X has not been fairing well in the U.K., previously a major source of revenue for the social network prior to Elon Musk’s arrival. Still named Twitter UK Ltd, revenues and profits for X’s UK entity collapsed by over 60% in the year after Musk took it over and changed its moderation controls, according to accounts filed this week to the UK’s Companies House.
The decline in revenues came after concerns about “brand safety and/or content moderation” were cited internally, reported The Guardian newspaper.
Overall revenue dropped 66.3% year-on-year, reaching only £69.1m ($91.6m), down from £205.3m ($272.3m) in 2022. Profit for 2023 dropped from £5.6m ($7.4m) the previous year to £1.2m ($1.6m). Pre-tax profits were 74% lower at £2.25m ($2.9m).
The UK company reported that it “continues to take corrective measures to build brand safety tools, invest in platform safety and content moderation, and then educate advertisers about these initiatives.”
Musk’s arrival also led to a wave of redundancies in the UK office, mirroring his cuts to US-based staff. Employee numbers in the UK fell to 114, from 399 the previous year, including 173 in “research and development”.
Despite these dismal revenue figures, X’s value has recovered to its $44bn purchase price after it was recently acquired by Musk’s X.AI artificial intelligence startup for $33bn.
Twitter UK Ltd was also nearly struck off for failing to file the accounts on time, and only filed full accounts on Monday for 2023.