Elon Musk’s grim financial assessment of X

With a big new bio coming out on Sept. 12 by Walter Isaacson, the most written about guy in the business world is being written about even more than usual. That guy is Elon Musk. 

In his book titled Elon Musk, Isaacson, the best-selling biographer of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, gives the inside story on the CEO of [hotlink]Tesla Inc.[/hotlink] and Space X and owner of X (formerly Twitter) after shadowing him for two years and spending hours interviewing him, his family, friends, coworkers, and even adversaries. 

In a Sept. 6 post on X, Musk responded to a TIME magazine cover story by Isaacson based on his assessment of Musk’s sentiments about A.I., commenting: “Not quite how I would tell the story, but very accurate for an observer who only saw part of the puzzle.” 

Isaacson writes in the piece that Musk’s fears about A.I. have led to battles with Google cofounder Larry Page and OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Along with explaining the connection between Altman and Page that goes back more than a decade, he recalls one of his own conversations with Musk.

“What can be done to make A.I. safe?” Isaacson writes that Musk asked him. “I keep wrestling with that. What actions can we take to minimize A.I. danger and assure that human consciousness survives?”

Isaacson writes: “He spoke in a low monotone punctuated by bouts of almost manic laughter. The amount of human intelligence, he noted, was leveling off, because people were not having enough children. Meanwhile, the amount of computer intelligence was going up exponentially, like Moore’s Law on steroids. At some point, biological brainpower would be dwarfed by digital brainpower.”

Another hot topic surrounding Musk? His self-indicting assessment of X’s financial position. My colleague Shawn Tully talks about it in his latest piece, writing “According to Elon Musk’s own math, the company formerly known as Twitter has lost 90% of its value and could be worth just $4 billion.” 

“Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, funded $13 billion by loans from big-name commercial and investment banks, and $31 billion in equity,” Tully writes. “Of the latter portion, Musk contributed about $24 billion of his own cash, while a group of investor friends including Larry Ellison, Ron Baron, and Prince Al Waleed of Saudi Arabia provided $7 billion.”

Musk’s post on X on Labor Day evening “may rank as the most negative, in fact self-indicting, assessment a corporate leader has ever issued about their own enterprise,” according to Tully. In the post, he blames the Anti-Defamation League for most of X’s revenue loss. “I don’t see any scenario where they’re responsible for less than 10% of the value destruction, so around $4 billion,” he said. You can read Tully’s back-of-the-envelope calculations about what that means X’s total value might be here.

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X, will be a speaker at Fortune’s annual Most Powerful Women Summit next month. So, she may give an update on how things are going at the company. In the meantime, will you be reading the book? 

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Robert E. Landry, EVP of finance and CFO at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: REGN) will retire in February 2024. Christopher Fenimore, current SVP and head of accounting and controller at Regeneron, will succeed Landry as CFO upon his retirement. Fenimore joined Regeneron in 2003. He is also currently co-leading the company’s international expansion strategy and related efforts. He previously served as Regeneron’s VP of financial planning, and before joining the company, served as VP of finance for a biotechnology start-up and in other healthcare-focused venture capital and investment banking roles. 

Shawn Guertin, CFO at CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) has been appointed to the additional role of president of health services, effective immediately. Guertin will be responsible for unifying the company's care delivery assets, driving innovative strategies while expanding products and services, and delivering results across these growth businesses. The recently acquired Oak Street Health and Signify Health will continue to be aligned under Health Services. The company's retail health assets, including MinuteClinic, will also be a part of the Health Services portfolio.

Have an upcoming CFO move you'd like to be considered for an exclusive in CFO Daily? Send me an email.

Big deal

Bain & Company's new Global Energy and Natural Resources report finds that capital itself isn't necessarily the constraining factor in decarbonization. It's available in most energy and natural resource industries, according to Bain. However, instead of being reinvested into low-carbon growth areas, an increasing percentage is being returned to shareholders. For example, in the oil and gas sector, just 43% of capital was reinvested for growth in 2022, down from 58% in 2018. The mining sector reinvested 44% in 2022, down from 56%. 

Bain's analysis finds that assuming a 10% average cost of capital, every $1 billion in capital deployed requires about $160 million in revenue from customers each year. Although consumers are concerned about climate change, they may not be willing to pay higher bills to help combat it—what executives say is one of the greatest obstacles to decarbonization, according to Bain.

Courtesy of Bain & Company

Going deeper

The Federal Reserve's Beige Book's latest survey of regional business across the Fed’s 12 bank districts was released on Sept. 6. Fed officials will likely use this information when they meet for their policy meeting this month. "Contacts from most districts indicated economic growth was modest during July and August," according to the report. Job growth was subdued across the nation.

"Many contacts suggested 'the second half of the year will be different' when describing wage growth," according to the report. During the first half of the year, growth in labor cost pressures was elevated in most districts, often exceeding expectations. And almost all districts expect that "wage growth will slow broadly in the near term," the survey found.

The findings are based on information collected on or before Aug. 28. The report was prepared at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and summarizes comments received from contacts outside the Federal Reserve System. It's not a commentary on the views of Fed officials, according to the report.

Overheard

"Purpose is still powerful. Companies recognize it–and so do business schools."

—Bill Novelli, a professor emeritus at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, and a former CEO of AARP, writes in a Fortune opinion piece. "Today, investing based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors has become a cultural and political battleground," Novelli writes. "But amid all the furor, the closely related idea of corporate purpose quietly continues to resonate. A purpose for being aligns a corporation, appeals to its stakeholders, and is core to any profitable business."