Elon Musk wants to quadruple Twitter users by 2028

Among the biggest questions on people’s mind since Elon Musk made his bid to buy Twitter is how the service might change under his ownership. We’re still a long way off from the deal becoming official, but Musk nonetheless has had to pitch investors on his vision for the company to get the funding he needs. As it so happens, the New York Times has obtained a copy of a pitch deck for investors, which gives us an idea of the preposterously grand vision that Musk has for the company. Here are a few highlights.

For starters, Musk wants to grow Twitter’s monthly users from the 217 million it had at the end of 2021 to nearly 600 million in 2025 and 931 million users by 2028. That’s more than quadrupling its monthly users in the next six years. Musk also wants to have 104 million paid subscribers for a service only referred to as “X.” There weren’t any details on what sort of product X would be, but Musk has cryptically hinted at an ad-free paid Twitter experience. 

Speaking of paying for Twitter, Musk’s pitch deck has a lot of details on some ambitious revenue goals, as well. He believes that Twitter can quintuple its annual revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028, up from the approximately $5 billion the company made last year. And Musk wants to significantly diversify how Twitter makes money, as well. Right now, advertising makes up about 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue; Musk wants to cut that to about 45 percent by 2028. His forecast would include $12 billion in advertising revenue and $10 billion in subscription revenue. 

To meet those lofty goals, Twitter would obviously need a lot more paid users. Musk forecasted 69 million Twitter Blue users by 2025 and 159 million by 2028. Twitter Blue is a $3 per month service that launched in the US this past November and offers perks like ad-free news articles, the ability to undo sending a tweet and a few other small niceties. Between the mysterious product X and Twitter Blue, Musk is clearly putting a lot of importance on getting users to opt into some sort of paid Twitter experience.

Finally, Musk sees Twitter making some moves in the payment space as well. He wants the company to bring in a modest $15 million in revenue from a payments business in 2023, with that number growing to around $1.3 billion by 2028. Currently, Twitter offers very limited shopping and tipping features that the NYT says make no notable impact on the company’s bottom line. 

The NYT didn’t have any details on how Musk expects to meet these lofty goals — only that he expects big things from Twitter once his takeover is complete. Quadrupling users and quintupling revenue is an extremely tall order for a company like Twitter that’s already well established. But Musk clearly didn’t want to spend $44 billion on Twitter just to keep the status quo.