Elon Musk now owns 9.2% of twitter...update.. will soon be the sole owner as Board of Directors accepts his purchase offer

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cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
24,027
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I think Musk suddenly enjoyed some popularity in the upper echelons of society, he got to taste that Amber Heard pussy, parties, suddenly this macho guy Joe Rogan befriended him and stroke his ego till it boiled over, Thiel too whispering in his ear : do it do it do it do it do it do it.

So in full Dunning-Kruger mode, Elon was convinced that this "free speech" and "social media" bs was so easy to fix that he could do it in an afternoon.

Lets just say that this little adventure has demonstrated that Elon is not a people-person. The real sad thing is that even at 44b price tag he is probably still not taking that lesson home.
 
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akugami

Diamond Member
Feb 14, 2005
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Who would have thought advertisers would want a sable platform that doesn’t troll people and NOT want to have ads appear next to FUCKING Taliban content


I think you meant stable platform...though sables are pretty cute animals.

You're all assuming he wants advertisers like Pepsi, McDonald's, and Nike. What if his target advertisers are the KKK, the Oathkeepers, and the Wagner Group?
 
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Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
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I think you meant stable platform...though sables are pretty cute animals.

You're all assuming he wants advertisers like Pepsi, McDonald's, and Nike. What if his target advertisers are the KKK, the Oathkeepers, and the Wagner Group?

Still a bad decision, since those latter groups likely have VERY small advertising budgets.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,243
37,654
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Who would have thought advertisers would want a sable platform that doesn’t troll people and NOT want to have ads appear next to FUCKING Taliban content


True *tryingtofindtheguywhodidthishotdogsuit.jpg* energy.

Narcissistic moron smashed a business model he didn't understand assuming he could do better. Instead he made a cash eating black hole and its everyone else's fault.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
27,737
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Dave_5k

Golden Member
May 23, 2017
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Who would have thought advertisers would want a sable platform that doesn’t troll people and NOT want to have ads appear next to FUCKING Taliban content

"Elon Musk disclosed on Twitter Saturday that, due to a 50% drop in advertising revenue and a “heavy debt load,” the platform still has a negative cash flow."

Well, there is precisely 1 person solely responsible for all the 50% drop in ad revenue... (note other big social media sites are basically flat on ad revenue)

And there is the exact same person almost entirely responsible for the "heavy debt load" that was put on top of Twitter when he stacked as much debt as he could find to pay for the deal (although the lenders share a bit of the fault, and all of the liability!, for allowing that much debt to be included in the purchase)

And he remains in chronic denial, it is always someone else's fault.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
23,155
21,281
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Elon Musk has singlehandedly made the worst business decision in human history dollar wise and it's totally all because of him, and because Twitter did not have high level management teams in place to buffer the company from his insanity like Tesla and SpaceX. Twitter is Elon's true colors.
 
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Dave_5k

Golden Member
May 23, 2017
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Elon Musk has singlehandedly made the worst business decision in human history dollar wise and it's totally all because of him, and because Twitter did not have high level management teams in place to buffer the company from his insanity like Tesla and SpaceX. Twitter is Elon's true colors.
Time Warner selling to AOL at the peak of dot-com bubble is a contender, which resulted in a far larger write-down of value - the combined company lost $99 billion in about the same time than Musk has owned Twitter.

Although one could argue the business decision was not nearly as bad - there actually was some logic behind it other than pure ego - and ultimately AOL shareholders bought out something worth more than ~$0 long term with their peak value hyper-inflated shares, and Time Warner shareholders got bought out at a ~70% premium (if they were smart enough to quickly sell, rather than hold onto the new merged company shares).
 

Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
4,340
5,464
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So now, verified users can all follow each other and interact with each other to generate money. If only there were a crude but accurate phrase to describe such closed-group mutual interactions. Circle of Jerks?

Consider Twitter is in the Red, their won't be that much revenue Musk is willing to share. Publicity stunt more than anything real, and of course Musk could (probably will) just rug pull that revenue stream at a whim.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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So now, verified users can all follow each other and interact with each other to generate money. If only there were a crude but accurate phrase to describe such closed-group mutual interactions. Circle of Jerks?
Someone on AT needs to write a bot that will interact for us. We can all post BS content and get paid from twatter.
 
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manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
11,901
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Time Warner selling to AOL at the peak of dot-com bubble is a contender, which resulted in a far larger write-down of value - the combined company lost $99 billion in about the same time than Musk has owned Twitter.

