Elon & Twitter

[KBF]

I don't see him quitting. Getting fired by the board or the shareholders on the other hand...

Remember, unlike Zuckerberg, he doesn't control more than 50% of the voting shares in Tesla. He can't single-handedly ignore the board's recommendations and the shareholders' votes. Right now, Tesla is production constrained so his idiotic stunts are not affecting sales and deliveries. When that backlog dries up, he's going to become a huge liability to Tesla and the board and/or the shareholders will probably re-evaluate whether they want to keep him around.

The only bright side of this whole Twitter fiasco is that in the past I was concerned about share prices tanking when Musk would retire/move on from Tesla... Now it looks like SP would go up if we fire him. I think he's done enough to get Tesla on a strong foundation, and he needs to go startup something else now.

I don't spend time on Twitter, I'm Canadian and I don't attach my identity to US politics, but I'm so tired of this nonsense. He should know that humanity needs to look for things in common, not create further conflict and divisions.

He's technically correct - shared power reduces excesses, as a principle (though more limited in a 2 party system). But it's absolutely stupid for a CEO to say that and then tell people what to do. You're burning bridges and that's just bad business.

 

[STS-134]

How appropriate they should use the word blockbuster, those who know will chuckle.

Twitter will be the new Blockbuster.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Twitter will be the new Blockbuster.

I still maintain that if he shut down the whole thing right now I would not shed a tear.

But until then I’m going to be enjoying the sodium meltdown.

 

[AudubonB]

Moderator ON: The following post is as political as I am going to permit this thread to become. Were you needing to ask why, it is because I make the rules - it should be abundantly clear to all the Investor Sector never has been either a democracy or a Free Speech platform. Better or worse for that? You're welcome to decide.
Moderator OFF

Mr. Musk's "Vote Repub for Congress" tweet is, in fact, how I let my beliefs run for many decades - split the power in D.C. - until Newt Gingrich turned on the slow boil that caused the GOP to become the catastrophic anti-American carbuncle it now is. Were the Liz Cheneys and Lisa Murkowskis ever to regain control of the party, then I once again would champion what Mr Musk seems to espouse - but not until then.

What I truly and with absolute sincerity wonder, however, is how many of the participants in the Investor Sector who previously consistently gave a "Disagree" to any post I put forth, over many years, as to my abhorrence of Twitter, now even grudgingly admit there may have been some merit to my position.

 

[ohmman]

I don't have opinion on this. I just want to understand
E.g this NYT article says "The site frequently loses money and took on $13 billion in debt for the blockbuster deal."


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/30/...ytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

It appears your read is correct. The group purchased Twitter using debt and that debt was rolled into the company as a liability. So you are correct that Twitter is holding the debt now, with the principals (Musk et al) being responsible for servicing that debt through the company.

Thanks for clearing up my misunderstanding!

 

[ElectricIAC]

It’d be cool if we could put a reason next to a reaction/moodlet.

 

[ohmman]

I’td be cool if we could put a reason next to a reaction/moodlet.

We have those. They’re called replies.

Moderator addition: Precisely! This is a discussion forum, not a check-the-box station.

 

[ElectricIAC]

We have those. They’re called replies.

Touché

 

[cwerdna]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1589633692104011777

 

[Bet TSLA]

This piece has some inside information that's new to me, as well as the usual innuendo and bashing.

Twitter, cut in half

ðð«¡

www.platformer.news

 

[BitJam]

I thought Twitter was now run by a "free speech absolutist" who said that anything that isn't against the law goes?

You are correct that Musk was completely wrong about vastly deregulating free speech on Twitter. But he's figured it out and has backed away from that position. He is now talking about keeping the same moderation policy, etc. Learning, albeit slowly (8 months and $44B late), is not the same thing as hypocrisy. Chiding someone for learning is extremely counterproductive. Although Musk muddied the situation by never admitting he was horribly wrong on this.

As Nikay Patel recently said on the Verge, the backlash from those initial absolute free speech claims will come from those who are expecting significantly less moderation and don't get it. Musk may be trying to postpone this reckoning by not apologizing for his absolute free speech nonsense.

I agree with you on many things but IMO Musk is right to ban impersonation when it can lead to confusion about who said what. False negative claims about Musk (and many others) spread like wildfire. Twitter is better and less toxic when confusing impersonation is not allowed.

I suggest we rebuke Musk when he does things wrong (currently there is no shortage of these) and praise him when he does things right. Not the other way around.

