X, aka Twitter, now worth 71 percent less than what Elon Musk paid for it

Oof. That's not a good way to kick off the New Year.

Elon Musk's social media platform X is currently worth around $12.5 billion, according to a recent analysis by the mutual fund Fidelity.

X's value dropped significantly since Musk's takeover

For those keeping score, that's 71.5 percent lower than Musk's value of the company when he took it over in October 2002. Musk, with the backing of a group of investors, paid $44 billion to acquire the social media platform, then-known as Twitter. Fidelity is one of those companies with equity in X.

The analysis by Fidelity, which was first reported by Axios, runs through November 2023. That means X's valuation includes at least some of the losses incurred by the company following the advertiser exodus, which began in mid-November. According to Axios, 10.7 percent of those losses came from that month alone.

On the evening of Nov. 15, Musk seemingly endorsed an antisemitic, white supremacist conspiracy theory on X. The following day, Media Matters for America published a report that found ads from major brands being run on X alongside pro-Nazi content. The fallout was swift as companies like Apple and Disney suspended advertising on the social media platform.

In a report from The New York Times late last year, X was looking at an estimated $75 million in advertising losses over the final weeks of 2023 as a result of the advertiser boycott. 

Musk capped off the end of November by telling those very advertisers to "go fuck yourself" during an interview at The New York Times' DealBook Summit. It's unclear how much Musk's recent antics affected Fidelity's current valuation of X. Musk would go on to taunt Disney CEO Bob Iger in December on X for Disney's continued advertising on other social media platforms like Instagram. 

Fidelity has continuously decreased the value of its equity in X over the past year. In May 2023, for example, they valued the company at around $15 billion. Unless Musk makes some drastic changes, it doesn't look like that decline will reverse any time soon. 2024 will certainly be an interesting year regarding the future of X.