Tesla founder Elon Musk received a flood of criticism when he bought Twitter but his moves appear to be paying off.

When Musk bought the company for $44 billion in 2022, critics derided his purchase.

In October 2023, economist Paul Krugman bashed Musk's project and predicted he would lead his platform into a "death spiral."

"X, formerly Twitter, may soon offer a lesson in what it takes to make a nexus implode," Krugman wrote in The New York Times.

Dave Troy, a columnist for The Washington Spectator, went so far as to suggest Musk was destroying Twitter on purpose.

"Musk is doing to Twitter what Kevin McCarthy and Steve Bannon intend for the 'administrative state' next year: dismantle it," Troy tweeted Nov. 5, 2022.

In the British publication The Guardian, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich lambasted Musk's decision to fire the majority of Twitter's workforce, over 6,000 employees.

"Without this knowledge and talent, Twitter is a shell - an office building, some patents and a brand - without the capacity to improve or even sustain its service," he wrote. "It's unlikely to fail all at once, but bugs and glitches will mount, the quality of what's offered will deteriorate, hateful tweets will burgeon, and customers and advertisers will flee."

While many advertisers left X, leading to a decline in total revenue, the company is more profitable now than it was before Musk took over. (RELATED: SEC Sues Elon Musk For Buying 'Artificially Low'-Priced Twitter Stock. His Critics Agreed He Overpaid)

The company brought in $5 billion in revenue in 2021, the last full year before Musk took over, and reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $682 million, X recently reported to shareholders, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The company also reported that while X's 2024 revenue was just more than half of the pre-Musk levels at $2.7 billion, the EBITDA was nearly double what it was before Musk took over. X reported $1.25 billion in 2024 earnings.

While the company may be taking in less money overall, it's more profitable under Musk, at least in part due to the low overhead from slashing employees.

The apparent success greatly contrasts the predictions made by the aforementioned commentators and several media outlets.

Criticizing the structure of the loans Musk took from seven major banks to fund his purchase, The Wall Street Journal called the agreement the "Worst Buyout for Banks Since the Financial Crisis."

But, after an initially rocky start, the future looks bright for X as advertisers are returning.

Apple, who had publicly announced it was no longer advertising on the platform in 2023, is considering a comeback, according to The Wall Street Journal. Amazon also announced they were upping their ad spend on the platform.