Former Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn believes Twitter will not be an independent company within two years.
“I don’t see a chance that this is an independent company within 24 months,” Levinsohn said on CNBC‘s Halftime Report. “It’s such a great brand, such an important asset in the world,” Levinsohn continued.
One of the prospective companies that Levinsohn would like to see picking up Twitter as an asset is the mobile phone and computer giant, Apple. Levinsohn argued that when put together, the possible combination of Twitter and Apple is “immense and exciting.”
Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, is currently running two publicly listed companies, Twitter and Square, which Levinsohn claims is “virtually impossible” to do. However, the most likely reason for Twitter’s sale will be its stock price, which is plummeting at unprecedented rates after its war on conservatives.
Twitter’s share prices dropped by 9% after the release of its most recent quarterly results, indicating that the company expects a third quarter revenue of between $590-610 million, well below their expected revenue target of $678 million. Twitter’s cash flow estimate was also cut by approximately $80 million.
After its disastrous financial results, many users flooded the #TWTR hashtag (Twitter’s tag on the New York Stock Exchange), with questions regarding the recent permanent suspension of Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos from the network. This forced Dorsey to respond, saying that his goal was “civil discourse”, not “abuse.”
Yet it seems that Twitter is only really bothered about enforcing “abuse” against left-wing figures. Leslie Jones, the Ghostbusters actress whose dispute with Milo resulted in his ban from the network, has admitted to violating Twitter’s rules on targeted abuse. At the same time, Twitter has refused to punish a celebrity who repeatedly called Breitbart journalist Jerome Hudson a “coon.”
Jack Hadfield is a student at the University of Warwick and a regular contributor to Breitbart Tech. You can email him at jack@yiannopoulos.net.