Elon & Twitter

[STS-134]

He seemed fine with possibly getting fired so I doubt any "learning" will occur.

If this is actually happening and it isn't Elon trolling, I expect to see Mr. Frohnhoefer continue to make fun of Elon. If he was actually fired, follow up tweet should say something along the lines of "The 1A does not protect employees from employers, only citizens from the government, but if @elonmusk were the government, this would have been a 1A violation. Firing me makes Elon a lot of things but one thing it does NOT make him is a free speech absolutist!"

 

[ElectricIAC]

If this is actually happening and it isn't Elon trolling, I expect to see Mr. Frohnhoefer continue to make fun of Elon. If he was actually fired, follow up tweet should say something along the lines of "The 1A does not protect employees from employers, only citizens from the government, but if @elonmusk were the government, this would have been a 1A violation. Firing me makes Elon a lot of things but one thing it does NOT make him is a free speech absolutist!"

Nah. This is fine.

I like dark Elon.

 

[phantasms]

Right, which will mean it gets proven or disproven by millions of twitter users. Sounds like a win to me.

I know I literally just used this but...

 

[sleepydoc]

No, not "to be fair". There is a difference pointing out team or company issues, and singling out a specific person. Also, Elon didn't tweet about it out of the blue, he was responding to someone else's criticism of Twitter being slow internationally.

Elon didn’t say “we’re working on speeding up the app.“ He gave specifics.

Also be aware that Elon is under fire from all directions,

Elon is under fire from all directions because he voluntarily walked into the middle of the firing range with a target on. No on forced him to buy twitter and no one forced him to do everything he’s done in the past couple weeks. You’re essentially saying ‘give him a break because he’s in a bad situation of his own doing.’

 

[jabloomf1230]

I was just sitting around doing nothing and an idea popped into my head. After Elon sacked so many Twitter employees, did his zeal create a feeling that tech sector staffing levels were universally bloated? Sure, the macroeconomic conditions are a great excuse for layoffs, but maybe Amazon, Meta and even small players like Global Foundries are partly cutting the "fat" because Twitter started a trend. The good news is that maybe all these high profile layoffs will influence the Fed.

 

[Spacep0d]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1592121646697037827

Most responses (by far) are pointing out how petty Elon is for firing a guy for telling the truth. Again , free speech for me but not for thee. And don’t BS with this you can’t correct your boss when he is wrong. Most bosses want the correct answer. Elon now has a habit of punishing speech he does not like. The guy he fired was a recognized good guy too(San Diego’ citizen of the year). Luckily he will probably have a new job lined up by tomorrow.

A good guy? He sounds like an absolute baby begging to be fired. I would NEVER talk to my boss like that in public. It's funny how people interpret things differently.

If it were me, I'd have a rational conversation with my boss and also make a private query but I wouldn't try to 'own' or 'destroy' him when he's already under fire from all directions (from the Left especially).

That programmer showed a remarkable level of public contempt for Elon and he got what was coming to him.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Imagine having to tell your 10 cats you got fired for arguing with your boss on twitter.

How embarassing.

 

[sleepydoc]

You are assuming that low level employees are correct, and the CEO who is being fed information from more seniors engineers and accountants is wrong.

And you’re assuming the senior engineers know more than the guys actually working on the project.

 

[Spacep0d]

yup. that's what the fanboys can't answer... either twitter is brilliant/ complex and an incredible product = $44b worth ... OR ... a totally bloated company run by slackers and a handful of SpaceX engineers could build a better product in just weeks.... in which case you'd be out of your mind to pay $44b for when you could develop it in house for well under $100m

Starting something new wouldn't be Twitter, and who would use it? It would just be put in the same category (unfairly) as Parler, Gab, and TruthSocial. Taking Twitter was a bold move, an expensive move, but the right move if Elon wanted to pursue his goal of freeing the global 'town square'.

 

[sleepydoc]

Starting something new wouldn't be Twitter, and who would use it? It would just be put in the same category (unfairly) as Parler, Gab, and TruthSocial. Taking Twitter was a bold move, an expensive move, but the right move if Elon wanted to pursue his goal of freeing the global 'town square'.

Except he didn’t want to - he tried to get out of the deal but was forced to go through with it after being sued by Twitter. It was definitely expensive. Bold? I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder, but it’s pretty evident that Elon didn’t want to pursue anything. If he did he would have completed the deal without being sued.

 

[Spacep0d]

You are assuming that low level employees are correct, and the CEO who is being fed information from more seniors engineers and accountants is wrong.

In the cost per meal example, he was rebuked by a person in charge of food services for the SF office. Not exactly a high level position. In her tweet, she guestimated that staff were at the office a certain % of time. Elon rebutted that claim by quoting actual numbers from the badge reading data. She talked about meals costing $20 each, Elon rebutted the claim by posting the total yearly budget from the accounting system.

I know a lot of people here all of a sudden think that Elon just goes with his gut on all decisions, but the guy actually bases his decisions on data. More so than previous Twitter CEOs. In the Lucid thread, we were comparing the early days of Lucid (now) versus early ramp of Model S (2011-2012). Unlike Lucid, Tesla back then was run with POSITIVE gross margins ... while they were starting a manufacturing ramp. Lucid has huge negative gross margins in comparison. Elon is actually a great CEO, and I am shocked (or not, I guess) that people have forgotten how hard it was to do all the things that Elon has accomplished. So, somehow this brilliant CEO that pulled off two impossible companies (Tesla and SpaceX) is all of a sudden an idiot when running Twitter?

