If there weren't enough signs that maybe Elon Musk isn't quite the Tony Stark-esque businessman he thinks he is, this one might be the final nail in the coffin. According to Fortune (and corroborated by internal documents reportedly acquired by The Verge), X (formerly Twitter, if you've been living under a rock) has been internally valued by the Board of Directors (read: Elon Musk himself; who doesn't actually have a board) at $19 billion, a 55 percent markdown from the hefty price Musk actually paid for the company a year ago.
This comes as part of a new stock plan to match Musk's other company, SpaceX, in which employees are given equity in the company while it remains privately held as a whole. This scheme does, however, require a valuation to determine who gets what, which is where the $19 billion figure came from- although some, like massive X investor Fidelity, insist that even this valuation is too high.
Whatever the true number is, one thing is clear: Elon is losing a lot of money very quickly. For his own sake, it might be time to start trying on golden parachutes instead of digging his grave deeper- but for our sake, I hope he doesn't.