Elon Musk's chaotic buyout bid responsible for headwinds, says Twitter
Billionaire Elon Musk's chaotic buyout bid is responsible for disappointing results on "headwinds", according to Twitter.
The social media giant, which is locked in a legal battle with the mercurial Tesla boss over his effort to walk away from a $44 billion deal to purchase the platform, experienced a surprise fall in quarterly revenue and a net loss.
Many companies like Twitter that rely heavily on ads are suffering from a decrease in advertisers' budgets in the current context of tightening credit conditions and economic turbulence.
Twitter, which is now preparing for a legal showdown in a trial set to begin in October, sued Musk for dropping his offer to buy the company.
According to Refinitiv IBES data, Twitter's advertising revenue missed Wall Street expectations of $1.22 billion and rose just 2 per cent to $1.08 billion.
Twitter and Musk are clashing regarding the bot and spam accounts which according to the San Francisco-based company represented fewer than 5 per cent of users during the quarter.
Musk has argued that the number is much higher and accused Twitter of concealing data as the figure reported by the company has repeated since 2013.
Citing the "pending acquisition" by Musk, Twitter said it would not issue a shareholder letter or hold an earnings conference call or provide financial guidance.
While Twitter's severance-related costs were $19 million, expenses related to the Musk deal totaled $33 million during the quarter.
Following Chief Executive Parag Agrawal's instruction of cutting costs the social networking platform rescinded some job offers to new hires in May.
(With inputs from agencies)
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