Inside Elon Musk’s Big Plans for Twitter

Elon Musk has by no means been accused of dreaming small. He has reinvented no less than two industries with Tesla, his digital automobile firm, and SpaceX, the rocket firm — and now his ambitions are carrying over to his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, has offered a pitch deck to buyers in latest days outlining his grand — some may say unimaginable — plans for Twitter and its monetary targets. The New York Instances obtained the presentation. Right here’s a peek into what Mr. Musk sees for the social media service within the years forward.

Quintuple income to $26.4 billion by 2028.

In his pitch deck, Mr. Musk claimed he would improve Twitter’s annual income to $26.4 billion by 2028, up from $5 billion final yr.

Lower Twitter’s reliance on promoting to lower than 50 p.c of income.

Underneath Mr. Musk, promoting would fall to 45 p.c of whole income, down from round 90 p.c in 2020. In 2028, promoting would generate $12 billion in income and subscriptions practically $10 billion, in keeping with the doc. Different income would come from companies equivalent to knowledge licensing.

Produce $15 million in income from a funds enterprise.

Twitter would herald $15 million from a funds enterprise in 2023, in keeping with the doc, which might develop to about $1.3 billion by 2028. The corporate’s funds enterprise right now, which incorporates tipping and purchasing, is negligible. There was hypothesis that Mr. Musk might introduce cost skills to Twitter provided that he helped popularize PayPal, the digital funds service.

Enhance common income per consumer by $5.39.

With all of those modifications, Mr. Musk anticipates he can raise Twitter’s common income per consumer — a key metric for social media firms — to $30.22 in 2028 from $24.83 final yr, in keeping with the doc.

Attain 931 million customers by 2028.

Mr. Musk anticipates Twitter’s whole variety of customers will develop from 217 million on the finish of final yr to just about 600 million in 2025 and 931 million six years from now. Most of that development will come from Twitter’s ad-supported enterprise, together with Twitter Blue, for which customers pay $3 a month to customise their expertise on the app. In line with the pitch deck, Mr. Musk expects 69 million customers of Twitter Blue by 2025 and 159 million in 2028.

Have 104 million subscribers for a mysterious X by 2028.

Included in Mr. Musk’s whole consumer estimates are what look like subscribers to a brand new product referred to as X, which might have 104 million customers in 2028, in keeping with the doc. The doc didn’t element what X Subscribers was, however Mr. Musk has hinted at introducing an ad-free expertise on Twitter. The X Subscribers product exhibits up on the pitch deck in 2023, with 9 million customers anticipated in its first yr.

Rent 3,600 staff — after shedding a whole bunch.

By 2025, Mr. Musk anticipates Twitter may have 11,072 staff, in keeping with the doc. That might be up from round 7,500 right now.

However in between, Mr. Musk expects the quantity to fluctuate, rising to 9,225 staff in 2022, then declining to eight,332 in 2023 earlier than rising once more. Mr. Musk is prone to shed staff as a part of his takeover, earlier than bringing on new expertise in engineering, an individual with data of the state of affairs stated. Inventory-based compensation prices are additionally anticipated to rise to simply over $3 billion by 2028, from $914 million in 2022.

Increase free money move to $9.4 billion.

Twitter will add about $13 billion of debt as a part of Mr. Musk’s buyout plan. However he expects to pay that debt down as free money move — a measure of how a lot cash an organization has to service its debt — is ready to develop to $3.2 billion in 2025 and $9.4 billion in 2028, in keeping with the pitch deck. Free money move would rise at the same time as working bills and prices additionally rose, in keeping with the doc.