Elon Musk values ​​Twitter at $20 billion

SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk said Twitter is now worth about $20 billion, according to an email he sent to company employees on Friday, a significant drop from the $44 billion he paid to buy the social network in October.

The email, seen by The New York Times, was sent to employees announcing the new stock compensation program. In it, Mr. Musk warned workers that Twitter was still in a precarious financial situation and, at one point, was four months away from running out of cash. He said “radical changes” at the company, including mass layoffs and cost cutting, were needed to avoid bankruptcy and streamline operations.

“Twitter is rapidly reshaping,” Musk wrote, adding that the company could be seen as a “startup in reverse.”

Twitter’s value plummeted as Mr. Musk overhauled the company in a major way. In October, Mr. Musk took Twitter private, meaning he was no longer obligated to provide transparency about his finances. But the billionaire noted publicly that the company lost revenue as advertisers fled the platform after his takeover, and suggested that Twitter was in danger of bankruptcy.

The $20 billion figure puts Twitter slightly higher than Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, which has recently suffered a downturn in advertising and projected lower revenue. Snap, which has a market capitalization of about $18 billion, has about 375 million daily active users, compared to 237.8 million Twitter users in the company’s final public disclosure before it went private.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment and an email returned to Twitter’s communications department with a poop emoji. The company’s new valuation was reported earlier by the information.

According to an email Mr. Musk sent about the new stock compensation program, Twitter employees will receive shares in X Corporation, the holding company he used to buy the company. These awards will be awarded under a $20 billion valuation. Mr. Musk also said in the email that he believes Twitter could one day reach $250 billion.

Musk added that Twitter will plan to allow employees to sell stock every six months, similar to the practice at SpaceX, its rocket maker. Private equity sales, Musk wrote, would allow employees to have access to “liquid inventory, but without the chaos of stock prices and the burden of a public company’s lawsuits.”