Elon & Twitter

[Dave EV]

Elon should simply make Twitter ad free, for now. Then he’s not beholden to anyone. It will cost $4.5 billion in revenue, but will save $1 billion on acquisition, marketing, legal, etc. Costs cuts in other areas - making a bloated company lean and efficient - will save another $1.5 billion. Then there’s extra income, like payments for the blue check marks and other things that can reasonably be monetised. The loss will be maybe $1.5 billion per year, which can be paid from cash reserves. This will give him a few years to turn things around. The number of active members will grow. It likely is growing now, because of all the publicity. After a while advertisers may even be begging to reintroduce advertising, because they want the eyeballs.

I'm sorry, but if you get rid of all the ad revenue, is Twitter really worth $44B? Never mind that we all now know that it's worth significantly less than that (probably 30%), and now with the rapid drop in ad revenue, is presumably worth even less.

Presumably you buy it for the user base which potentially represents recurring revenue, but if you go and piss off half the users, just how many of them will be willing to spend money on your product?

Here is an informative thread on advertising, and where advertisers want to spend their money. Hint - it's not the place where there's a lot of controversy as many have already stated. Businesses want safe, mainstream, non-controversial places to advertise. And Elon has turned Twitter into a huge controversy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588679838306799617

Combine this with the earlier post about the New Fronts convention back in May which led to ad agencies refusing to commit to 2023 ad spending and it's real clear now why Twitter forced Elon to buy. They've known since then that 2023 was going to be a blood bath, revenue wise for Twitter, whether or not Elon bought or not. So to make shareholders happy (who the board is responsible to) they forced Elon to buy Twitter at a huge premium. Right now? I'd guess that the paper value of Twitter right now is maybe 25% what they paid for it.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588679838306799617

It’s too bad Elon didn’t spend the last few months to put together a plan to make twitter a much better place - including communicating that plan when the merger closed.

He clearly communicated that he wanted to change all sorts of policies but has yet to say why or how.

With Twitter being Elon's primary communication mechanism, Twitter's format not lending itself to nuanced discussions and Elon being notoriously bad at communicating on Twitter, this is the result. Now he may have had a plan, but if he's spending 120+ hours/week at Twitter right now, it's pretty clear that either he's scrambling and changing his plan, or completely underestimated the situation going in.

The further I dig into the reply threads on Elon's tweets, the more I'm reminded why I spend no time on Twitter

Reply threads of most popular accounts are cesspools of misinformation, trolling and worse. Probably the worst part of Twitter.

To use Twitter effectively you need to judiciously follow accounts that post content you find interesting and make liberal use of the mute/block features. This requires constant work.

 

[JRP3]

Another odd genius who became a bit too fond of birds. It didn't end well.

Nikola Tesla's Weird Obsession with Pigeons

Scientist Nikola Tesla is known for many things, but not many people know that he was kind of obsessed with pigeons.

www.britannica.com

 

[Dave EV]

The only way Elon wins, is to not play their game, and keep his mouth shut.

There's been a number of us saying this for YEARS! I've thought this for at least 4-5 years now. Cut the BS, and keep the tweets to stuff relevant to the mission and stay out of politics.

But this has become fully political, and anyone that thinks otherwise . . . . yeah, deluding themselves.

Who's saying that things aren't political at this point? I haven't seen a single person suggest otherwise.

I would bet, if we could actually trace the $$$$, that these "activists" actually have some pretty deep funding from some far-left-leaning political groups, those groups being fed $$$$ from some large players that absolutely hate Elon.

Hahahah, that's conspiracy level thinking, there.

Just about everyone here who is highly critical of Elon's Twitter shenanigans are also big Tesla and SpaceX (and likely Boring Co, Neuralink, etc) fans - all companies who are hugely successful because of Elon's actions.

BUT all the "hate" that has come out of the woodwork, is a direct result of Elon fanning the flames. He has brought it on himself, can't resist responding to trolls in public (aka Twitter), making things political by publicly engaging politicians, and painting himself in the worst light possible.

Elon desperately needs a GOOD PR person to filter all his public interactions. But Elon being Elon will never do so, and as a result, we have this beautiful dumpster fire floating down the river to enjoy.

 

[STS-134]

Presumably you buy it for the user base which potentially represents recurring revenue, but if you go and piss off half the users, just how many of them will be willing to spend money on your product?

