Twitter continued to work toward an ambitious goal by adding users in the first quarter, an improvement overshadowed by the $44 billion deal Elon Musk struck earlier this week to buy the influential social media company.
The social media site said Thursday that 229 million users, a 15.9% year-over-year increase, logged onto the site daily in the quarter that ended March 31.
The growth, noted in Twitter’s earnings report, is eclipsed by Musk’s plans to acquire the social network. The mercurial CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has said he wants to loosen content moderation at Twitter and has indicated that he isn’t concerned with its business performance.
Twitter, which canceled the analyst call that customarily follows earnings releases, said little in its press release about the pending acquisition, except that it won’t provide forward-looking guidance and that it has withdrawn its previous goals and outlook.
Earlier, Twitter had set goals of reaching 315 million daily users and increasing annual revenue to $7.5 billion by 2023.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has said he wants to acquire Twitter because he doesn’t believe the company adheres to the principles of free speech, a term he has used often and loosely. On Tuesday, he tweeted, “By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law.”
Under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, free speech refers to protection from government interference. It doesn’t apply to companies such as Twitter.
At a public engagement earlier this month, Musk said he doesn’t care about Twitter’s economics, which could deteriorate if looser moderation standards attract hate speech and harassment that drive away advertisers.
In the first quarter, Twitter generated revenue of $1.2 billion, up 16% year over year, and beat expectations of $1.12 billion.
In early trading Thursday, Twitter shares were up less than 1% to around $49.