 

[STS-134]

You are correct that Musk was completely wrong about vastly deregulating free speech on Twitter. But he's figured it out and has backed away from that position. He is now talking about keeping the same moderation policy, etc. Learning, albeit slowly (8 months and $44B late), is not the same thing as hypocrisy. Chiding someone for learning is extremely counterproductive.
...
I suggest we rebuke Musk when he does things wrong (currently there is no shortage of these) and praise him when he does things right. Not the other way around.

Okay fine. Then I suggest that he should learn why it's never a good idea for a person who runs a multinational car company with factories in countries that do not operate according to the rule of law (i.e. Shanghai/PRC) to run a social media company. What happens when the CCP demands that he remove their critics from Twitter or downvote their critics' posts or elevate the CCP's official propaganda (and posts that agree with it) in exchange for a permit to expand the factory?

 

[ZenRockGarden]

Oh no, Elon Musk has taken away my bogus parody account and now I‘m going to have a tantrum and whine about it . What about my rights? What about my free speech?

We don't mind people getting banned for violating TOS.

We are MOCKING Elon for buying twitter to bring "free speech absolutism" (his words, not ours) and the first thing he does is start banning people for saying things he doesn't like.

 

[advocate8]

Okay fine. Then I suggest that he should learn why it's never a good idea for a person who runs a multinational car company with factories in countries that do not operate according to the rule of law (i.e. Shanghai/PRC) to run a social media company. What happens when the CCP demands that he remove their critics from Twitter or downvote their posts or elevate their propaganda in exchange for a permit to expand the factory?

Or suggests backchannel it could seize the factory. Remember, CCP is going full-bore on hardline nationalism now.

 

[ZenRockGarden]

Positive Spin on Elon's Twitter Dumpster-Fire:

The market agrees with what we feared: TSLA stock plummeting due to worry over Elon being utterly distracted by his free-speech social media adventure.

Upside: TSLA is actually quite healthy and will probably run ok without him for a while as long as he doesn't pull too many key people off engineering cars to somehow make magic moderation automation happen.

Probably a good buying opportunity for TSLA stock if you're brave and if you think Elon will slowly dig himself out of the self-inflicted stupidity hole he's made

 

[BitJam]

Okay fine. Then I suggest that he should learn why it's never a good idea for a person who runs a multinational car company with factories in countries that do not operate according to the rule of law (i.e. Shanghai/PRC) to run a social media company. What happens when the CCP demands that he remove their critics from Twitter or downvote their posts or elevate their propaganda in exchange for a permit to expand the factory?

Fair point, although Twitter is not officially allowed in China so I don't know if this would ever be an actual issue. As I said, there is no shortage of valid concerns right now.

Funny thing, the top hit for a "twitter china" search was this article From China to Thailand, dissidents fear Musk’s Twitter reign:

Musk plans to scrap Twitter’s identity authentication system as soon as this week, offering the distinctive blue check mark, once reserved for verified high-profile users, to anyone willing to pay $8/month.​

​

While Han is still waiting for the details of the changes to unfold, she is concerned about the prospect of internet trolls impersonating her and sowing confusion among her followers.​

​

Props to Elon for addressing this concern.

 

[wnorris]

Interesting thread related to Telco data requests from 2016 era.

I wound up meeting with a Director who came in huffing and puffing. The Director said “We should know when users leave their house, their commute to work, and everywhere they go throughout the day. Anything less is useless. We get a lot more than that from other tech companies.”

https://twitter.com/x/status/1589700721121058817

 

[ZenRockGarden]

You are correct that Musk was completely wrong about vastly deregulating free speech on Twitter. But he's figured it out and has backed away from that position. He is now talking about keeping the same moderation policy, etc. Learning, albeit slowly (8 months and $44B late), is not the same thing as hypocrisy. Chiding someone for learning is extremely counterproductive. Although Musk muddied the situation by never admitting he was horribly wrong on this.

Can those of us who completely saw this coming offer ourselves as consultants to Elon to help him avoid such blindingly obvious mistakes? We're affordable!

 

[BitJam]

We don't mind people getting banned for violating TOS.

We are MOCKING Elon for buying twitter to bring "free speech absolutism" (his words, not ours) and the first thing he does is start banning people for saying things he doesn't like.

As I said above, mocking Elon for figuring out he was wrong about free speech absolutism is counterproductive. Learning is not hypocrisy.

 

[DeepFrz]

But we have known this for at least a year where Elons head was at. The moment he moved to Texas we knew where this was headed. He sucked all the money out of Dems that he could and now he's ready to suck out all the money from the GOP, except he doesn't realize the the OIL industries pockets are a lot deeper than his.

Personally I am probably going to play tic tac toe with my ballot. They are all the same.

No, they are not. Thimk...