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0 pointsgeorgia_peach3y ago0 comments

> The social media company, Twitter, has admitted to overstating the figure of the platform’s users by 1.9 million in the last three years. The company disclosed this in its Q1 2022 financial report released today. The revelation comes days after the board of the company accepted a $44 billion offer by Elon Musk to take over Twitter.

> Twitter says an “error” introduced in Q1 2019, resulted in the overstatement of its monetizable daily active usage or users (mDAU). According to the company, this went on undiscovered for three years.

Three years, and they figured this out mere days after being strong-armed into accepting the Musk offer they wanted to evade? I have a bridge to sell to anyone who believes Twitter didn't already know.

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thombat3y ago

From https://www.statista.com/statistics/970920/monetizable-daily... that figure of 1.9M is rather less than 2% of their MDAU figure, and less than the MDAU growth in almost any quarter. So more of a correction than a revolution.

georgia_peachOP3y ago

2% of a key revenue figure for a company with a $28B market cap is one hell of a correction. I don't think Levine actually believes Twitter has a snowball's chance in hell of getting specific performance. Can you point to a section in this opinion piece where he states no financial interest in this drama? I think that is conspicuous by its absence.

mlyle3y ago

It's likely this was disclosed to Musk before he entered into the definitive agreement, so it is mooted. (If this was a reason, you'd think they'd have argued it in the termination letter).

And even if so, I don't think 2% of a user count is a "material adverse change" by the merger agreement.

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