[vba616]

It seems to be in a position where you can't tell how well it's doing without logging in, so getting inactive users to try again, b/c it's thriving seems like a bootstrapping problem with no obvious solution.

If it's just a private company with a website that takes a dozen people to run, owned by the richest person in the world, then it could go on forever with any number of active users from zero to infinity.

[Zigurd]

Wealth != liquidity

Especially when free cash flow or an owner's liquidity is required quarterly by creditors. Even that is a big simplification: Elon has co-investors in what, to them, is a prestige investment. Getting diluted in down rounds dissipates a lot of prestige, so it is likely that any of Elon's money to prop up Twitter comes in via loans. That money comes from margin loans on TSLA which has a precarious P/E ratio. SpaceX's valuation, which is based on the post money valuation after a Saudi wealth fund bought 0.5% of the cap table, is very high but it's all illiquid. Starlink should have been ready to spin off at a fabulous valuation had it met subscriber goals, but it is about 10% of the way to 2023 goals.

Elon is an extremely rich man, and people like that have hobbies. The Washington Post, for example. But that cost about 0.2% the price of Twitter. Probably less than Bezos's yacht.

[vba616]

It sounds like you are arguing that buying Twitter probably had a substantial negative financial impact on Musk. That sounds plausible, but I didn't intend to minimize it.

What I meant was that, aside from sunk costs, keeping the website nominally operational doesn't have to cost any significant amount going forward. Things are now arranged such that admitting defeat vs sinking more money in it are independent options.

Therefore as outsiders, we are unlikely to have useful information about whether it is now a "going concern" if he remains committed to keeping up a facade. It seems opaque, now that it is a members only site run by a private company.