Twitter is now worth less than half it was when Elon Musk bought it and a new competitor is rising up – so what’s next for Twitter? 

Social media platform Twitter is currently worth $15 billion, just over a third of the $44 million Mr Musk paid to buy the platform in 2022 (and he even thought that was too expensive). 

Following several controversial decisions including mass lay-offs, a subscription service and now a view limit on tweets, Mr Musk has created a lot of discontent among long-time Twitter users. 

“That discontent is what left a great opportunity for Mark Zuckerberg to fly in and see if he can do better,” Social Media Consultant Matt Navarra said. 

He told The Anton Savage Show new Meta social media platform Threads is another example of the Facebook creators taking inspiration from others. 

“Meta's got a track record of copying and cloning features it wants for itself because it recognises that it's going to be popular,” he said. “It did that with stories from Snapchat [on Instagram].” 

“Now we’re seeing quite a unique moment here, that [Twitter] has given Mark the opportunity to fill a void that people feel. 

Threads allows users to post text posts, photos and videos in real time in a similar way to the waning social media platform. 

A wider audience

Meta has said the goal is not to kill Twitter with the creation of Threads, according to Mr Navarra, but to attract a wider audience. 

“The goal is to bring something to bring something similar to Twitter but also appeal to the people who never joined Twitter,” he said. 

“They're hoping to appeal to people who would typically use Instagram or Facebook and also the people disenfranchised by Twitter.”

DEH279 Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Facebook.

Since launching this week, Threads has gained 70 million sign ups, and is expected to reach 100 million users in the coming days. 

“It’s the fastest growing platform in the world,” Mr Navarra said. 

Threads is not yet available in EU countries due to GDPR concerns. 

“I can’t imagine it’s going to be anytime soon because it’s a quite a technical issue of data privacy,” Mr Navarra said. “And Meta already has cases of data privacy around Europe.” 

Twitter's future

While Europeans wait for Threads to emerge, how will Twitter fare in the coming months? 

“People are increasingly finding the platform is more toxic and Musk's behaviour and choices are not aligned with what people who have been on Twitter for a long time want and expected,” Mr Navarra explained. 

Twitter has gone downhill in the eyes of most users since Mr Musk purchased the platform - especially for introducing a payment to get verified and more recently putting a limit on the amount of tweets a viewer can see each day.

“Musk is extremely clever – you can see that with the success he has had. 

“If you line up all his businesses, they all look very technical, but Twitter is completely different. It’s about people, it’s about culture - I just don’t know if Elon understands people particularly well to operate it.” 

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