‘Mark Cuban needs to buy this app ASAP’: Don’t tell Donald Trump’s lap dog, but X’s value has plummeted 79% since he took over

X, has been rapidly declining in value since Elon Musk purchased it in 2022. The service was founded in 2006 and has more than 300 million users to date. Despite the large user base, however, X’s valuation has plummeted 79 percent as seen in a recent disclosure report.

Musk’s deal to acquire Twitter was initiated in April 2022, and he formally took over the platform in Oct. of that year by purchasing it for about $44 billion. The Tesla CEO took a wrecking ball to the company, getting rid of staff and top executives, as well as turning Twitter into a private company and rebranding it as X.

Musk had aid from multiple investors in the acquisition, one of which was investment firm Fidelity, which invested $19.66 million. Per Fidelity’s disclosure report, the initial investment is worth only $5.5 million as of July 2024, which means that X’s value has dwindled to just $9.4 billion since Musk’s takeover.

Mark Cuban and Elon Musk’s relationship

Amid the controversies surrounding X, some users are calling for investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban to purchase the social networking platform to save it. Cuban, who’s not afraid to share his opinions, has an ongoing feud with Musk, whom he describes as “thin-skinned.” However, he says that he doesn’t hate him. In the podcast This Past Weekend, host Theo Von commented about the public rivalry, to which Cuban said, “I just like to f**k with him.”

Cuban jabs against Musk aren’t personal, he says. In fact, he was a fan and even described Musk as the “entrepreneur of our generation.” The feud, according to Cuban, began when he openly criticized Tesla and received a text from Musk that read, “f**k you.” The relationship has changed since then, and it seems that Cuban enjoys riling up Musk.

“I don’t dislike Elon, but he says some stupid s**t and it’s just, like, I have no problem calling him out.”

The feud was further fueled when Cuban appeared on The Daily Show and told host Jon Stewart that he thinks Musk is manipulating X’s algorithms to favor his political preference. “When you go on X, you see a preponderance of right-leaning people,” Cuban noted. In response, Musk took to X and called Cuban a “giant” poop emoji, to which the latter replied with three emojis of hands forming hearts.

Can Mark Cuban save X?

It seems the feud between the two is still ongoing, as Cuban recently offered some brotherly advice to Musk, who has been vocal about his support for Donald Trump. In an X post on Sept. 29, Musk said Trump is the “only way to save” democracy. Cuban replied to the post by saying that when the time comes that Elon needs something from Trump, he would realize that Trump’s “loyalty is only to himself.” 

In an interview with Wired, Cuban was asked if he could buy X, but the businessman said that Musk wouldn’t sell it and has no reason to sell it, but in a perfect world he said, “Yeah, for sure,” he would purchase the platform.