so is he BFF with Kanye West? I'm not on twitterer so I only catch bits about this filthy rich bastard and the egomaniac.
Yes, I think anyone following the Twitter acquisition would say that was a carefully and deliberately executed plan and definitely not a massive farce that only proceeded when Musk’s lawyers informed him that he had overcommitted to the bit and was indeed ****ed.
I already feel dirty for what I've just done. I think I've reached a new low. This is what RK would call my "quest for rock bottom".
Why anyone would have a twitter account or use it after this is beyond me. Minus the exception for being required to have one for a job or something. Here is hoping it crashes and burns just as fast as a Tesla.
Eh, the toxicity inherent to a platform that thrives on engagement aside, all corporations are run by terrible people.
True enough. I just find Musk particularly annoying. Do anything he does I hope ends in failure even more so than your average billionaire
Why do we need a second thread dedicated to Elon Musk that's all but indistinguishable from the already active Twitter sucks thread?
I keep seeing this narrative floating around, “Elon didn’t want Twitter. It was a joke that went too far. Now he is screwed!” This, doesn’t make much sense to me. I think this hostile takeover went pretty much the way he wanted it to go, and now he is CEO and basically the chief “editor” of one of the most important media companies in America. I expect the next evolution of the narrative will be: “Elon’s poor management of Twitter is a national security issue and the government must take it away from him.” At that point it will be obvious how big a power play this was. Oh, and he won’t be giving it away, but keep dreaming.
Well, a few things: 1. This literally wasn’t a hostile takeover. A hostile takeover occurs when the acquisition is contrary to the desires of the board. There were initially some threats that Musk would be attempting a hostile takeover but he ended up agreeing to an amicable acquisition instead. 2. It makes plenty of sense that this was a joke that went too far, because he literally filed in court to try and back out of the deal. He has now acquired Twitter at a rate that was not commiserate with its value by a factor of something like 2 or 3 in the middle of a massive tech bear market, which is not at all what he wanted when he first started making overtures about this. 3. Neither of these facts preclude the likely possibility that he will hang onto Twitter; I agree with you there. However his exposure is pretty large (again by virtue of the fact that he’s overpaying by a lot) and there are some fairly open questions about what might occur with his leveraged debt. It’s not a good deal for Musk, I suspect he wouldn’t have made it if he actually could have gotten out of it, and I think people who want this to be some BOLD CONSPIRATORIAL GAMBLE to win Trump the 2024 election or whatever are seriously overestimating the impact (real and perceived) of Twitter compared to, like, corporate financing, the economy, and basic voter suppression tactics.
The only way this could happen is if somebody made a social media platform even more addictive than Twitter, and which could pull away its user base: the creative/knowledge economy class which makes it valuable. @Ramza 1: Twitter’s leadership and staff were opposed to the acquisition, I think that counts as a hostile takeover even if the technical definition is something else. 2: He filed the court case to try and lower the sale price after the stocks tanked, it was a negotiating ploy, not unusual for him. Something you have to understand about Elon, when he says money is just numbers and doesn’t matter, he is serious. The absurd price point - $420 a share I think? - should be understood for what it is: he didn’t care how much he paid for Twitter, he just wanted it and he got it. He has been a master of venture capitalism for a long time now, he knows what he’s doing, the “mad scientist” persona is a shtick. 3: Only way it could get taken from him now is if federal regulators do it, and he’s also a master of navigating those waters too, just look at Tesla.
People keep treating it like he wrote a check for 44 billion; he had to get loans leveraged against other assets and investors. Twitter needs to be profitable. As "edgelord" as he wants to be, he can't afford to drive it into the ground. I'm not saying he won't through stupid business decisions, just that he isn't going to tank the company by "owning the libs" or whatever. And like I said elsewhere, Twitter was already in bad shape. There were going to be cuts and layoffs regardless who owned it.
