Fidelity has marked down value of X by 71.5 percent since Musk takeover

Fidelity has marked down the value of its shares in X Holdings Corp., the parent company of the platform formerly known as Twitter, by 71.5 percent since Elon Musk purchased the company in October 2022.

The investment firm cut its valuation of X by about 10.7 percent in November alone, from an estimated $6.3 million at the end of October to just under $5.6 million by the end of the following month, according to a recent filing.

The social media company faced several scandals at the end of the year. Musk faced renewed accusations of antisemitism in November, after he appeared to endorse a post promoting an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Shortly after, left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters for America published a series of reports saying it had found ads for mainstream brands placed next to pro-Nazi and white nationalist content on X.

As major companies halted their ad spending on the platform, Musk lashed out, telling advertisers to “go f‑‑‑ yourself.”

“If someone is going to try and blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f‑‑‑ yourself,” he said at The New York Times DealBook Summit in late November. “Go f‑‑‑ yourself. Is that clear? Hope it is.”

The outburst punctuated a year defined by setbacks and scandals for the billionaire owner of Tesla and SpaceX. Musk began the year still reeling from a similar exodus of advertisers following his abrupt takeover of Twitter in October 2022. 

While Musk attempted to lure advertisers back to the platform, he also continued to implement controversial changes to X, publicly feuded with watchdog groups monitoring hate speech and antisemitism, and faced heavy scrutiny from the European Union over X’s apparent failure to address violent content and disinformation amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.