The flying feathers and constant rumblings from Twitter are developing a very familiar pattern. Elon Musk is the default bad guy; and the absence of other numbers with dollar signs mean nothing. While I may disagree with his methods, the media coverage is skewing too many things and not doing a good job of it.
The famous figure of $400 for meals, for example. Musk said it was costing $400 a meal. Employees were saying they were paying $20 to $25 per meal. These aren’t even the same numbers. The cost of serving and the cost of buying are totally different things.
Have you ever seen an empty restaurant? Do you know that it’s the running costs that crank up the losses? If you’re paying for facilities and staff, you’re paying $X per day, and sales have to be more than that number to make a profit. Musk is talking about operating cost structure, not the price of meals.
Meanwhile, back at the slash-and-burn scenario, examining costs and cutting costs aren’t exactly new. That’s what happens when you take over a business. The extreme measures currently in play may be drastic but given the numbers from former management, who knows?
I for one am having difficulties wondering where all that revenue went. The market-accepted figure of around $4 billion per year is ballpark. …So where did that few lazy billions go? It didn’t go on macaroni cheese in the cafeteria, that’s for sure.
None of the numbers from The Before Times, to overuse an overused phrase, look particularly appealing. 2Q 2022 shows revenue of $1.17 billion. Where is it? Is that an unreasonable question? A hot dog stand would have answers.
Let’s try a word association test:
“Corporate accounts”.
“Total distrust”.
The history of Twitter’s revenue is a rather neurotic thing. It waddled along from 2013 to 2019 until the pandemic. Then the numbers moved around in various spasms. At no point was Twitter revenue exactly making headlines until the Musk bid. It was OK-ish.
Financial market coverage is highly selective for various reasons, not all of them good reasons. Twitter’s revenue received occasional mild disapproval from Wall Street pundits, and that was about it. Internal costs weren’t exactly making headlines. With Black Rock and others as major investors, Twitter also wasn’t considered a particularly risky stock.
Then, of course, the world ended. From comatose market acceptance of “whatever” to the exact opposite. Now, the media are taking sides.
This is regardless of the fact that The Before Times don’t seem too impressive on face value for revenue management alone, Where did that money go? Where are the consolidated accounts to verify expenditures, and other Accountancy 101 novelties? Not in publicly available information.
Maybe previous management can be vindicated with this information. Maybe Musk is right, just too aggressive about it. More likely, the numbers will send mixed messages both ways.
It’s the old story, yet again. Polarize, dumb down, and call it news. That’s not good enough anymore. Facts, please.
____________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
