Musk’s Twitter claims best taken with a pinch of salt

Did you hear the one about the $44 billion (€40 billion) social network that gained a new owner, lost more than half its staff and found itself deserted by the multimillion-dollar advertisers who had kept the lights on for several years?

While not quite a classic tale for the ages, it seems in danger of turning into a never-ending story. The latest twist in the Twitter saga is that those missing advertisers are on the way back. Or at least, that is according chief Twit Elon Musk.

In an interview with the BBC, Musk said that “almost all” the advertisers who deserted the platform in the wake of his takeover were either back on board or said they would return. And even better – Twitter is operating “about break even”, and could hit profitability in the coming months.

But there are some questions. The company is reported to have stopped paying rent on some of its offices. It has cut staff to the bone in wave after wave of jobs cuts – the most recent at the end of February, stopped paying for services that Musk has obviously considered a luxury and refused to pay bills that the social network had run up.

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It has sold off furniture and office equipment to anyone who wanted a piece of Twitter memorabilia. And if reports are to be believed, one of the cutbacks was the janitorial staff, which left employees – those few that remained – having to bring in their own toilet paper for work.

“Breaking even” can be that bit easier when you aren’t paying the bills you are building up. But Musk’s spin is always an interesting one, even if it’s not always strictly accurate. Take Twitter Blue for example. Musk originally promised to “verify everyone”, no doubt whispering “for a fee” quietly to himself.

Anecdotally, the promised solution for the spam and bot issue has yet to materialise, judging from the amount of activity visible on the platform that Twitter previously would have designated as “inauthentic”. And other promises – a Twitter council, sharing revenue with content creators, his stepping down as chief executive – have yet to be fulfilled.

So for now we’ll reserve judgment on Musk’s claims of Twitter’s financial stability, and take his promise of profitability with a pinch of salt.