Twitter's revenue has been consistently falling for the past few years. The company reported $5.1 billion in revenue in 2021, in 2022, the app brought in $4.4 billion. And Elon Musk himself predicted that revenue for 2023 will be around $3 billion.
The reason behind the drop in revenue is simply: advertisers have been leaving Twitter in droves since Musk's takeover, with Musk himself saying July 15 that Twitter is "still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load."
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Musk, however, thinks he knows the culprit behind this advertising exodus: Community Notes.
Responding to a tweet that noted two recent Community Notes filed against President Joe Biden's official account, Musk said: "Same happens to me, right-wing accounts and even advertisers. Latter not good for revenue (sigh)."
This led one user to question the value of allowing Community Notes -- a more recent Twitter addition that allows users to fact-check tweets -- to post on ads.
"We do need to have a viable & financially healthy Twitter," the user said. "As long as ads are tagged with 'advertising' tag consumers know to take it with a grain of salt. I vote to remove Community Notes from paid ads!"
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But Musk has no interest in sacrificing what he deems as the value of Community Notes. Even when it comes to revenue.
"Truth is more important than profits," he said, a rephrasing of something Musk told CNBC in May: "I'll say what I want to say and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it."
Truth is more important than profits
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2023
But the advertisers doing the leaving, meanwhile, have cited concerns over brand safety due to Twitter's loose content moderation policies and propensity for white nationalist and Neo-Nazi content.
