per share of $0.49),” writes Ingrid Lunden. “Twitter itself had set guidance of $1.17 billion to $1.27 billion for revenues. It didn’t provide guidance for the next quarter in the statement.”
Diluted EPS was $0.61 on net income of 513 million. Users were up 15.9% year-over-year.
If, however, Musk succeeds in buying the company and taking it private, Twitter won’t have the same accounting requirements and standards, and based on Musk’s own comments around his acquisition, he might not even be buying the platform for profit anyway.
As those covering the process have been reporting, Musk asserts that he wants to make a lot of changes to Twitter’s platform to try to encourage free speech. He doesn’t seem to be pursuing Twitter and a take private process from a Buffett-like perspective of long-term growth and capital gains.
Interestingly enough, Twitter has announced that due to the pending deal, the company will not hold the usual conference call with quarterly numbers.
That, again, suggests that there’s less of a focus on shareholder diligence as Musk prepares to purchase the entire company for something like $44 billion.
There’s also the obvious reality that Musk doesn’t need to pinch pennies.
Another portion of Twitter’s financial reality is the deal in which it sold digital marketing arm MoPub to AppLovin.
That has shored up the social media company’s coffers as we look for the announced deal with Musk to go through.
If it does, you’ll have one less ticker to look at.