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Elon Musk admits X 'may fail, as so many have predicted'
(www.businessinsider.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Because he's doing everything to make it fail and destroy the platform, isn't it obvious?
No, you don't throw away $44 billion just for shit and giggles, not even if you are as rich as Musk. Musk is (probably) a narcissist who thought he could make it work in his delusional mind.
He wanted a mouthpiece for the MAGA crowd, and he probably thought the desire in the population for it, would make it succeed, if he made the platform embrace that. He probably envisioned himself as a great liberator, who would be celebrated for bringing free speech back to America.
Musk has been losing it for a long time, and it seems to only get worse.
Who could of forseen brands not wanting to advertise over hate speech that would turn off half their customer base? I'd love screenshots of my companies products floating around next to seasticas and racism.
Yes that's so strange, think of all the extra attention the controversies create!! I bet he planned to double the prices for advertising.
Also, I don't think a narcissist would intentionally and publicly humiliate themselves the way Musk has done (Not a psychologist).
Absolutely true, being humiliated is just about the worst thing for a narcissist.
An example of that, was when Elon Musk called the diver who actually rescued 13 children in Thailand a pedophile. Imagine that, calling the hero of the day a pedophile because you are butthurt!!
I think a lot of “hardware” people underestimate software. Historically, hardware was way more complex but the hardware problems have kind of been solved. There’s only so many ways to design a phone or laptop. Software, meanwhile, has only become more complex and challenging.
I agree, but I don't see the point in this context?
The software to build and run Twitter, is probably not worth much besides for running Twitter. No Twitter means no value in the software for it either.
I think they meant Musk thought managing development of the Twitter software would be easier than it was, given his prior… Involvement with Tesla and SpaceX.
He’s being bankrolled to keep it up and running for the next election. It will be interesting to see if the money runs out.
Nah Saudi money goes deep
I truly think this is all his fucking up, nothing else. He was trying to take away features that probably align with the people who gave him money, but had no idea how to make it work and make money and is desperate. Desperation makes you even more stupid.
I don't see the conspiracy.
My assumption is the investors immediately got what they wanted. They are not stupid.
Money men don't hand over money to these front men based on promises. This isn't a Hollywood movie. There was an immediate pay off.
They got SpaceX stock.
Investors will absolutely hand over money to front men making bad, even obviously insane, promises, though. People are always more easily manipulated than they like to believe, but people who've convinced themselves they're infallible titans of industry are even more vulnerable to it. (Especially the ones who think that they see through the scam and won't be left holding the bag.)
Money men get conned so fucking often it isn’t even funny.
I didn't say it was a conspiracy. I said they gave him money after he was already fucking up by paying around 30 billion more than it was worth, firing all the people that did stuff, and generally being a bad CEO so he would do what they want. More of a typical business deal really.
Actually they may not be worth much either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYURUiOjZSw
Thunderfoot has spend a lot of time analyzing most things Musk, and SpaceX specifically does not have a market (TAM) to achieve what they claim.
I don't know. The way it's going down, it really makes him look like an idiot. He could have just flipped the switch and turned it off as a massive demonstration of power.
Instead he's making one mindboggingly stupid decision after another, showing the whole world how utterly incompetent he is.
The most logical explanation for me is the easiest one: if he's making stupid and incompetent decisions, maybe he's just stupid and incompetent.
You're saying the guy that has done nothing but look like a total fool for years could actually be a total fool? By the gods, I think you're onto something!
It is tremendously obvious, I agree. At one point it felt kinda hyperbolic to say, but not for awhile now.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to be able to speculate what's in it for him, but it's 100% obvious that's what's being done.
He might call him self pro free speech, but he actually hates it (as long as it's not his own free speech). Getting rid of Twitter is a massive blow to free speech. One less platform where he and his companies can get outed and criticized on.
Twitter was becoming another walled platform (not being able to read the content without being logged in) even before Musk's take-over.
I'm happy for any walled platform to fail. IMO they have no place on internet.
It’s less nefarious than that. He wants to be a championed business leader. He’s just a fuck up who was forced to buy a platform that he never actually intended to buy (except for maybe a couple of days when he first suggested it). Sure, it will help his side when he runs it into the ground, but that’s not his intent despite being the cause.
