Is Elon Musk Killing Twitter?

INTELLIGENCE SQUARED U.S. invites some of the world’s brightest thinkers to debate issues. The organization was founded in New York in 2006 to promote intellectual diversity by fostering respect for differing opinions.

The debates are organized in the traditional Oxford style. The side that convinces more audience members to embrace its arguments wins.

The excerpts below come from a debate in January about whether Elon Musk is killing Twitter after taking over the platform in October. To see who won the debate, visit the Intelligence Squared website via the QR code on this page.

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YES

SWISHER: First, he blew up a stable $5 billion ad business in a few months. It wasn’t that good, but it was still $5 billion ... losing huge opportunities like the World Cup and the holiday season.

The Twitter bank debt has been marked on the books of both Morgan Stanley and Bank of America at 50 cents on the dollar. That means the $13 billion of Twitter debt is now worth about half that amount, or $6.5 billion—thanks to a combination of rising interest rates and Twitter’s shrinking EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes and amortization), as well as questions about whether Elon will be able to make roughly $600 million in interest payments due on the Twitter bank debt in April.

And following the logic here, if the bank debt is only worth half its face amount—it has now been recorded as such—it means Twitter equity, which is owned mostly by Elon and a bunch of his rich friends, is virtually wiped out after a mere two months under Elon’s rule.

SWISHER: Because he’s Elon Musk, he thinks he’s a genius. And, therefore, because he’s good at rockets and cars, which are physical, and have physical aspects, he believes he’s going to be fantastic at media. Media is hard. And this is a media company.

Kara Swisher, host of the On with Kara Swisher podcast and co-host of the Pivot podcast, serves as editor-at-large for New York Magazine and co-founded the Recode technology website. Once called “Silicon Valley’s most feared but revered journalist,” Swisher has established herself as the oracle of the tech world with unrivaled access to the industry’s most significant

NO

SCARAMUCCI: The facts are indisputable about Twitter being a high-quality business in the following sense. It is a pervasive part of our zeitgeist now. It is the town square, proverbially. And I think there are more active users today if you look at their numbers.

When Elon’s on Twitter Spaces, there could be upward of 100,000 people in that town square listening and potentially asking questions.

I think it’s early; we’ll have to see how this thing plays out. But it’s far from dead. In fact, if anything, it’s more vital than ever. And over the next six, 12 or 36 months, I think we’ll see really good progress ahead for Twitter.

I think ultimately, as he executes this plan—and whatever the erratic nature of his personality—we can go back to the situation with Elon Musk in 2008, when he was on the verge of bankruptcy in two companies: SpaceX and Twitter. He was able to use his guile and his relationships to save those two companies.

SCARAMUCCI: This is a durable business; it may be smaller than he wants it to be. But it’s a durable business, and it can take a lot of hits before it gets killed off. So, Elon Musk is not killing Twitter. If anything, we’ll be looking at Twitter in the 2024 presidential election.

Anthony Scaramucci, founder and managing partner of SkyBridge Capital hedge fund, served briefly as White House communications director in the Trump administration. He’s a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation. Worth magazine once ranked him among the 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance.