Elon Musk Warns Twitter is Still Cash Flow Negative

Despite some pretty drastic cost-cutting measures and the hire of a new CEO to lure advertisers back, it appears that Twitter is still losing money. In a series of tweets published over the weekend, Elon Musk said that Twitter’s ad revenue hasn’t recovered yet and that the company’s “heavy” debt load continues to take its toll.

“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,” Musk tweeted. In a separate tweet, the owner of Twitter added that we did not see the increase in advertising revenue that was expected in June.”

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

Musk’s latest statements on Twitter’s financial situation contradict what the exec previously said in an interview with the BBC that was broadcasted live on Twitter in April. At the time, Musk said that Twitter was “roughly breaking even” in Q1 and that “almost all advertisers have come back or said they are going to come back.”

In June, longtime advertising executive Linda Yaccarino became the new CEO of Twitter. The former head of advertising at NBCUniversal appears to be focusing on business operations at Twitter while Musk now oversees product design. However, it’s certainly no easy job to work with Musk, whose continuous stream of unfiltered tweets may continue to scare advertisers away. Indeed, Musk’s latest antics include no less than a cage match offer and some below-the-waist personal attacks directed at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who recently launched a Twitter clone called Threads.

While Twitter remains in troubled waters following its acquisition by Elon Musk, the company has also started spending money to reward some of its content creators. The new Creator Ads Revenue Sharing Program, which will roll out more broadly to Twitter Blue subscribers later this month, will allow creators to get a share in ad revenue from the ads showing in the replies to their posts. Musk tweeted yesterday that Twitter will soon share ad revenue from profile page views from verified users as well, which should “roughly double payouts.”