Elon Musk had a radical plan for sorting out Twitter’s balance sheet. He slashed Twitter’s workforce, nearly halved cloud computing costs, introduced subscriptions and championed his version of free speech. But the social media group’s cash flow remains negative, according to Musk himself. And a rival platform is scooping up users.

Since taking Twitter private in October last year, the entrepreneur has provided financial updates in dribs and drabs. Last year, he said revenues in 2023 would be around $3bn, down from $5.1bn in 2021. Musk now says ad revenue has halved.

Linda Yaccarino, former head of advertising at NBCUniversal, has taken over as chief executive. But she has not brought a slew of advertisers with her. Corporations remain anxious about toxic content.