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Elon Musk predicts Twitter ‘has a shot at being cash flow positive’ in Q2 2023

MatthewKeys, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

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In an interview at the Morgan Stanley Conference, Elon Musk predicted that Twitter had a shot at being cash flow positive by Q2 2023. 

The Tesla CEO’s interview at the Morgan Stanley Conference sheds some light on his progress with Twitter. Elon Musk noted that Twitter is close to being EBITDA profitable and breaking even. After that, Twitter has a shot at being cash flow positive. 

“We’re getting close to the point where we’re close to having the total expenditures for the company excluding debt roughly equal to debt…I think we’ll be there in Q2. I don’t definitely want to count chickens before they hatch…but I think we’ve got a shot at being cash flow possible next quarter.”

Musk has been the sole owner of Twitter for less than a year. During his time as Twitter’s “Chief Twit,” he received many criticisms, specifically regarding freedom of speech. A few companies pulled or temporarily halted their ad campaigns on Twitter after Musk acquired the social media company. Ad revenue will be one of the deciding factors of whether Twitter is cash flow positive next quarter.

Twitter’s Journey to Cash Flow Positive

Elon Musk explained that some drastic actions had to take place to save Twitter. He shared that Twitter cut its “non-interest burn” to roughly $1 and 1/2 billion. Currently, the company has a billion and 1/2 of expenditures, partly thanks to Twitter reducing its Cloud expenditures by using two data centers instead of three. 

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However, Twitter’s journey under Musk hasn’t all been about cutbacks. The Chief Twit also stated that Twitter has experienced “the fastest product evolution in Twitter’s history.” He also alluded to Twitter achieving some milestones since taking over the company, including recording the highest total user minutes. 

Twitter’s state before Musk

During his interview, Elon Musk stated that Twitter was tracking toward a negative $3 billion a year burn rate when he acquired the social media company in October. At the time, the company had $1 billion in the bank. 

“So that’s a pretty dire situation,” Musk commented. “If 2023 had been a normal year, Twitter would have done something on the order of $4 and 1/2 billion in revenue and $4 and 1/2 billion in cost, roughly break[ing] even.”

However, Twitter’s situation was more precarious when Elon Musk acquired the company late last year, making achieving a break-even scenario difficult.

“When you add half a billion of debt servicing to that, a master decline in advertising—some of it’s cyclic, some of it political, but call it at least 50% decline in [ad] revenue, roughly 30% decline in revenue—you’ve got over negative $3 billion [sic],” said Elon Musk.

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The billionaire added that Twitter does have revenue in data subscriptions. However, even accounting for revenue from data subscriptions, Twitter would have been bankrupt within at least four months if no drastic action had been taken to change its course. 

Listen to Elon Musk’s interview during the Morgan Stanley Conference below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpcgHK_fXRo

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers

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Credit: Francis Energy

Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.

Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.

It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.

Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.

“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”

The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.

Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station

The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.

Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.

Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.

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Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems

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Credit: TslaChan | X

Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.

Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.

The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.

However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.

It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.

The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.

It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.

This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.

Tesla reveals its first Semi customer after launch

The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.

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Investor's Corner

Tesla analyst teases self-driving dominance in new note: ‘It’s not even close’

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”

Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.

His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’

Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.

He writes:

“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”

Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.

This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.

One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.

Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief

And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:

“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”

Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.

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