There are some people who have said that Elon Musk only wanted to buy Twitter to make more money.

If that’s true, then he failed (for now).

Because Musk’s wealth has dropped substantially since the beginning of the year.

His net worth stands at $203 billion, down 25% since last year.

And it’s dropped $9 billion just since buying Twitter.

He’s still the world’s richest person, standing $65 billion above the next closest (Bernard Arnault). But it’s a sign that the Twitter buyout was probably not an effort to gain more wealth.

Musk poured $25B into the deal, with multiple partners putting in the remaining amount (for a total of $44B).

Musk and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey have talked openly about the fact that making the platform beholden to advertisers limits its freedom. Musk is starting to see the problems that led to Twitter’s failure to turn a profit for 3 of the past 5 years.

He’s introducing a $20 a month (perhaps now $8 a month) subscription for Twitter users to get a verified account, tweeting, “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?”

The new “Chief Twit” also plans to cut Twitter’s workforce to save money, first by 25% in one round of cuts and eventually by laying off as much as 75% of the company’s employees.