Elon & Twitter

[ohmman]

But (from the page you linked to):
Because it's also more complicated than it appears at first glance, the relationship between inflation and unemployment has broken down in periods like the stagflationary 1970s and the booming 1990s.

Inflation isn't a problem of too much employment. It's fundamentally a problem of too many people trying to buy too much stuff (or another way to look at it, not enough stuff to meet demand). So anything that gets people to not spend money on stuff and do other things with it instead will tame inflation. For markets where you can increase the supply of stuff for people to buy, anything that does that will help too.

Which is why I said "in traditional markets."

Inflation is a side effect of excess monetary supply. It's not just a matter of "if we print money, we get inflation," because the US printed $2T after the 2008 crash and there was no real measurable effect on inflation. There are a lot of moving parts. Employment is definitely one of them - competitive employment creates higher pay which creates more buying power which creates higher prices.. etc. Nothing can be distilled to just one factor, but to say that employment and inflation have a direct correlation in traditional markets is true.

 

[philw1776]

He doesn't seem to be working at Tesla at all. I'd be happy if he just made a formal announcement to that effect. We need a more stable CEO who is actually running the company.

Uh oh! Elon risking getting fired for not putting in 40 hours a week on site in the Tesla factory!

 

[JRP3]

Everyone's action can provide anyone who wants to destroy you with plenty of ammunition. It's hard to prove intent, so for those who wants to destroy you will instill your intent for you.

Are you really pretending that it doesn't matter what Elon says?

 

[Southpasfan]

He did not "rant about Pelosi's geriatric husband being secretly gay", he literally said "there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye", this is about as gentle and objective as you can get, and he deleted it quickly afterwards, I don't see why people has problems with him making a tiny mistake and quickly correcting it, while his detractors lies day and night and doesn't ever retract their false claims.

The problem is there is a "tiny possibility" of all sorts of stuff. There is a tiny possibility that JFK Jr. is still alive. There is a tiny possibility that global warming is a hoax. There is a tiny possibility that Bill Gates is an alien. There is as tiny possibility that Elon is actually Putin's younger brother.

I'll tell you what is not a "tiny possibilty" but a fact, and that is that one of thy byproducts of the internet in general, and platforms like Twitter in particular, is that with pretty much zero factual editing, any yahoo can say that there is a tiny possibility of anything and, depending on their charisma, get other yahoos to read it and go "well, if there is a tiny possibility, maybe its true." This has been a giant step backward for humanity, that's for sure.

If somehow Elon can implement fact checking at Twitter it will be game changing, but someone with more experience with algorithmic editing will have to point out how.

I agree completely that the seeds of this may have started with short sellers spewing all sorts of anti Tesla FUD and Elon being righteously angry that shorts can say whatever they want and he, as the owner of a public company, is limited in what he can say.

Its a post for the investor general board, but I am not sure short selling should be allowed, which reminds me, I have to check my account to make sure my Tesla shares can't be f-ing loaned out to some short.

 

[stopcrazypp]

At the very least it’s what got him set down the path of buying Twitter.

In any case we’re here now and like my entertainment with the matter, the salt is just feeding into and emboldening him. If the left would just stop kvetching he’d likely back off and find something else to go tinker with.

No, he wouldn't be able to just back off, because he signed a binding purchase agreement that he shortly regretted, regardless of what the "left" was doing. Now he has $44 billion in sunk costs. It was asked previously up thread why he doesn't just ignore the advertisers and just fund everything himself, and that is a big part of it. If he didn't spend that 44 billion, that money could have run a self funded social network for at least a few years, probably significantly more with downsizing (Twitter expenses were $3-5.5 billion for the last couple of years). I don't imagine Elon is blind to that.

Given he already spent the 44 billion, his plan with the layoffs were to more than make up for the initial trajectory of Twitter's revenue drop from the worsening economy (Twitter likely would have done layoffs anyways regardless of if Elon was running the company). That would at least help Twitter break even, and the 44 billion can be seen as buying a user base. Instead his actions scared off advertisers even faster than the initial trajectory, so now it is further in the red than even layoffs may necessarily be able to deal with. The whole blue check mark thing has also been a disaster and still remains suspended, and I doubt it was a big enough success to make up for the negative impact to advertisers. From the figures I found, even at the height of attention, it only worked out to about $120 million equivalent in annual revenue, a long way to making up for ad revenue.

Surprise? Elon Musk's $8 Twitter Blue hasn't made very much money so far.

Here's how many users actually signed up.

mashable.com

 

[bkp_duke]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1597973053883187202

Arthur Brooks is on the "left" of the political spectrum, Harvard Professor

Arthur Brooks - Teaching the Science of Happiness. Live Better. Be Happier.

Bestselling author and Harvard professor is teaching individuals how to be happy using a combination of neuroscience and philosophy traditions. Learn more

arthurbrooks.com

This isn't someone that is actively anti-Elon saying this. He's calling out the activists.




Now . . . I expect the activists will try to cancel him.

 

[stopcrazypp]

But are the high number of thumbs down coming from both sides of the aisle? Doesn’t look like it to me.

