Elon Musk denies informing staff X is 'barely breaking even'

Elon Musk has denied a report claiming he told staff that his social media platform X is “barely breaking even”.

The world’s richest man, who completed his acquisition of the platform formerly known as Twitter in October 2022, reportedly sent an email to staff about X’s current state.

“Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even,” Musk reportedly informed staff in an email, The Wall Street Journal reports. Banks are also said to be preparing to sell billions of dollars in debt borrowed by X.

In another part of the email, the Tesla boss reportedly said: “Over the last few months, we’ve witnessed the power of X in shaping national conversations and outcomes… We are also seeing other platforms begin to adopt our commitment to free speech and unbiased truth.”

This part of the email appears to make reference to Meta replacing fact checkers with community notes, a feature X already has.

However, following the publication of the report, Musk denied he ever sent the email to staff. “This report is false. I sent no such email. WSJ is lying,” he claimed. Musk’s denial was a response to a tweet containing an article about the email, and the tweet has a community note to include Musk’s denial.

Musk was a big supporter and a close ally of Trump during his successful re-election campaign last year. Trump recently responded to the idea of Musk buying TikTok in order to stop the app from being banned in the US this spring. "So, what I am thinking about saying to somebody is 'buy it and give half to the United States of America,’” Trump told reporters.

When asked by the press whether he'd be up for his buddy Musk buying TikTok, he responded: "I would be, if he wanted to buy it."

Musk is one of the names who could potentially become the owner of TikTok, with MrBeast revealing his interest in acquiring the app earlier this month when it was banned in the US for 14 hours.

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