Twitter shambles a challenge for Musk

THE scale of the challenge facing Elon Musk to turnaround around Twitter was laid bare as the company posted a dismal set of results and admitted it had been exaggerating the number of people who use the site.

Twitter posted under par revenue and profit figures, while senior executives were left red faced after the company was forced to come clean about its audience figures. The shambles left many investors wondering if the world’s richest man would pull out of the £35bn blockbuster takeover.

Despite shares ticking 1pc higher to $49.11, they remain well below the $54.20 offer price that Musk made two weeks ago. For shares to still remain below the offer price shows that the market is nervous about the deal.

Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates, said: ‘Does he really have the appetite to get his hands dirty and grow the company how he wants to?’

Twitter once again showed little sign of growth, with revenue for the first three months this year coming in at £962m, well below analyst expectations on Wall Street. At the same time daily active users of the platform rose to just 229 million, up from 199 million a year earlier, but again below expectations.

But the biggest shock was the admission that it had been overestimating user numbers for the past three years. ÷ ELON Musk’s initial 9pc stake purchase in Twitter is being probed by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC is looking into whether Musk complied with an antitrust reporting requirement when he bought his stake in the social media company in early April.