X (formerly called Twitter) has lost 71 percent of its value since it was bought by Elon Musk, according to the mutual fund Fidelity. Fidelity, which owns a stake in X Holdings, said in a disclosure obtained by Axios that it had marked down the value of its shares by 71.5 percent since Musk’s purchase. This includes a 10.7 percent cut during November 2023, during which time Musk told boycotting X advertisers to “go f**k yourself” during an on-stage interview with the New York Times.
According to media reports, Fidelity began marking down its Twitter shares the first month after Musk’s buyout. It increased the share value or kept it stable for a few months earlier in 2023.
Musk recently endorsed an antisemitic conspiracy theory on his social media platform X. As a result, many brands including Disney, Apple, and IBM among 200 others stopped advertising on X have pulled their advertising from the platform. Musk’s post on X accused Jewish communities of spreading “hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
Advertising counts for a large portion of X’s revenue. If brands continue to pull their advertising and refrain from using X, it could cost the company around $75 million this quarter, reported the New York Times. Musk picked Twitter in October 2022 for $44-billion. In July 2023, he rebranded Twitter to X.
Read more: 2023: Rise to Twitter, fall to X; A detailed analysis