Just after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, the social media platform seemed to be in worse shape。

Twitter valuation was "halved" by Musk？

According to the latest reports, Musk said in an email to Twitter employees last week that he plans to offer stock incentives to Twitter employees at a valuation of about $20 billion.。This means that the social media platform's valuation has been "halved" in less than half a year.。

Platformer and The Information, which first reported the event, said the measure of Twitter's value was based on Musk's stock grant offer.。

Stock grants are often used as a way to motivate employees. It is an opportunity to buy stocks that cannot be sold before a specific point in time, while stock options are more flexible, depending on the applicable conditions。Its purpose is to encourage employees to reach a set valuation at a certain point in time so that they can sell shares for cash.。

Of course, this can be a profitable incentive if the company's value rises significantly, but it's not as flexible as selling listed shares。As with Musk's space exploration technology company SpaceX, Twitter will reportedly also allow employees to cash out stock gifts within a specific period。

Another internal email sent to Twitter staff mentioned that stock gifts could be sold "every six months based on third-party valuations."。

Musk also added that he sees "a clear but difficult path" to achieving a $250 billion valuation, meaning Twitter will ultimately be worth 10 times more than it is now.。

The status quo of Twitter is "in jeopardy"

At the time of the acquisition of Twitter, the billionaire had promised to make Twitter an all-around app "X," but so far has not seen any major progress。Instead, the previous "Blue V" certification incident, "amnesty" policy and "freedom of speech" led to several large advertisers have left the platform, according to Vox's latest data report shows that more than half of the top 1000 advertisers on Twitter have stopped advertising on the platform。

In addition, Fidelity Investment Group, the largest financier behind the acquisition of Twitter at the time, also slashed its stake in the company from $53.47 million to $23.46 million last year.。

Despite this, Musk continues to "torture" these gold owners, Twitter said they plan to cancel the free certification mark from April 1。Previously, individual users had to pay $8 / month for the new "Blue V Certification" service.。But for brand accounts registered on Twitter, the cost of certification is much higher。

Under the new Twitter rules, organizations such as businesses and government agencies will need to obtain gold or gray certification marks through the new certification service, which means that businesses will have to pay $1,000 a month for "gold V certification."。Twitter also said that users will have to pay an additional $50 a month to open an affiliate account in the U.S., and that's still a tax-free price。

In response, William LeGate, co-founder of bedding company Pillow-Fight, said the $1,000-a-month charge was "strange" and pointless.。He said his company would not consider new authentication services because such authentication did not significantly increase Twitter user engagement.。

Cryptocurrency platform BitMEX also tweeted: "Authentication is a cost you have to bear, not your users.。"

After several rounds of layoffs and mass resignations, Twitter's current number of employees has been reduced from 7,500 before the acquisition to about 2,000.。It was thought that lowering costs would increase efficiency, but Twitter's revenue fell 40% year-on-year in December, and even Musk once said that Twitter could "go bankrupt" at any time.。

The source code of Twitter has been leaked.

In a filing to a California court on Friday, Twitter revealed that until last week, parts of the company's proprietary source code had been publicly posted online.。

The code was the basis for the Twitter web service and various features and internal tools, but has now been released on GitHub.。GitHub is a widely used codebase currently owned by Microsoft Corporation。GitHub complied with Twitter's request to remove the data for copyright infringement and posted Twitter's request online.。

The source of the leak is understood to be a user called FreeSpeechEnthusist, who registered on GitHub earlier this year.。Twitter is currently seeking the identity of the user behind the account, as well as the names and other information of all users who posted, downloaded or uploaded the data.。

According to its filing, Elon Musk's social network is asking GitHub for the names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, social media profiles and IP addresses of these parties.。And there's also news that the company has also launched an internal investigation into the leak。

As can be seen from the leaker's username, he seems to have done this to make fun of Musk。Because since Musk took over Twitter at the end of last year, he has been trumpeting what he believes to be "freedom of speech," which has won the approval of some users, but also the dissatisfaction of most users.。

It is worth noting that in the face of "everything is not going well" Twitter, Musk has expected the company's revenue this year will be less than $3 billion。It seems Twitter still has a long way to go before it becomes "world-class" social media。