The week-long struggle over tech billionaire Musk's takeover efforts is troubling Twitter. The company is in the red and sees a direct connection with the provisionally failed purchase. A court should decide how to proceed.
The US short message service Twitter blames the back and forth about Elon Musk's takeover plans for its surprising quarterly loss. The reasons were uncertainties in connection with the failed takeover by the billionaire Tesla boss Musk and a weakening digital advertising market, the group said.
Twitter reported a net loss of $270 million, or 35 cents a share, for the second quarter after a profit of $65.6 million - or 8 cents a share - last year. Quarterly sales fell slightly to $1.18 billion from $1.19 billion last year. Analysts had trusted Twitter more, they had assumed adjusted earnings of 14 cents per share and an increase in sales to $ 1.32 billion.
The number of daily active users that Twitter can reach with its advertising because they use the in-house app or the web version rose from 229 million to 237.8 million within three months. In the first quarter, the service had gained a good 14 million users.
Musk announced in April that he wanted to buy Twitter for around $44 billion. A few weeks later, he unilaterally declared the deal on hold and eventually backed out in early July, shortly after the end of the quarter. With a lawsuit, the San Francisco-based social media company wants Musk to be obliged to complete the acquisition at the agreed price of $54.20 per share.