Here is an informative thread on advertising, and where advertisers want to spend their money. Hint - it's not the place where there's a lot of controversy as many have already stated. Businesses want safe, mainstream, non-controversial places to advertise. And Elon has turned Twitter into a huge controversy.

That thread states why most CEOs do not go anywhere near politics. Elon can currently get away with it because Tesla is production-limited and has a long list of unfilled orders but when that dries up, he's going to become a huge liability and the board might reassess whether it wants to keep him around.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I agree that it would be useful if Elon would follow this advice he is being given. His thinking is far too binary and polarized to effectively lead and execute at Twitter.

Fewer dank memes, more apologies for past mistakes, less engagement with trolls. Be neutral and boring! Very few people are out to get Elon. They just don’t like his behavior, so if he stops most people will be much happier! Elon has not convinced people a hellscape is not the end goal.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588948090924732416

 

[ElectricIAC]

I agree that it would be useful if Elon would follow this advice he is being given. His thinking is far too binary and polarized to effectively lead and execute at Twitter.

Fewer dank memes, more apologies for past mistakes, less engagement with trolls. Be neutral and boring! Very few people are out to get Elon. They just don’t like his behavior, so if he stops most people will be much happier! Elon has not convinced people a hellscape is not the end goal.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588948090924732416

Bro, you’re asking Elon to not be Elon.

That’s simply not Musk.

 

[dm33]

LOL. The problem is in establishing facts.

Like Saddam’s nukes.

Too often these days facts are undeniable but that doesn’t stop crazy stories with zero facts from being debated as equals.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Too often these days facts are undeniable but that doesn’t stop crazy stories with zero facts from being debated as equals.

Because nobody ever covers up anything, ever.

 

[Crutonius]

“Coalition named Stop The Deal”

Called it….Kambucha Mafia strikes again.

There is that. But according to those posts they asked Elon basic questions for which he had no answer.

Sounds to me that the blame lies more with elons lack of planning than with the woke scolds.

 

[ElectricIAC]

There is that. But according to those posts they asked Elon basic questions for which he had no answer.

Sounds to me that the blame lies more with elons lack of planning than with the woke scolds.

I’m not so sure that I would lend credibility to some rando that misspoke figures by 500%

 

[Chunky Jr.]

One problem with paying for twitter is that you don't really get that much out of it unless you are a prolific tweeter. Ads aren't nearly obnoxious enough to pay extra for them to go away. On YouTube, ads are so obnoxious I gladly paid for premium so I didn't have to deal with them. On twitter, you just scroll past them and mostly ignore them.

 

[EVNow]

Too often these days facts are undeniable but that doesn’t stop crazy stories with zero facts from being debated as equals.

That’s too generic a statement to be useful.

The fact remains, at least when it comes to foreign affairs, the US government continues to push propaganda (as do other governments). Facts are just not clear. I can give a lot of recent examples, if you want.

When it comes to politics and politicians - the incentive for creating fake narratives is obvious. While some are obviously lies (that’s what the fact checkers should check for) - there will be those statements that are somewhere in the gray. Over the years if you have followed the controversial decisions of fact checkers themselves - you will know this. Infact they don’t have just a false/ true rating but in between ratings (mostly true, mostly false etc).

Now, we also have real fake news being spread where someone completely makes up BS and spreads it (Obama born in Kenya, earth is flat, moon landing faked, pizzagate, 5G, Gates created vaccines to control the world etc). A decent moderation team should be able to flag those.

Then there are obvious abusive posts (racist, misogynistic etc) that should be moderated. Not that there won’t be controversies here …

 

[EVNow]

They only want to show you ads when you're in a good mood and receptive to their message. Which means you need to see positive and uplifting content, not divisive arguments.

Ofcourse there are niche exceptions like the “apocalyptic survival“ industry - gold, guns, bunkers and such. Interestingly they dominate some of the news programs ….

 

[Dave EV]

Ofcourse there are niche exceptions like the “apocalyptic survival“ industry - gold, guns, bunkers and such. Interestingly they dominate some of the news programs ….

For sure, and the Twitter thread I linked to mentions the reason why.

