Twitter

Twitter, renamed X in 2023, is a microblogging and social networking service on which users publish short posts, follow other accounts and exchange direct messages. It was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams inside the podcasting company Odeo, launched publicly in July 2006 and was spun out as its own company in April 2007. Twitter, Inc. was headquartered in San Francisco and grew to more than 200 million monthly active users by the time of its 2013 public offering.

Twitter's early financing came from a small group of venture firms. Its first round was undisclosed, a second round in 2008 raised a reported $22 million, and a 2009 round of $35 million came from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital alongside Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and Insight Venture Partners. Later private rounds were far larger: $200 million in December 2010 at a valuation of about $3.7 billion, a round led by Digital Sky Technologies (DST Global) reported at $800 million, and a $300 million investment from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in December 2011 at a valuation of $8.4 billion. Other named backers include Digital Garage and Bezos Expeditions. The IPO prospectus listed Rizvi Traverse (17.9 percent), J.P. Morgan entities (10.3 percent), Spark Capital (6.8 percent), Benchmark Capital Partners VI (6.6 percent), Union Square Ventures (5.9 percent) and DST Global (5.0 percent) as holders of more than 5 percent before the offering.

Twitter priced its IPO on November 7, 2013 at $26.00 per share, selling 70 million shares for $1.82 billion in gross proceeds under the ticker TWTR. The stock closed its first day at $44.90, valuing the company at about $31 billion. For fiscal 2021, its last full year as a public company, Twitter reported revenue of $5.1 billion and a net loss of $221 million. Elon Musk agreed to buy the company in April 2022 and closed the deal on October 27, 2022 at $54.20 per share, about $44 billion. The platform was rebranded X in July 2023, X Corp. was folded into Musk's xAI in March 2025 in a stock deal that valued X at $33 billion, and xAI was itself acquired by SpaceX in February 2026.

For investors, Twitter is a case of early stage venture capital producing a large public market outcome about seven years after the first institutional money. Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital and Benchmark entered before the platform had a business model and each held a stake above 5 percent at the IPO, while later growth investors such as DST Global and Rizvi Traverse bought in at multibillion dollar valuations. The 2022 take-private at $54.20 per share returned holders roughly double the $26 IPO price, nine years after listing.