Conspiracy theory time. He didn't buy twitter to turn a profit, he did it to control the headlines. For which, he is getting great value for money
this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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Reminder: He was forced to buy Twitter by a judge and was doing everything he could to avoid buying Twitter.
He is using it to control the headlines, but that's not the reason he bought it. The reason he bought it is that he was forced to. He wanted to back out of the deal.
That doesn’t make any sense because he was the one who offered to buy it in the first place. He signed binding contract to purchase it, then tried to back out prob not because he didn’t want it, but he realized he was overpaying. He has obviously loved owning Twitter as far as the attention and social power he gained.
He should have paid the $1 billion to back out and made another offer, but he’s sleazy, prideful, stingy and stubborn and wanted to back out for free by employing bullshit excuses and lawyers.
He was trying to do a pump and dump. Buy shares, say he is going to buy at a huge premium, sell when the price shots up. He had already done something similar.
Twitter said they would take the deal and the SEC said follow through or go to jail. So he borrowed heavily against his Tesla stock to buy Twitter at the ridiculous price.
Twitter didn't make enough to pay the interest even before he ran it into the ground. So he has to keep his creditors happy. Saudi Arabia is one if the big ones and they hated people being able to say whatever they wanted on twitter.
IIRC he made a joke offer to buy it in a Tweet at a certain price per share (that was ridiculously high) and because he was literally just sanctioned by the FCC for market manipulation his joke had to become a reality in order for him to avoid serious penalties (the FCC was DONE with his shit at this point).
Everything since then has just been off his dome. Obviously it's pretty bad up in there since it's just a roaring money fire ATM.
He started out by buying 9% of Twitter and violating financial regulations by not disclosing it. There’s an article with a timeline here: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/twitter-elon-musk-timeline-what-happened-so-far-rcna57532
You can make the argument that something was the reason he originally made the offer to buy Twitter, but that seems separate to me.
If I talk to friends about wanting to dye my hair pink as a joke, then they propose a bet making me do it if I lose, I lose and do it, then the reason my hair is pink is that I lost a bet, not whatever I originally suggested.
If I eat something I don't like because there is nothing else in the fridge, the reason I'm eating it is that there is nothing else in the fridge, not whatever reason is there for it to be in the fridge in the first place (a visiting friend left it behind).
In all cases, the situation was created by some other event, and in Twitter's case, there was an original reason he made the offer, but it did not end up being the reason he bought it, because he wouldn't have bought it otherwise.
That's how I see it.
He spent billions of dollars to buy 9% of Twitter, was offered a board seat, it didn’t work out, then he made a formal offer. This apparently followed some drug soaked night at Larry Ellison’s, but it was never a joke. Maybe a Schrodinger’s joke.
I never said it was a joke. He fully intended to buy Twitter, then decided he doesn't want to buy it, but was forced to do it.
That was because it was a good deal at the initial price be proposed, but the price went to shit and he tried to get a better price
I used to think Elon was just an idiot for buying Twitter and running it into the ground, but now I wonder if he was completely successful in buying a giant megaphone and making sure it only broadcast his pro-Trump propaganda. What does he care if it's not making as much money?
Musk is a useful idiot.
https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-faces-backlash-over-saudi-financing-1755606
It's not a coincidence, I feel, as it was once a key hub for journalists and Arab Spring activists.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/04/twitter-saudi-arabia-human-rights-abuses
This is why people flocking to Bluesky and not Fedi boggles my brain. Centralisation in the hands of capital is a precarious position to find yourself in if you ever find yourself ever against the state. They now have all of that data handed to them on a silver platter.
\tinfoil_off
Because Blusky is a nice and friendly place to be?
He is going to get so much contracts for his other companies, not to forget in Russia since he managed to put a kompromat in the white house
This is very plausible. And an argument for why we shouldn't have the ultra rich. No one should be able to do such a thing.
"I don't get it. I keep getting applications from LinkedIn and they are all nazis. Every. Single. One of them.
Musk hedged on turning America into an oligarchy. Will it work? Who knows. However his plan has been to elect a dictator as US president, one that will intentionally crash the US economy so he and his other billionaire buddies can come in and buy every industry for pennies on the dollar.
