Musk: "Twitter Value 26 Trillion Won"... Valuation Halved in 5 Months Since Acquisition

Elon Musk Acquires Twitter for $44 Billion
Current Twitter Valued at $20 Billion

Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, has valued Twitter's corporate worth at $20 billion (approximately 26 trillion KRW). This is less than half the value compared to when he acquired Twitter for $44 billion (about 57 trillion KRW) last October, in less than six months.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and others on the 26th (local time), Musk recently sent an email to employees offering stock compensation that can be converted into cash for some shares about a year later. The email reportedly stated that "stock compensation will be based on a company stock value of $20 billion."

Musk acquired Twitter last October for $44 billion. Since then, Twitter has become a private company, and its exact corporate value has not been disclosed. However, through this email, Musk appears to have indirectly acknowledged that the company's value has been halved in less than six months.

In the email sent to employees, he reportedly said, "Twitter is being rapidly reorganized to the extent that it can be called a reverse startup," and "radical changes are necessary for Twitter to avoid bankruptcy."

The main reason for the decline in Twitter's corporate value is analyzed to be related to the departure of major advertisers. Since Musk's acquisition, Twitter's advertising revenue base has been significantly shaken. As a result, Musk has cut Twitter's entire workforce eight times from the acquisition to the present, citing cost reduction.

WSJ pointed out, "Although Twitter has actively sought new advertisers, many major advertisers are cutting spending on the platform."

Nevertheless, despite ongoing management difficulties, Musk remains optimistic about the company's future. He said, "I clearly see Twitter as being on the path to becoming a company valued at $250 billion (about 325 trillion KRW)." This implies that the current stock value granted could increase more than tenfold.

"Some Twitter source code leaked online for at least several months... recently discovered"

Twitter logo and Elon Musk (right)

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that some of Twitter's source code was leaked online at least several months ago, but the leaker and the leak route have not yet been properly identified.

On the 26th (local time), the New York Times (NYT) reported, citing related legal documents, that Twitter's source code had been exposed online for several months at minimum, and Twitter's management only recently became aware of it.

Source code is the blueprint of computer software, and once converted into machine language, it creates executable software. Therefore, if exposed, corporate development secrets and security vulnerabilities are fully revealed, so it is generally considered highly confidential information.

Brett Callow, an analyst at cybersecurity software company McSoft, expressed concern about the Twitter source code leak, saying, "It has become easier and faster to identify vulnerabilities through this."

NYT diagnosed that the source code exposure is deepening the difficulties the company has faced since Musk acquired Twitter.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.