I think that's obvious to everyone. But, if you're claiming he's doing it on purpose..... That's just some next level batshit conspiracy theory.
Is it? He's either a moron or he's doing it on purpose. There is simply no other explanation.
At this point it's just too many dumb decisions, if he had done absolutely nothing after taking over he'd be better off than he is now.
Delusional rich guy who's nowhere near as smart as most people thought he was is the most simple explanation. He's obviously got some kind of god complex and thinks he's right about everything.
I mean he has been called a real world Tony Stark for the last decade. Maybe that went straight to his mushy brain and he is still on that high. Back in the day he listened to experts, now whenever he's at SpaceX they employ "Elon handlers" who just nod to every suggestion and then try to get rid of him.
He got too much positive press and lost it.
He looked like a real world Tony Stark when he was surrounded by teams of smart people doing all the hard parts and PR for him.
What we're seeing now is pure unfiltered Musk. He was probably always like this, but now he's off the leash.
The first one. He's stupid
Occam's razor and all that. He is simply a low intelligence person with a fuckload of money.
Not sure I agree. I think it would be totally in character for him to want to destroy Twitter just because they forced him to buy it. He's a petty troll and can afford to lose that money just to show them.
How does destroying it hurt "them" he already bought it? They cashed out way over the value of the company. If I was any major shareholder of Twitter that he bought out Id be gleefully laughing at him running it into the ground now that I'm no longer invested.
True, I didn't think it through. I stand corrected.
That's like saying "my car may fail after I poured sand into the gas tank and replaced the electrical with speaker wires"
Like others have said, bullshit. He'll drive it into the ground and pretend that was his plan the whole time, like he's some undercover genius three steps ahead of everyone, when really he's just constantly playing catch-up with his narcissistic outbursts.
People told me I was crazy when I said he bought it to shut it down. Look who he hangs out with, people with a fuckton of money who hate free speech. Very powerful people who control media empires and run oppressive regimes.
He might be stupid, but the people pulling his strings aren't.
I keep thinking there must be some high level plan here to destroy twitter for the good of humanity. I mean it's that or Elon actually just is that stupid. At this point the latter seems the most likely ...
Never ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity.
A bad rule of thumb. Weaponized incompetence is a thing.
Twitter was not the golden bastion to humanity you think it was.
If he was destroying it for the good of humanity he would have to somehow destroy the concept of it rather than a single platform.
Probably best spending 40 billion on education in the harm social media can do lol.
I really do think he's just delusional. I won't call him an idiot because there is clearly intelligence and talent in his head, but he's gone off the rails in some capacity whether it's mental health issues or power crazed or who knows.
It's probably drugs. He changed a lot the last few years.
No he hasn't. The management of the old x.com (the one that got bought by paypal) threatened to walk if Elon wasn't removed from the office. He was always this incompetent.
You answer jibes with what I have seen plenty of while working with and funding serial entrepreneurs in the Valley: micro-dosing, coke, molly, steroids, random herbal shit, off-label usage of pharmaceuticals, trendy nootropics, blood transfusions, ayahuasca, and Adderall.
You've got it back to front imo. Twitter was a useful tool for disseminating info, whether for protest movements, political movements, whatevs. Pre-Musk, there was a degree of control on twitter re disinfo, harassment, hatred etc. Now, it's no longer a useful tool for leftwing people to gather and share their thoughts; it's no longer a useful tool to disseminate information; it's no longer a tool for rallying protestors.
Look at who invested (Saudi kingdom); look at when Musk took it over (mid-terms); it seems pretty obvious to me that the takeover was a very expensive purchase to make the actions of oligarchs & despots that much easier.
What if Elon was encouraged to buy twitter by people who knew he would fuck it up in short order for them?
If you want to take down a corporation, there's two main ways right now. Have Elon take charge, or have Ken Griffin short them into the cellar.
That was my original thought when he came on and immediately fired 75% of the staff. It's not some savvy slimming down or cost-cutting. It was more like a wrecking ball.
It was fairly clear that his overall desire was the make the platform less useful for liberals and more for conservatives. It seems like he is content to destroy it if he can't achieve the latter.