Tesla Inc. boss Elon Musk said on Monday he will serve as chief executive of Twitter, the social media company he just bought for $44 billion, a move that Wall Street analysts have said could stretch the billionaire thin.
Responding to a tweet from author Stephen King that he would not be willing to pay $20 a month to keep the verified badge on Twitter, Musk replied: “How about $8?”
The billionaire said that introducing a price was the only way to defeat trolls and bots on the platform, and that Twitter could not entirely rely on advertisers to pay its bills.
Only member of company’s board
Musk announced his Twitter CEO role in a securities filing. In another filing on Monday, Musk revealed that he became the sole director of Twitter as a result of the takeover.
Musk had previously changed his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit” in an allusion to his planned move. Twitter on Monday declined to comment on how long Musk might remain CEO or appoint someone else.
“The following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou,” Musk said in the filing.
Shortly afterward, Musk tweeted that the move to dissolve the board “is just temporary,” without elaborating.
Replying to a tweeted question on what was “most messed up at Twitter,” Musk tweeted on Sunday that “there seem to be 10 people ‘managing’ for every one person coding.”
Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter and was CEO before Agrawal, was pushed to step down from the top job at the company because investors believed he couldn’t do the job while also being CEO of Block Inc., which runs the Square payment platform.
Some Twitter users say they’re worried Elon Musk’s plans to loosen moderation rules on the site will make it a hotbed of hate speech and abuse, and are considering leaving the social media platform before it goes sideways.
On Monday, Nick Caldwell, a general manager at Twitter’s Core Technologies, indicated on his Twitter bio that he was no longer with the company. Caldwell and Twitter did not respond to Reuters’s request for comment outside regular business hours.
Since the takeover, which concluded last week, Musk has moved quickly to put his stamp on Twitter, which he had ridiculed for months for being slow to introduce product changes or take down spam accounts.
His teams began meeting with some employees to investigate Twitter’s software code and understand how aspects of the platform worked, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Some staff who spoke with Reuters said they had received little communication from Musk or other leaders and were using news reports to piece together what was happening at the company.
Tesla’s stock has lost a third of its value since Musk made an offer to buy Twitter in April, compared with a 12 per cent decline in the benchmark S&P 500 index in the same period.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
