X revenue slips to $707M in Q2 after 2.2% drop from Q1

Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) saw a drop in advertising revenue, once its key growth driver. The latest numbers, shared with private investors, according to Bloomberg.

Subscriptions and data licensing have increasingly taken centre stage.

The departure of CEO Linda Yaccarino, a veteran advertising executive, in July has further signaled X’s pivot away from advertising and toward becoming a data hub for AI training, powering xAI’s chatbot Grok.

The social platform saw about $707 million in revenue in the three months through June 30, marking a 2.2% drop from the first quarter. While sales were more than 20% higher than the same period in 2024, helped by election-related spending, the figure remains 40% below the second quarter of 2022, the last time the platform reported earnings publicly before going private.

The second-quarter gross profit fell 24% compared to the first quarter, but rose more than 30% from last year. X reported almost $360 million in EBITDA, slightly lower than the start of 2025 but up 33% from the second quarter of 2024.

The company’s business has been turbulent since Musk’s takeover. After Donald Trump’s election win in November 2024, Musk’s closeness to the then-president initially drew both investors and advertisers. However, a public falling-out and Musk’s decision to ‘swear off politics’ shifted focus toward his other ventures, including Tesla and artificial intelligence firm xAI.

Despite investor enthusiasm around Musk’s AI ambitions, challenges remain. X still carries about $12 billion in debt from the 2022 acquisition, though it refinanced a $1.23 billion loan earlier this year to ease some costs. Meanwhile, xAI is burning through $1 billion per month on infrastructure such as data centres and chips.