Right, it appears to me there is only one poster doing mass downvoting and people on the receiving end have not retaliated in kind. The most people have done is ask for an explanation for why, and have remained quite civil. It's unfair to everyone else to bring out this point about breaking records for downvoting, when a vast majority of participants in this thread have not engaged in it. I'm not sure if moderators have an ability to see a breakdown of downvotes by member, but it should be quite clear if there is such a function (even if not, scrolling a few pages should tell enough).

 

[ggies07]

Great interview that has relevance to this topic.

 

[Cherry Wine]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1597973053883187202

Arthur Brooks is on the "left" of the political spectrum, Harvard Professor

Arthur Brooks - Teaching the Science of Happiness. Live Better. Be Happier.

Bestselling author and Harvard professor is teaching individuals how to be happy using a combination of neuroscience and philosophy traditions. Learn more

arthurbrooks.com

This isn't someone that is actively anti-Elon saying this. He's calling out the activists.




Now . . . I expect the activists will try to cancel him.

As much as I strongly dislike how easy Elon has made it for portions of this country to hate him, I also firmly believe that "cancel culture" (for lack of a better term) and purity tests are completely out of control. People are of course free to buy products on any metric they so choose, but the peer pressure / judgment aspect of it is disturbing and not good, imho.

 

[ZenRockGarden]

As much as I strongly dislike how easy Elon has made it for portions of this country to hate him, I also firmly believe that "cancel culture" (for lack of a better term) and purity tests are completely out of control. People are of course free to buy products on any metric they so choose, but the peer pressure / judgment aspect of it is disturbing and not good, imho.

Given that consumer choice on which business to patronize is solidly within the expression of free-speech, I would expect the folks who favor free speech to not only accept but embrace the use of it, even when it doesn't happen to align with their preferences.

Yes, some parts of society are getting pretty extreme with pushing pronoun hygiene and other silliness that they then threaten boycotts about if certain corporations don't follow... I can say that, and at the same time defend their right to be that way, while others can get in there and express that this is silly and buy at a discount as demand falls.

I disagree with many things Elon is saying and doing. I don't claim he has no right to do them. I do argue that he's an officer of the public entity TSLA and as such has a legal obligation to act in the best interests of the shareholders of TSLA - this is different than saying he's not allowed free speech.

 

[Chunky Jr.]

The EU is warning Elon that Twitter could be banned in the EU if it doesn't abide by the EU's rules on content moderation.

 

[Cherry Wine]

Given that consumer choice on which business to patronize is solidly within the expression of free-speech, I would expect the folks who favor free speech to not only accept but embrace the use of it, even when it doesn't happen to align with their preferences.

Yes, some parts of society are getting pretty extreme with pushing pronoun hygiene and other silliness that they then threaten boycotts about if certain corporations don't follow... I can say that, and at the same time defend their right to be that way, while others can get in there and express that this is silly and buy at a discount as demand falls.

I disagree with many things Elon is saying and doing. I don't claim he has no right to do them. I do argue that he's an officer of the public entity TSLA and as such has a legal obligation to act in the best interests of the shareholders of TSLA - this is different than saying he's not allowed free speech.

Yes - you touched on the other aspect of this phenomenon that I left out; the bar for "cancellation" has gotten significantly lower than it once was.

 

[loquitur]

Anyway- we cannot argue that a lost sale on the left will be compensated by an additional one on the right. That’s completely upside down logic. A great company stays out of this kindergarten political game. Each sale, each customer counts. Again, do not forget the women. What we witness the last 4 weeks (also here) is deeply male chest pounding.

Free speech is long gone. An ancient romantic ideal not in line with the human psyche.
Didn’t work for Facebook.
Doesn’t work for Telegram/Signal,
Didn’t even work at the playground.

No moderation pushes the loudest and suppresses the fine thinkers which cannot bully their way through and we are in dire need of those to get a balanced view of the world.

Good moderation means grown up manners.
Call it Guidance. Curation.
Keeping hormones out the discussion strengthens rationale and exchange. Has nothing to do with control and censorship.
And now we seem to have an anti vaxxer right on top. Yet at the same time he feels supressed. Fine. So the ideal is survival of the fittest. How Darwinistic.
So be it.
But each public statement of a public traded company and average Joe (not us here) doesn’t separate between the companies he runs will hold him accountable in front of shareholders. I’m expecting Class Action suits
when it comes to Tesla. And the board which is dysfunctional.

Agree with most, especially that CEO modesty & manners count for a lot, as it does for Tim Cook of AAPL
and Lisa Su of AMD. Fortunately, I can separate my admirable feelings for Tesla with that of how execrably
low-brow Musk can be, as Kara Swisher demonstrated.

As for class-action lawsuits, what would be the trigger? Politics? I don't see how. For Musk being aspirational
about FSD? Perhaps, but in real life, most of us greatly appreciate the misnamed FSD for the hybrid human/machine safety
which the L2 system brings to our cars.

The largest CEO-impulse-driven fiscal irresponsibility I've seen was the Bitcoin fiasco.

