Elon Musk's Net Worth Soars to $300 Billion as Twitter Valuation Hits $20 Billion

Elon Musk sent out an email to the company's employees on Friday and said that Twitter is now worth about $20 billion, a significant drop from the $44 billion that he paid to buy the social network in October, according to reports from Platformer and The Information. In a memo sent to the staff, that was viewed by Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer, Musk reportedly says that employees will receive stock grants based on Twitter’s $20 billion valuation.

The email, which was also viewed by The New York Times, was sent to employees to announce a new stock compensation program. In that, Musk warned workers that Twitter remained in a precarious financial position, and at one point, had been four months away from running out of money. Musk stated last year that he’s “obviously overpaying” for Twitter at $54.20 per share. Price was also one of the reasons why he attempted to back out of the deal last year, claiming that the company made false and misleading statements about the presence of bots on the platform.

Musk added that he sees “a clear but difficult path” to achieving a $250 billion valuation, which would eventually make Twitter’s current stock grants worth 10 times as much as they are now, if the CEO manages to skillfully execute his plan, of course. According to Musk’s email about the new stock compensation program, Twitter employees will receive stock in X Corporation, the holding company he used to buy Twitter. Those awards will be granted under the $20 billion valuation.

Twitter will plan to allow employees to sell the stock every six months, Musk added, akin to the practice at SpaceX, his privately held rocket manufacturing corporation. The sales of private stock would allow employees to have “liquid stock, but without the stock price chaos and lawsuit burdens of a public company,” Musk wrote.

Additionally, Musk reportedly wrote that he views Twitter as an “inverse startup” due to the whirlwind of “necessary” changes he made to the platform to save it from bankruptcy. However, the new $20 billion estimate likely reflects the challenges that emerged due to some of these radical changes, such as the new Blue with verification subscription that led to a wave of fake accounts and a “general amnesty” policy that brought back some of Twitter’s worst users.

With its $20 billion valuation, Twitter is now in a similar company to what Snapchat is worth now, even as that app is struggling to retain users thanks to the emergence of TikTok; even with that comparison, Snapchat averages over 100 million more daily users than Twitter.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment and an email to Twitter’s communications department was returned with a poop emoji.