Billionaire Elon Musk has put the current value of Twitter at $20 billion, less than half the $44 billion he paid for the social media platform just five months ago, according to an internal email seen by American news media.

The email to employees dealt with a new stock compensation program in the San Francisco-based company and the attribution to employees of stock in X Holdings, Twitter's umbrella company since Musk purchased it in late October.

The compensation plan values the platform at $20 billion, slightly more than that of Snap ($18.2 billion), parent company of Snapchat, or of social network and creative website Pinterest ($18.7 billion), both of which, unlike Twitter, are publicly traded.

Billionaire Elon Musk has put the current value of Twitter at $20 billion, less than half the $44 billion he paid for the social media platform just five months ago, according to an internal email seen by American news media.

The email to employees dealt with a new stock compensation program in the San Francisco-based company and the attribution to employees of stock in X Holdings, Twitter's umbrella company since Musk purchased it in late October.

The compensation plan values the platform at $20 billion, slightly more than that of Snap ($18.2 billion), parent company of Snapchat, or of social network and creative website Pinterest ($18.7 billion), both of which, unlike Twitter, are publicly traded.