Although one could argue the business decision was not nearly as bad - there actually was some logic behind it other than pure ego - and ultimately AOL shareholders bought out something worth more than ~$0 long term with their peak value hyper-inflated shares, and Time Warner shareholders got bought out at a ~70% premium (if they were smart enough to quickly sell, rather than hold onto the new merged company shares).
That one takes the cake, although I'm probably forgetting some other doozies. AT&T buying DirecTV for $67B in 2015 was pretty bad as well. Two years ago, it was valued at $16.3B. Ouch.
 
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nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
59,303
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Musk being musk. This will win advertisers for sure.
It also cements his status as the de facto leader of a faction of Silicon Valley libertarians
lol wut
Libertarian my fucking left arse-cheek.
Musk has said that his AI will be designed to be “maximally truth-seeking” in order to understand the universe, arguing that a curious AI would be safe for humans because humans are inherently interesting, and the AI would therefore want to protect them.
You fucking what? Holy shit this guy is stupid for someone who's supposed to be smart.
Other aspects of Musk’s approach are less political. One goal of the firm is to make AI adept at mathematical reasoning, a capability that eludes existing models.
My understanding is that this isn't really the goal of existing models, so not something that eludes them, just not what they were intended for.
 
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Thump553

Lifer
Jun 2, 2000
12,768
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Time Warner selling to AOL at the peak of dot-com bubble is a contender, which resulted in a far larger write-down of value - the combined company lost $99 billion in about the same time than Musk has owned Twitter.

Although one could argue the business decision was not nearly as bad - there actually was some logic behind it other than pure ego - and ultimately AOL shareholders bought out something worth more than ~$0 long term with their peak value hyper-inflated shares, and Time Warner shareholders got bought out at a ~70% premium (if they were smart enough to quickly sell, rather than hold onto the new merged company shares).
A lady once told me an AOL story. Her daughter was mid-level management at AOL and it's employees held quite a bit of stock in the company. At the peak a huge chunk of the employees, even down to the secretary level, were millionaires-on paper. Her daughter, fortunately sold off a bunch of her stock because she was thinking of starting her own company. When the bubble burst AOL was a dismal place to work from then on. It was like winning the lottery and having it pulled out from under your feet.
 

allisolm

Elite Member
Administrator
Jan 2, 2001
25,094
4,584
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Well, goodness. Musk has finally come up with an idea that will certainly fix all the problems affecting Twitter.

He's announced that there will be no more birds. That the symbol will now be an X. That ought to make everything better. :rolleyes:

"Elon Musk tweeted on his official account on Sunday that Twitter would be changing its logo to an “X” and that all the birds will be disappearing from the platform."

“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow...”


There's just not enough eyerolls to cover this.
 

Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
4,340
5,464
136
Well, goodness. Musk has finally come up with an idea that will certainly fix all the problems affecting Twitter.

He's announced that there will be no more birds. That the symbol will now be an X. That ought to make everything better. :rolleyes:

"Elon Musk tweeted on his official account on Sunday that Twitter would be changing its logo to an “X” and that all the birds will be disappearing from the platform."

“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow...”


There's just not enough eyerolls to cover this.

If "X" (the social media previously known as Twitter), somehow survives, and eventually makes a profit, Musk will claim to be the founder of "X".
 
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hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
24,277
10,933
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Well, goodness. Musk has finally come up with an idea that will certainly fix all the problems affecting Twitter.

He's announced that there will be no more birds. That the symbol will now be an X. That ought to make everything better. :rolleyes:

"Elon Musk tweeted on his official account on Sunday that Twitter would be changing its logo to an “X” and that all the birds will be disappearing from the platform."

“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow...”


There's just not enough eyerolls to cover this.
Will it change the name to Xitter? Pronounced zitter.
 
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kt

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2000
6,017
1,322
136
Well, goodness. Musk has finally come up with an idea that will certainly fix all the problems affecting Twitter.

He's announced that there will be no more birds. That the symbol will now be an X. That ought to make everything better. :rolleyes:

"Elon Musk tweeted on his official account on Sunday that Twitter would be changing its logo to an “X” and that all the birds will be disappearing from the platform."

“If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow...”


There's just not enough eyerolls to cover this.
Reminds me of a friend who told me the reason Musk is obsessed with the letter "X" is because it's just a few dashes away from a swastika.