sounds like a hard job to quantify "can/does maintaining the API make the company money"
on one hand you've got a knee-jerk answer: "absolutely! how could it not?!"
on the other... maybe he's getting rid of it for a reason? sucks for people who integrated against it but is it is "right" to effectively screw these people over who aren't paying for (but are benefitting from) the API?
If there is an api someone can, and has, written a client that makes twitter work better. You can subvert most the dumb shit they keep trying to throw into the experience that ruin the user experience. Ad's... don't show them, timeline... put it in order, etc.
Also there is a small community of researchers out there that use the api to detect botnets, follow networks, etc. Can't have that with musk around.
on one hand you've got a knee-jerk answer: "absolutely! how could it not?!"
on the other... maybe he's getting rid of it for a reason? sucks for people who integrated against it but is it is "right" to effectively screw these people over who aren't paying for (but are benefitting from) the API?
maybe give them the option to pay?