Twitter headquarters is seen in San Francisco on October 27, 2021.
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Concluding a whirlwind month, Twitter on Thursday said it would scrap ambitious growth goals it had previously offered as the company works to finish a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk.
The decision came as Twitter reported first-quarter earnings that generally matched investor expectations. The company had $ 1.2 billion in sales — a 16% increase from a year ago — as daily users increased to 229 million, slightly more than Wall Street’s forecast for 227 million.
Twitter had $ 513 million in net income thanks in part to the $ 970 million sale of MoPub, a mobile-ad firm.
Twitter shares rose to 1.2% to $ 49.20 in pre-market trading. Musk has offered $ 54.20 a share for Twitter, and the unusually high spread between Twitter’s current price and Musk’s offer indicates some shareholders remain skeptical that the transaction will happen. The company expects it close this year, and while Musk won board approval earlier this week, the next step is a shareholder vote.
Until Musk arrived earlier this month, Twitter had been trying to hit goals set by cofounder Jack Dorsey before he handed the CEO role to Parag Agrawal last November. This included reaching 315 million users and 7.5 billion in total revenue by the end of next year, targets that Wall Street were already out of reach before Musk’s courtship started.
Musk has indicated he wants to rethink substantial portions of Twitter’s business, including its core ads unit that drives the majority of sales. He also said he’d like the company to add encrypted messaging and reduce content-moderation policies to make Twitter “politically neutral,” a comment that won applause from conservatives and drew rebukes from researchers who say such changes could increase misinformation and harassment. the platform.
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