That was so anti-fiduciary, not just in hindsight, but against the entire Tesla messaging at the time
of being pro-environment and needing liquid funds for capital expenditures.
As a shareholder, I would have gladly joined a class-action suit there; fortunately they escaped by
the skin of their teeth, and I hope there are now policy strictures in place to prevent that kind
of adventurism. [P.S. more relevant to Tesla than Twitter, perhaps, since public companies
aren't supposed to appear as autocratic].

 

[Right_Said_Fred]

The EU is warning Elon that Twitter could be banned in the EU if it doesn't abide by the EU's rules on content moderation.

Banning Twitter in the EU would be a lenghty process, especially when it's going through the courts. Google got EU-fines worth billions for abuse of its monopolistic powers and it took years for those to be finalised. I'm sure Elon could stretch this out for years if he wanted to. But he is not going to let it come that far. He knows that government will always prevail and has shown that he will make sure that his companies comply with regulations in foreign countries (like Tesla did with the information its cars collect in China).

 

[ZenRockGarden]

Yes - you touched on the other aspect of this phenomenon that I left out; the bar for "cancellation" has gotten significantly lower than it once was.

But this is free speech in action. Just because we think some folks in society are over-doing it doesn't mean we get to silence them or force them to change their "bar". All we can do is discuss it and try to convince most people that although they're free to express support for their cause we disagree and think the bar shouldn't be there - everyone then votes with their dollars and the corps vote with their tolerance of offending a few/some/lots of activist customers as they see fit.

 

[trayloader]

Right, it appears to me there is only one poster doing mass downvoting and people on the receiving end have not retaliated in kind. The most people have done is ask for an explanation for why, and have remained quite civil. It's unfair to everyone else to bring out this point about breaking records for downvoting, when a vast majority of participants in this thread have not engaged in it. I'm not sure if moderators have an ability to see a breakdown of downvotes by member, but it should be quite clear if there is such a function (even if not, scrolling a few pages should tell enough).

100% agree. The mass anonymous downvoter is not able or willing to explain his/her motives while the left cheeked (sic!) explain everything to detail.
Call it laziness, or straight anger and the inability to process the current „zeitgeist“.

As for Germany, we are fully aware (woke? haha) What is happening and Musk used to be our hero. The guy who went into the middle, the heart of the Germahnn Auto industry and blew them all up.
Different, fast, out of the box and funny. Pretty cool. Now look what happened….

I will try to bring the guys who cancelled their cars here so y‘all get the bigger picture.
It’s tough love and the one person which cannot loose….

 

[ElectricIAC]

No, he wouldn't be able to just back off, because he signed a binding purchase agreement that he shortly regretted, regardless of what the "left" was doing.

You misread. What’s done is done, what I’m saying is that if the “aggrieved” stop feeding into the Elon hysteria, he’ll move on to something else more engaging.

But if you want to keep Elon on his scorched earth path that’s fine too.

But this is free speech in action. Just because we think some folks in society are over-doing it doesn't mean we get to silence them or force them to change their "bar". All we can do is discuss it and try to convince most people that although they're free to express support for their cause we disagree and think the bar shouldn't be there - everyone then votes with their dollars and the corps vote with their tolerance of offending a few/some/lots of activist customers as they see fit.

Cancel mobs (the modern Bolshevik) aren’t about free speech, they’re about suppression of free speech (coincidentally in alignment with establishment actors) and often delve into terrorism (Antifa “direct actions”)

Things that make you go hmmmm.

 

[30seconds]

You misread. What’s done is done, what I’m saying is that if the “aggrieved” stop feeding into the Elon hysteria, he’ll move on to something else more engaging.

But if you want to keep Elon on his scorched earth path that’s fine too.



Cancel mobs (the modern Bolshevik) aren’t about free speech, they’re about suppression of free speech (coincidentally in alignment with establishment actors) and often delve into terrorism (Antifa “direct actions”)

Things that make you go hmmmm.

Can you let me know where you found the Antifa operational goals? I keep hearing about Antifa but have never been able to find them anywhere.

Also it would be helpful to find our where this suppression of free speech is occurring. Has the US government passed some new law on this? Or are you referring to private companies limiting what is put on their platforms?

 

[JRP3]

If somehow Elon can implement fact checking at Twitter it will be game changing, but someone with more experience with algorithmic editing will have to point out how.

Twitter already started implementing this, it's called Community Notes, and a number of Elon's own posts have been fact checked by it.

Twitter’s Fact-Checking System ‘Community Notes’ Gets New Update

Twitter says it’s on a mission to enhance its fact-checking system and it’s proving to do just that and more via a recent update.

www.digitalinformationworld.com

 

[stopcrazypp]

You misread. What’s done is done, what I’m saying is that if the “aggrieved” stop feeding into the Elon hysteria, he’ll move on to something else more engaging.

But if you want to keep Elon on his scorched earth path that’s fine too.

My point is he won't, even if the "left" shut up. He got his feet wet already in Twitter. That's why the whole exchange with Apple. He isn't taking a hands on approach because of the left "kvetching", but because he has sunk costs in the company. Again as pointed out, he wanted to bail out already even when there were still plenty of people interacting with him, he just wasn't able to do so due to legal agreements.