I’ll be surprised if anyone ever sees another check for so-called “content monetization.” The whole thing is hilariously opaque, nobody knew these checks were coming until they did, and nobody can explain why a given person got a given amount. Feels like a publicity stunt to “prove” that it’s real to the doubters and now since that’s done there’s no need to ever send money to anyone else.
Alright. I’m out. No more double dipping. Twitter can be Musk’s Truth Social.
Literally, CAN YOU EVER STOP FUCKING LYING???
I responded to this falsity back in November with an analysis of Twitters own financials and here you are again, just spouting bullshit lie after bullshit lie.
For fuck’s sake, Sam: you are just a liar. Lie, lie, lie, that is all you know and all you can do.
Lie.
For those of you who don’t wanna go through the numbers, Twitter was actually profitable in 2020 with the exception of a $1.1 billion provision for income taxes, also a $150 million in interest expense. But as far as operating profits were concerned, Twitter made money in 2020. As a matter of fact, for 3 years in a row (2019-2021), it added 200 million dollars to its cash reserves each and every year, which is not something that a nonprofitable company typically does.
Let me quote myself:
Sam, your dishonesty is so rampant that if I were in charge of moderation, you would be banned for violating this board’s mission.
I would also like to note that Twitter’s operating profits ranged from $630 million to $1.2 billion dollars for the 3 year period in question. So it sure as hell wasn’t employee expense that forced the company in the arms of Elon - It was Musk offering $54/share for a company that had a book value of $9/share.
Sam, I see you typing: don’t bother replying. You are just a liar whom nobody here respects.
If you told me here in the 103-degree San Antonio heat at 4pm in the afternoon that the Sun was shining, I would look out the window to verify. As would everyone of us reading these words.
I believe Sam was referencing the net profit/loss that Twitter experienced. Here’s a page with that info:
The only years cited without a net loss were 2018 and 2019.
I’m interested in the annual revenue numbers though. Those have been on a steady increase, year after year, for an entire decade. Until the year Musk bought the company, then it had the first decrease in its history.
I cited these numbers.
Sam keeps on saying that the employee expense made Twitter unprofitable when Twitters own financials put paid to that nonsense.
Twitter only lost money in 2021 because of a one-time litigation expense of $700 million, otherwise it would have been profitable to the tune of $500 million. It “lost” money in 2020 because it deferred a $1.1 billion tax payment in 2019 (which shows a $1.4 billion profit).
In short, and to repeat myself, Twitter only lost money those years because of a deferred tax payment which came due in 2020 and a lost lawsuit in 2021. It was otherwise profitable all three years, especially in operations.
Fair enough, and I called bullshit on that idea as well.
Look, we all know why Sam’s bending every number he can find: he hasn’t met a Cocky Alpha Male that he hasn’t fallen in thrall to. So, just like he’s done with Donnie, he cannot let himself admit even a suspicion of weakness on the part of his hero.
Well, here, I’ll let him explain why he’s so emotional about Twitter’s earnings:
.
I feel a little bad when I see people spending hours of research refuting his arguing points (Sympathizing with you, John).
It’s not like Sam’s going to say “Golly, I took an objective look at the evidence and I’ve actually learned something!”
You do know you can just ignore him and not get your undies twisted…
What the hell are you on? You just qualified Twitter’s LOSSES by taking out interest and tax payments? And you call me a liar for providing a strasightforward reading of their finances?
From here:
You called me a liar for saying that Twitter was bleeding money before Musk took over. In 2021 and 2022 Twitter had big losses, then Musk took it over. It’s still losing money. This is pathetic.
These are the same numbers I’ve been using, and they are *everywhere. They are the standard kinds of numbers used to evaluate any corporation. You, on the other hand, seem to be trying to parse your way through the numbers until you can exlude enough to change the result and call me a ‘liar’.
There is a statistica link earlier in the thread that shows exactly what happened at Twitter, and it shows exactly what I’ve been saying - that Twitter was losing money when Musk took it over.
And here’s the FY2021 press release from Twitter describing their financials:
These are the numbers I have been using. Net losses are the measure.
In the previous post, I wondered if I was overstating the point that Sam’s emotional about these numbers.
I needn’t have done so.
Wondering what strasightforward means.
Twitter rep confirms that only the people Elmo is simping for get ad sharing.
Well, I have no doubt that that response did indeed “clarify” his/her concerns.
Why would you remove their interest expenses and tax liability for 2020?
Here’s Twitter’s income sttement from 2018 to 2021:
In 2021 Twitter had a net loss of 441 million before taxes, and 211 million after the tax adjustment. In 2020 Twitter had a net loss of 51 million before taxes, and
1135 million after their tax adjustment. Either way, they lost money. It’s right there in the income statement.
Nice switch to ‘operating profit’ rather than net profit. And whether a company adds cash or not is irrelevant, since there are lots of ways to accrue cash while losing money. For instance, by accruing future debt or liabilities, or holding money that eventually will be used to pay tax, or by selling assets. For example, in 2021 Twitter sold off $101 million in assets.
I assume you are talking about the ‘provision for income taxes’ in 2020, which changes the net income from a small loss to a large one. I’m not an accountant, but isn’t that provision basically saying, “Yeah, we made this amount of money, but we ower this much in tax, so that needs to be deducted.”
From here:
So if the company accrued tax liabilities, why should we exclude them? And in any event, when talking about corporate profits and losses, the standard is to compare NET operating profits and losses. You’re the one trying to massage the data to make a point. I’m just following the normal convention.
If I tried to show that Musk was doing okay by showing revenue and taking out the tax liability and interest expenses, you’d call me a liar.
Indeed, nothing like having it clarified that you aren’t one of “a select group of people.”
Agile business model? The actions of a business genius? You decide.
The fun part about arguing about Twitter’s financial situation before and after Musk is it’s all moot. Was Twitter doing great before Musk bought it? Not really, but trucking along with garbage financials is hardly unusual for big tech companies, and Twitter was closer to breaking even than many other companies. Twitter wasn’t in any danger of closing its doors and Musk was only able to muscle in and take over thanks to his ludicrously overpriced bid.
Will Twitter do better under Musk’s leadership? It’s a private company now so we’ll probably never know for sure. Musk is under no obligation to disclose Twitter’s financials, but lately he sure seems to favor bizarre metrics like “unregretted app seconds” over anything that can be objectively evaluated. Despite that, just based on what we know of Twitter’s pre-Musk profitability and the massive debt imposed on the company thanks to Musk’s buyout it will take a miracle to make Twitter profitable enough to keep it from going bankrupt now.
So…super smart time to buy? Or…super stupid time to buy?
Depends a lot on the price paid, amirite?