Elon Musk reveals 50% drop in Twitter's ad revenue

Musk pointed to a significant drop in advertising revenue and the burden of high debt as the main reasons for the financial pressure. He emphasized that Twitter needs to achieve positive cash flow before addressing other priorities.

We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load. Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2023

The reveal comes at a time when Twitter's ad revenue sharing program has recently begun compensating creators, including a handful of far-right influencers. Musk also expressed optimism about the platform's user activity, saying it could reach a record high in terms of the number of seconds users use their devices in the coming week.

Musk has previously mentioned that most advertisers who had initially left the platform following his takeover in October have either returned or expressed their intention to return.

According to estimates from research firm Sensor Tower provided to Bloomberg, Twitter's ad spending fell 89% to $7.6 million in the first two months of this year. In addition, Reuters reported that Twitter's annual interest payments are about $1.5 billion due to debt that resulted from Musk's $44 billion privatization of the company.