The New York Times revealed the outlines of billionaire Elon Musk’s plan to run Twitter.
According to Musk’s detailed presentation, the new owner of Twitter aspires to generate more than $26.4 billion annually by 2028, compared to $5 billion last year, while reducing Twitter’s reliance on ads to less than 50 percent of profits.
According to Musk’s plan, ads will drop to 45 percent in 2028.
Ads will generate $12 billion in revenue for Twitter, while subscriptions will contribute about $10 billion, while the plan is to rely on businesses such as data licensing.
Twitter also aims to bring in $15 million from the payments business in 2023, according to the document, which will grow to about $1.3 billion by 2028.
Musk also aims to reach 931 million subscribers (users) by 2028, assuming a subscription of $1 per week.
Musk expects the total number of Twitter users to grow from 217 million at the end of last year, to nearly 600 million in 2025 and 931 million, six years from now.
Most of that growth will come from ad-supported businesses on Twitter, including Twitter Blue, for which users pay $3 a month.
After laying off hundreds, Musk expects Twitter to have 11,072 employees, according to the document, an increase of about 7,500 compared to its number today.
Until then, Musk expects the number to rise to 9,225 employees in 2022, then decrease to 8,332 employees in 2023, before rising again.
Musk is likely to let go of some employees immediately after taking the job, before bringing in new talent in engineering, a person familiar with the matter told The New York Times.
Twitter will add about $13 billion in debt as part of Musk’s acquisition plan. Experts believe that this debt will likely be paid off as “free cash flow”, which is a measure of how much money the company must allocate to service its debts.
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Free cash flow is set to grow to $3.2 billion in 2025 and $9.4 billion in 2028, according to the presentation.
According to the same document, free cash flow will rise even as operating expenses and costs rise as well.