So thankful for all single issues voters who always fall for the same old shit, over and over again.
Congrat on your signaling. I hope you feel better while begging in bread lines.
I don’t think it was a bad purchase after he succeeded in electing Trump.
Nope. His major companies rely on government funding and regulation, and now he's going to be whatever it was called for Trump. A cool 44 billion to actually control parts of government?
They’re indirectly in his pocket. And in my view paying 44 billion to control parts of a government in the most powerful country in existence is nothing to scoff at.
Sort of, but they also benefit from tariffs and lower regulation:
- Tesla - don't have to cut prices if your competitors have to raise theirs; also, less regulation on cars means he can get to market faster
- SpaceX - oversight on rocket launches costs money
- xAI - slashing regulations on AI helps this new company
- Neuralink - again, regulations are a major limitation here
He is also big into cryptocurrencies, so he stands to gain there as well.
All in all, there's a good chance he makes his $44B back by having Trump's ear and being able to encourage certain changes over others.
He's going to be in charge of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
This is giving him way too much credit, thinking he's some mastermind who engineered this whole thing. He's very wealthy and addicted with twitter, and started amassing a lot of shares of the company. He didn't really care to own it, and instead tried seeing if he could sway Twitter to benefit him, namely by trying to ban the Elonjet account. That didn't work, so he used his classic 420 joke to say he's going to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, which was way above market rates. He had to be literally sued to purchase the company, after trying to get out of the deal.
Once he was forced to buy the company, it was the company that assumed the debts, not Elon, so it immediately was performing terribly, and Elon had to cut costs, firing employees, not paying rent and server costs, etc. Nothing was planned out ahead of time, the company is flying by the seat of its pants. And arguably the second most prominent user of the platform, the next President, has a competing platform and is directly invested in seeing that succeed, not Twitter/X.
If anything, both Elon and Trump are the modern epitome of failing upwards, exploiting the labor and systems in place to protect Americans, just so they can make more money for themselves. The fact they're celebrated as much as they are is disgusting.
Why’d he bother? He just bought America so he can run everything into the ground.
Is LinkedIn not already a pile of total shite?
Not too worried by LinkedIn.
At this point of time though, Facebook is as toxic as truth social, so happy to see that destroyed so s real competitor can replace it
Sure, start the right wing indoctrination early, will you?
After the election win, I am no longer that certain in how bad of an investment Twitter was for Musk.
It probably helped the Trump campaign somehow, even if not decisive.
And he will probably get billions in AI subsidies which he will partially spend on licensing Twitter content for AI purposes.
He did overpay. He could have gotten it for cheaper. Considering how much money he has though, and the other primary investors being the Saudis, it didn’t matter much.
This was the point all along, it gave too much power the individuals and now he can manipulate it
He didn't lose money, he just bought a propaganda machine. His image of being a dumb meme man may be mostly true but it's also a perfect cover for fuckery
Yeah he didn’t buy a social media site, he bought a propaganda platform
and the difference between this one and truth social is you don't have to advertise it to get people to join, since half the population was already on it anyway and most people are too stubborn to leave
I have a friend that complains about Twitter non stop but refuses to leave. I mock him every time he brings it up.
BlueSky is a viable alternative, if they find Mastodon too crunchy/not populous enough
...you should mock anyone who links to xitter; it only succeeds on the basis of their patronage...
I used to laugh really hard about that shit as well, but I was apparently just not seeing that the guy was buying an election. I guess I just think too small.
Microsoft is already working on it
Wait was LinkedIn ever not owned by Microsoft???
Uninstalled it a couple months ago, it's completely useless and just filled with ad spam post of companies I don't fucking care.
Also, the fake job seeking messages you get daily and never respond after you contact them back.
Did you delete your account? That was the smart move, the day before he bought it
But then where will we find out what distant colleagues did 7 weeks ago?
My occupation includes a ton of boomer field techs. Literally all they do on LinkedIn is hit like on every photo the HR/marketing women post of themselves. It's miserable, I don't think they realize that like gets shared with me. As in, I would have never seen this random photo of a woman in a booth somewhere if they didn't hit like. So my feed is a flood of creepy dudes liking pictures of women, and then an ad for Cisco. I could go back to Facebook if I wanted this.
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