Twitter posts revenue miss after agreeing Musk takeover

Twitter reported a 16% improvement in first quarter revenue on Thursday, to $1.2bn (£0.97bn), missing expectations for a figure of $1.2bn due to Ukraine war “headwinds”.

The social media giant said advertising revenue was ahead 23% year-on-year to $1.11bn, while subscription and other revenue fell 31% to $94m.

Costs and expenses totalled $1.33bn, up 35% year-on-year, resulting in an operating

loss of $128m and an operating margin of -11%, compared to $52m and 5% a year ago.

There had been speculation that Twitter rushed to agree to its takeover deal with electric car billionaire Elon Musk earlier this week, ahead of disappointing earnings.

Musk agreed to buy Twitter in a deal worth $44bn, after several weeks of back-and-forth following an unsolicited approach from the Tesla chief.

Twitter said its first quarter net income was $513m, representing a net margin of 43% and diluted earnings per share of 61 US cents.

Operationally, Twitter said average monetisable daily active usage came in at 229 million for the quarter, up 15.9%, with average United States usage rising 6.4% to 39.6 million and average international usage growing 18.1% to 189.4 million.

“As announced on 25 April 25, we entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash,” Twitter’s board said.

“Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately-held company.

“The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and completion of regulatory review and Twitter’s stockholder approval.”

Twitter’s board, which approved the takeover, said the deal was expected to close in 2022.

Given the pending acquisition of Twitter by Musk, the directors said they would not be providing any forward-looking guidance, and withdrew all previously-provided goals and outlook.

At 1022 EDT (1522 BST), shares in Twitter were down 0.29% at $48.50.