These are the same points I've been making in defense of Elon. He revolutionized two complex industries, EVs (really, all vehicles by extension) and spaceflight (landing rocket boosters on their struts like it's The Jetsons) and somehow Twitter is a bridge too far. The stakes for a social media platform are so much lower, and so much higher. Elon and any talent he hires or utilizes will figure it out, but first the old structure has to be imploded. Things will be tried. Systems will break, but it will come out better in the end.

 

[ZenRockGarden]

These are the same points I've been making in defense of Elon. He revolutionized two complex industries, EVs (really, all vehicles by extension) and spaceflight (landing rocket boosters on their struts like it's The Jetsons) and somehow Twitter is a bridge too far. The stakes for a social media platform are so much lower, and so much higher. Elon and any talent he hires or utilizes will figure it out, but first the old structure has to be imploded. Things will be tried. Systems will break, but it will come out better in the end.

And those of us concerned by Elon's adventures in social media would like to point out: Cars / SpaceShips / Human-Behavior: Which thing in this group is NOT an engineering exercise/skillset?

 

[Spacep0d]

Except he didn’t want to - he tried to get out of the deal but was forced to go through with it after being sued by Twitter. It was definitely expensive. Bold? I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder, but it’s pretty evident that Elon didn’t want to pursue anything. If he did he would have completed the deal without being sued.

But complete the deal he did, and it was his idea to buy it in the first place. I understand he had a change of heart midstream, probably because he knew he was going to be overworked (even with his stellar work ethic). And yes, he's overworked by his own admission. Why stick to the temporary change of heart rather than the result? I think any rational person would have misgivings about spending 44B to fix Twitter along with the expected backlash, which is exactly what's happening.

I don't fault Elon for having second thoughts, but he's in it now.

 

[ElectricIAC]

Except he didn’t want to - he tried to get out of the deal but was forced to go through with it after being sued by Twitter. It was definitely expensive. Bold? I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder, but it’s pretty evident that Elon didn’t want to pursue anything. If he did he would have completed the deal without being sued.

I like how you left out the part where they basically told him to piss off and that they wouldn’t sell it to him for all the cheese in the moon.

 

[sleepydoc]

And those of us concerned by Elon's adventures in social media would like to point out: Cars / SpaceShips / Human-Behavior: Which thing in this group is NOT an engineering exercise/skillset?

For the people arguing ‘Elon succeeded at Tesla and SpaceEx so he will surely succeed at Twitter,’ just what do you base that prediction on? What makes Twitter similar enough to Tesla and SpaceEx that his success is so likely?

Also remember that Elon has years of external funding for the first two companies and they started from different points than Twitter.

 

[Daniel in SD]

I like how you left out the part where they basically told him to piss off and that they wouldn’t sell it to him for all the cheese in the moon.

That’s called negotiating.

 

[sleepydoc]

Why stick to the temporary change of heart rather than the result?

Because the change of heart was actually the threat of a court order, not a ‘change of heart.’

I think any rational person would have misgivings about spending 44B to fix Twitter along with the expected backlash, which is exactly what's happening.

Most rational people would have done more due diligence before offering $44b.

 

[Spacep0d]

And those of us concerned by Elon's adventures in social media would like to point out: Cars / SpaceShips / Human-Behavior: Which thing in this group is NOT an engineering exercise/skillset?

Funny, because some Elon detractors claim he's not an engineer, yet here we are with Teslas and SpaceX landing rocket boosters on their struts and resupplying the I.S.S.

A social media platform is child's play in comparison, and Elon does have a programming background, plus he's super smart, and he has people working for him. That's all he needs. He could improve almost any system he sets his mind to improve even if it's outside of his 'current' specialty. A lot of people don't have the imagination to understand what it's like to be Elon, but if they did there would be more Elons out there. Even Akio Toyoda (CEO of Toyota) can't seem to figure out that EVs are here to stay. Toyota's EV plan is absurd, and a lot of us know this despite not being CEOs of automotive companies or engineers ourselves.

Further, you don't have to be an engineer to understand how censorship works. A CEO doesn't have to do every job personally. That's why there are employees. However, the Captain steers the ship. The old Captains (of Twitter) were steering us toward 1984.

 

[Spacep0d]

Because the change of heart was actually the threat of a court order, not a ‘change of heart.’

Most rational people would have done more due diligence before offering $44b.

Sure, but it's Elon. He wanted to fix Twitter, but the cost (financially, mentally, backlash, workload) is high and I'm sure he knew that going in. No wonder he had misgivings, but he's doing it now and that's what matters.

 

[Spacep0d]

Because the change of heart was actually the threat of a court order, not a ‘change of heart.’

Most rational people would have done more due diligence before offering $44b.

When I say 'change of heart' I meant when Elon was trying to get OUT of the deal. He did sign the contract and I'm sure he didn't want to be in that protracted court battle. So, may as well just do the thing. Again, I don't fault him for the change of heart. Should he have considered it more carefully? Perhaps. I think the *intent* to fix Twitter was there, but it comes with a whole lot of stress, not to mention the 44B expenditure.