Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, incurred impairment charges of $26.41bn or €23.27bn across 2023 and 2022.
This is revealed in new accounts filed to the Companies Office by X’s Lorikeet Inc which oversees the business’s international operations.
Musk took the business private after his $44bn purchase in October 2022 and now two sets of accounts lodged at the Companies Office on Friday provide a rare insight into the business’s finances post the Musk purchase.
In the Lorikeet Inc accounts for 2022, which were only signed off on April 7th 2025, they show parent firm, Twitter recorded in 2022 an impairment charge of $22.08bn relating to goodwill and a further impairment of$555m on its indefinite-lived brand intangible asset.
The accounts also show that parent, Twitter, rebranded X in 2023, recorded a further impairment of $3.77bn in 2023 related to its indefinite-lived brand intangible asset resulting in a total impairment of $26.41bn of the global business across the two years.
The separate accounts for the Irish operation of Elon Musk’s social media giant show it recorded pre-tax losses of €753.47m in 2022.
Twitter established its European HQ here in 2011 and in accounts filed by Twitter International UC on Friday, they show that revenues increased by 3pc from €1.45bn to €1.49bn in 2022.
The pre-tax losses of €753.47m are a 14.5pc increase on the pre-tax losses of €657.8m in 2021.
The 2022 pre-tax loss at the company – renamed X Internet UC last month – takes account of non-cash amortisation costs of €527.82m.
The company recorded a post tax loss of €664.46m in 2022 and this was due to a corporation tax credit of €89m.
The chief factor behind the corporation tax credit of €89m was the recognition of a deferred tax asset of €76m.
The company recorded an operating loss of €963.62m in 2022 but a €349m gain from the January 2022 sale of MoPub offset by a €140.56m impairment of financial fixed assets contributed to the pre-tax loss of €753m.
The directors state that the increased loss for the year “can be attributed to additional operating costs in maintaining and operating the platform related to data hosting services along with the impairment of investments”.
Numbers employed in 2022 had grown to 375 from 325 in 2021 and staff costs increased from €47.65m to €59.98m.
Staff costs included €34.9m in wages and salaries showing that average pay in 2022 totalled €93,098.
Mr Musk acquired Twitter’s global business on October 28th 2022 and within weeks Twitter confirmed that 140 employees at the Dublin base were being made redundant.
The company incurred redundancy costs of €12.7m in 2022 and the new accounts filed – signed off on May 3rd 2024 – show that the business incurred additional redundancy costs of €3.5m in 2023.
The directors state that the company continued in 2023 to reduce its costs base including workforce reduction and discontinuing the use of office space that is no longer required.
They state that “these actions are expected to lower the company’s expenses going forward”.
Those to depart in 2022 included Sinéad McSweeney, one of Twitter’s top executives in Ireland, but only after settling with the firm in December 2022 after she secured a temporary High Court injunction which stopped the social media giant from terminating her employment.
The details of the settlement were not disclosed to the High Court.
Emoluments to directors in 2022 more than doubled from €613,000 to €1.4m while directors also enjoyed an aggregate gain of €1.2m on the exercise of restricted stock units and cash vesting awards.
The directors state that the company is currently the subject of inquiries by the Data Protection Commission (DPC) here with respect to its compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
However, they add that they are not aware of any non-compliance with laws and regulations such that the company would be subject to a potential fine, penalty or loss that would have a material adverse impact on the company’s financial statements.
Shareholder funds at the end of 2022 totalled €6.12bn.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
