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Twitter, Inc canceled this month’s quarterly earnings call today, citing its ongoing litigation against Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, whose beleaguered attempt to withdraw from a planned multibillion-dollar acquisition of Twitter continues apace.
“Given the pending acquisition of Twitter by an affiliate of Elon Musk, we will not host an earnings conference call, issue a shareholder letter, or provide financial guidance in conjunction with our second quarter 2022 earnings release,” Twitter wrote in a statement.
Many in the crypto space had enthusiastically supported Musk’s bid for Twitter in the hope that he would further integrate crypto features into the platform and lay the groundwork for broader adoption.
So far, the principal effect of Musk’s bid has been on Twitter’s ability to conduct its business.
Twitter did, nevertheless, release a report detailing its recent earnings.
In the second quarter, it announced that it had increased its daily active users by 16.6% to 237.8 million, while its revenue dropped by 1% to 1.18 billion. The downturn reflects, it wrote, “advertising industry headwinds” associated with the macroenvironment—presumably Ukraine and the post-pandemic fallout.
It also said revenue had suffered from “uncertainty related to the pending acquisition of Twitter by an affiliate of Elon Musk.”
Twitter, Musk and Crypto
The social media giant’s troubled relationship with Musk began in April when the entrepreneur agreed to buy the company at $54.2 per share, valuing the company at around $43 billion.
Among Musk’s financiers were a bevy of crypto companies, including Binance and crypto-adjacent venture firm Andressen Horowitz, and it was expected that he would implement certain Web3 features into the platform, such as allowing micropayments.
However, as stocks subsequently plummeted and inflation went into a tailspin, Musk appeared to get cold feet, regularly taking to Twitter to lambast the company and its executives.
Finally, last month, he attempted to pull out of the deal entirely, claiming Twitter had failed to properly account for the number of bots populating its app.
Twitter disputes this—it says there was no mention of bots in the contract signed by Musk, and that Musk himself had claimed he wanted to buy the platform to “defeat the bots”—and has taken Musk to court. It hopes to compel him to buy the company or else force him to pay a $1 billion “divorce fee.”
Earlier this week a court agreed to a “fast-track” hearing that will see litigation begin in October.
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