Fidelity: Twitter worth a third of what Musk paid for it

New estimates from Fidelity Investments show that Twitter is worth only one-third of what CEO Elon Musk paid for it last year.

The financial service firm published the estimate as part of a monthly disclosure. The report says Twitter is valued at around $15 billion, or 33% of what Mr. Musk paid for it.

The report comes seven months after Mr. Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, bought Twitter for $44 billion. At the time, he said he likely paid too much for the social media platform.

Since then, Mr. Musk has hinted at the precarious financial situation of the company, something he has tried to mitigate with several moneymaking plans.

When he took control of the company in October, Mr. Musk instituted massive layoffs that included key departments at the company. He also launched a verification program that let users pay to get the famous blue checkmark on their profile.

Mr. Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been wildly popular with conservatives, many of whom he brought back to the site after they, including former President Donald Trump, were banished by the previous regime. Yet some advertisers stopped sponsorship after his purchase.

In a clear move to win back some of those advertisers, Mr. Musk announced this month that former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino will be taking over as CEO this year.

Twitter, which has disbanded its press team, could not be reached for comment.