Those companies are so small that the revenue derived from those companies is peanuts compared to what you can get from a big, mainstream company for the same exposure. They would much rather have big-name-brands advertising, it's way more lucrative. Direct link to that point in John Marshall's thread:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588679845302898689

 

[Matias]

Anyway back on topic. Here's an explanation of why Musk is threatening to go "thermonuclear"

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588696157794242560

Also, a tweet I found funny.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588753914509561856

I'm not expert on business practices, but threatening your business partners with "going thermonuclear" sounds a bit controversial.

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

I'm sorry, but if you get rid of all the ad revenue, is Twitter really worth $44B? Never mind that we all now know that it's worth significantly less than that (probably 30%), and now with the rapid drop in ad revenue, is presumably worth even less.

Presumably you buy it for the user base which potentially represents recurring revenue, but if you go and piss off half the users, just how many of them will be willing to spend money on your product?

Here is an informative thread on advertising, and where advertisers want to spend their money. Hint - it's not the place where there's a lot of controversy as many have already stated. Businesses want safe, mainstream, non-controversial places to advertise. And Elon has turned Twitter into a huge controversy.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588679838306799617

Combine this with the earlier post about the New Fronts convention back in May which led to ad agencies refusing to commit to 2023 ad spending and it's real clear now why Twitter forced Elon to buy. They've known since then that 2023 was going to be a blood bath, revenue wise for Twitter, whether or not Elon bought or not. So to make shareholders happy (who the board is responsible to) they forced Elon to buy Twitter at a huge premium. Right now? I'd guess that the paper value of Twitter right now is maybe 25% what they paid for it.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1588679838306799617

With Twitter being Elon's primary communication mechanism, Twitter's format not lending itself to nuanced discussions and Elon being notoriously bad at communicating on Twitter, this is the result. Now he may have had a plan, but if he's spending 120+ hours/week at Twitter right now, it's pretty clear that either he's scrambling and changing his plan, or completely underestimated the situation going in.



Reply threads of most popular accounts are cesspools of misinformation, trolling and worse. Probably the worst part of Twitter.

To use Twitter effectively you need to judiciously follow accounts that post content you find interesting and make liberal use of the mute/block features. This requires constant work.

It doesn’t matter that Twitter is now worth a lot less than $44 billion, unless he wants to sell. He doesn’t. If the housing market collapses your house might be worth half of what you paid for it. But if you aren’t planning on selling it is not a problem.

Losing $1 or $2 billion for a few years is not a problem either if you’re worth $200+ billion. Just as spending $1,000 or $2,000 per year is not a problem when you’re worth $200,000.

 

[JRP3]

Seems completely inline with the Tesla mission.

Experts Fear Musk’s Twitter Scandals Signal More Climate Disinformation to Come - Inside Climate News

Less than a week after Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion, the tech billionaire became embroiled in a series of scandals on his own platform. They included a spike in the use of hate speech on the website and Musk himself posting a baseless anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory about the attack...

insideclimatenews.org

 

[EVNow]

Let's just cut to the heart of the matter here:

The left is PISSED at Elon. For a multitude of real or perceived reasons. They are going to weaponize everything they can to hurt him, period, no exceptions. Is Elon hurting himself in the process? Yep.

But this has become fully political, and anyone that thinks otherwise . . . . yeah, deluding themselves.

You are being too simplistic - but let’s go with that.

Why did Elon buy Twitter ?
- To make his old grand plan of x.com come true
- To own the libs

His behavior makes it seem like the latter. So, it would be naïve to think “libs” won’t respond.

 

[sleepydoc]

"may thing" (sic) You're not rich enough.
When you are really rich, your effective rate goes down.

Remember Mitt Romney? Everyone gave him crap because he only paid 15% taxes, but that was because virtually all his income was from investments and the capital gains rate was capped at 15%. He wasn’t a crook, he was just playing by the rules that favored him. If you’re wealthy enough to invest and reap the benefits you get the breaks.

 

[STS-134]

Losing $1 or $2 billion for a few years is not a problem either if you’re worth $200+ billion. Just as spending $1,000 or $2,000 per year is not a problem when you’re worth $200,000.

Apparently it is: Elon Musk Says He Had ‘No Choice’ in Slashing Twitter Workforce, Claims Company Was Losing $4 Million Daily

He's worth $200 billion, so assuming zero growth on principal and also zero inflation of expenses, he could single handedly fund Twitter at $4 million a day for over 130 years.