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Comment by skwirl | Hacker News Reader

Given twitter’s massive headcount increases in the previous couple of years and the decline in ad spend that came last year, the previous executive team was about to fall off their tightrope. I’m sure they would have handled it with much better communication while treating employees better, though.

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Twitter only lost $200-million in 2021.

Do you want to guess how much it lost in 2022? Hint: Elon Musk's buyout forced Twitter to take on $13 Billion debt... estimated to be $1.3 Billion in interest payments per year.

This "Headcount" fallacy seems to be just the pro-Elon Musk crowd ignoring the fact that the #1 and #2 sources of Twitter's financial woes are:

1. The aforementioned Loan.

2. The $2.5 Billion (estimated) loss in advertiser revenue.

Twitters losses in 2023 will be astronomical. It will not be possible to ignore Twitter's loan issues, or their loss in advertiser revenue.

Are they still required to report those losses to the public under the new structure? Or can they wear a facade of success until a sudden "Our Incredible Journey" at some point?

No. They're a private company now, so all their profits / losses / etc. etc. can remain private now.

Losing money in 2021 for a tech company in Twitter’s position is dire. That was the most intense boom year the industry has experienced since at least the 90s, maybe ever. Meta had all time high gross revenue and net income, both about 35% higher than in 2020. They haven’t lost money and are still reducing headcount by 12%. Twitter’s layoffs were bound to be much greater.

I am not a fan of Elon Musk, for what it’s worth, and I’m sorry that you felt the need to make this some kind of tribal battle instead of a productive discussion. Twitter’s financial issues were well known before Musk became involved, and it is widely agreed that he greatly overpaid for the company. Nothing he has done with the company should impress anyone at this point. The point stands that the company was going to be experiencing major pain even without him.

> The point stands that the company was going to be experiencing major pain even without him.

$3.8 Billion / year of that pain is directly attributable to Musk, in a company that only had $5 Billion/year revenue.

Its really that simple. Look at the advertising losses due to Elon Musk's right-wing redpilling of the world... and add the $1.3 Billion loan structure Elon Musk is directly responsible for. There's no need to overthink this. We can actually calculate how much revenue Twitter is losing directly related to Elon Musk's behavior.

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If you want to argue otherwise, you need to start putting down at least some napkin-level estimates to where the other losses-of-revenue came from for Twitter. Or you need to chip away at the $3.8 Billion number I posted above.

Coming into a $5 Billion revenue company and immediately causing $3.8 Billion (combination lost revenue and new liabilities) is very impressive. I don't think I've ever seen someone wipe out... 76% of a company's revenue in just 3 months before.

I don’t know what this has to do with what I posted. I never said Twitter was doing well under Musk. You are shadowboxing.

> I don’t know what this has to do with what I posted.

The problems you're trying to discuss are almost entirely irrelevant to Twitter's current woes. The actual problems are measured in the $Billions/year size. The problems you discuss are perhaps only a few dozen million/year.

> You are shadowboxing.

You are making a mountain out of a molehill. The $million mistakes should be ignored for the $Billion mistakes happening right now.

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