Full Bio Nathan Reiff has been writing expert articles and news about financial topics such as investing and trading, cryptocurrency, ETFs, and alternative investments on Investopedia since 2016. Learn about our As of 2025, X has an estimated 206 million monthly active users worldwide. X’s Financials According to the latest data available, X generated $3.4 billion in revenue in 2023, a 22% decline from 2022 ($4.4 billion). Revenue was expected to decrease in 2023 due to a loss of advertising, and in fact, the company has lost almost half of its advertising revenue since Musk’s acquisition in October 2022. Many global advertisers left the company after changes to X’s service and content moderation rules. Agency executives who have worked with X said their clients continued to limit spending on the platform due to “inconsistent support from Twitter and concerns about the persistent presence of misleading and toxic content.” Musk declared that the company hasn’t yet seen an increase in sales and confirmed cash flow remains negative and the company is struggling with heavy debt. Still, X generates the majority of its revenue through advertising (75%, or $2.5 billion in 2023). It also generated about $900 million from data licensing (about 26% of total revenue) in 2023. The loss of advertising demand has fueled the need to find alternative revenue streams and rebuild the company’s revenue model. X Premium is part of this strategy: a subscription service that allows users to access premium features and benefits on the app and that is available for $11 per month (or the local equivalent and $114.99 a year) on iOS and Android, and $8 ($84 a year) on the web. X Premium was originally called X Blue, and it made just $11 million on mobile in its first three months since it was relaunched on Nov. 4, 2022. Although the $11 million seems small when compared to the two other revenue streams, this figure doesn’t cover web-based subscriptions. It’s still uncertain how this revenue stream will evolve, in part because the $11 million figure doesn’t specify how much comes from monthly subscriptions vs. annual subscriptions. X’s History, Leadership, and Developments Important In July 2023, Twitter officially changed its name to X. The rebrand was yet another step in the transformation of the social media company, which changed the blue bird icon to the new black and white X logo. X debuted the new logo on its desktop version, and a sign reflecting the company’s new name appeared on its San Francisco headquarters. Twitter was created by former Odeo employees Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone, and publicly launched in July 2006. Originally, the site used SMS to send tweets onto the network and its defining features were the tight limits placed on each post or “tweet” (140 characters, doubled to 280 in 2017). On April 25, 2022, Twitter announced that Elon Musk, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Tesla Inc., would acquire the company for $44 billion. Upon closing, the company would become privately held with all shareholders receiving $54.20 in cash for each share of the company owned. The road to sealing the deal was rocky, but Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter on Oct. 27, 2022. Musk acted as CEO of Twitter until he stepped down in June 2023 and was replaced by Linda Yaccarino, who previously was the chair of advertising sales for NBCUniversal. Soon, Musk began making changes to the company and introduced a series of reforms and management changes, raising concerns about the company’s ability to maintain its platform. Its workforce was drastically reduced by laying off half of the employees on Nov. 4, 2022, in order to cut costs (a measure taken to compensate for the drop in the company’s revenue). In total, about 80% of X’s staff has been laid off since Musk took over the company, or more than 6,000 people. As of 2023, the latest information available, the social media platform has only 1,500 employees, down from under 8,000 who were employed at the time of the acquisition. On Nov. 20, 2022, Musk also reinstated Donald Trump’s account (the then-former U.S. president was banned from the platform for inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol riots in 2021), causing advertisers to pull off due to what was seen as relaxed content moderation policies. More than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers in September 2022 (including major brands such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Jeep, and Wells Fargo) were no longer spending on the platform as of January 2023. (Musk’s ties to Trump grew closer in 2024, with the X owner donating to and campaigning for Trump’s election. After Trump was elected president in November 2024, he tapped Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head what he called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to focus on regulating government spending. Following Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, he signed an executive order officially creating DOGE.) In December 2022, the Twitter Blue (now X Premium) subscription service was relaunched as a way to generate revenue. In 2023, Twitter Inc. ceased to be an independent company after merging with a newly formed shell X Corp., a privately owned company operating within the X Holding Co. What Is the Financial Status of X? On July 15, 2023, Elon Musk declared in a post that his company is having a negative cash flow due to a “50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.” Eighteen months later, on Jan. 24, 2025, Musk said “user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even.” What Is X Premium?