# Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter - now the Pit edition (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 25, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442 "2022-04-25T22:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 478
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9576 "2024-05-01T18:00:46Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Not to mention that Elon should know that sometimes you have to buy them a horse. Well, relative to his wealth buying your kid a horse is like… hmm, I can’t actually think of anything to buy your kid so insignificant to the average person in relative terms. I guess it’s like giving your child a shiny penny? ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9577 "2024-05-01T18:18:57Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Cutting staff to make line go up is the financial equivalent of torching your restaurant for the insurance money. This is death spiral behavior. It does happen in feath spirals, but hardly just there - plenty of Fortune 500 companies lay off a lot of workers and still thrive. Plus, there’s this: > Some of this reminds me of Tesla in 2019. Things were looking pretty good, but [Tesla launched a huge cost-cutting effort](https://electrek.co/2019/05/24/tesla-cost-cutting-effort-toilet-paper/). We later learned that Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy because it didn’t anticipate how costly it would be to launch Model 3 in high volume in Europe. … > Maybe there’s something similar going on that we don’t know about, but at the same time, Tesla is in a completely different situation right now, sitting on $27 billion in cash. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9578 "2024-05-01T19:13:07Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > I can’t actually think of anything to buy your kid so insignificant to the average person in relative terms. I guess it’s like giving your child a shiny penny? I’m bored, so let’s see. A search says an upper estimate is $20k to buy and care for a horse for a year. Another search says Musk’s net worth is $205 billion. If I counted my zeros right, then a horse for a year is 0.00000009756 of his net worth. The median family net worth in the US is $192,900, so a Musk horse would be $0.019 to the median family. So _two_ shiny pennies! ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9579 "2024-05-01T19:19:36Z")
> **[Tesla Lays Off Entire Team Behind Brakes](https://www.theonion.com/tesla-lays-off-entire-team-behind-brakes-1851449223?utm_campaign=TheOnion&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=bluesky&utm_content=%7BTIMESTAMP_EPOCH%7D)** > > AUSTIN, TX—In the latest round of layoffs for the company’s struggling automotive division, electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla fired the entire team behind brakes, sources confirmed Wednesday. “As we continue to rightsize the Tesla workforce, we... I’m sure it’s on the list of options. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9580 "2024-05-01T19:20:10Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > > [@Smapti](#): > > > > Cutting staff to make line go up is the financial equivalent of torching your restaurant for the insurance money. This is death spiral behavior. > > It does happen in feath spirals, but hardly just there - plenty of Fortune 500 companies lay off a lot of workers and still thrive. Yes, but the Fortune 500 companies that thrive don’t typically fire three-quarters of their total staff as Elmo did with Twitter, or close down entire **crucially important** divisions and fire everybody there. IOW, while I don’t generally have a high regard for most CEOs, they’re not usually completely insane like Elmo. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9581 "2024-05-01T19:29:06Z")
You are addressing different points than the one I made. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9582 "2024-05-01T19:41:17Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > …close down entire **crucially important** divisions and fire everybody there… Is charging really still a crucially important division? Electrify America is starting to build NACS charging stations; Tesla no longer has a monopoly on it. They can coast on the stations they already have until competition becomes a real thing. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9583 "2024-05-01T19:44:37Z")
With every passing day, my confidence in Musk goes down. He is now in severe negative territory, meaning that I now actively avoid any company, product, or service he is involved with. I used to admire Teslas and hoped to buy one someday. Now they give me a feeling of revulsion, mostly because of the words and actions of Elon Musk, but also because their whole company design philosophy seems suspect to me. I no longer think they have their customer’s best interest in mind. Articles like this only reinforce that impression: > **[Tesla Autopilot Was Uniquely Risky—and May Still Be](https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-risky-deaths-crashes-nhtsa-investigation/)** > > In an investigative report into crashes and deaths associated with Tesla Autopilot, federal regulators concluded that the system lacked standard protections. From the article: > [@](#): > > …the report called out Tesla as an “industry outlier” because its driver assistance features lacked some of the basic precautions taken by its competitors. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9584 "2024-05-01T19:48:16Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > …close down entire **crucially important** divisions and fire everybody there… > > Is charging really still a crucially important division? Electrify America is starting to build NACS charging stations; Tesla no longer has a monopoly on it. They can coast on the stations they already have until competition becomes a real thing. I guess its’s a matter of opinion. The company that had – and via Elmo’s wealth still has – the resources to initially set up the most extensive charging network in the world is still in a position to play a vital role in building it out, because the lack of sufficient charging facilities is still a really major problem for EVs in most locations. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9585 "2024-05-01T20:15:15Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > > [@Dissonance](#): > > > > I can’t actually think of anything to buy your kid so insignificant to the average person in relative terms. I guess it’s like giving your child a shiny penny? > > I’m bored, so let’s see. A search says an upper estimate is $20k to buy and care for a horse for a year. Another search says Musk’s net worth is $205 billion. If I counted my zeros right, then a horse for a year is 0.00000009756 of his net worth. The median family net worth in the US is $192,900, so a Musk horse would be $0.019 to the median family. I think you may be unfamiliar with Musk’s “horse story.” He wasn’t buying one for a kid. He was offering to buy one for the woman he wanted to impregnate. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9586 "2024-05-01T20:24:56Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I guess its’s a matter of opinion. The company that had – and via Elmo’s wealth still has – the resources to initially set up the most extensive charging network in the world is still in a position to play a vital role in building it out, because the lack of sufficient charging facilities is still a really major problem for EVs in most locations. I absolutely agree with you here. Tesla is in a much better position to continue to build out the network. But that benefits the industry, not Tesla alone. Some less egocentric CEO might decide that what lifts the industry as a whole will also benefit Tesla, but Musk sees it as a zero-sum game. He needs to beat the other manufacturers, and he thinks the path to that is autonomous driving, not charging stations. To be clear, I think he’s probably making the wrong decision, and is definitely making the selfish one. But it’s not as simple as saying this will kill the company. ---
**Author:** ![Tride](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tride/32/13907_2.png) [@Tride](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tride)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9587 "2024-05-01T20:28:51Z")
Well, it benefits the industry, but it’s also a huge revenue stream. I’m not sure how much Superchargers are profitable, but they are in the process of gaining millions of new customers. Making sure that is a seamless process and that there is enough capacity to not piss off their own customers seems kinda important. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9588 "2024-05-01T20:31:47Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > > [@wolfpup](#): > > > > …close down entire **crucially important** divisions and fire everybody there… > > Is charging really still a crucially important division? Electrify America is starting to build NACS charging stations; Tesla no longer has a monopoly on it. As I [wrote in this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-public-available-charging-of-electric-vehicles-work/999613/53): > [@How does public-available charging of electric vehicles work?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-public-available-charging-of-electric-vehicles-work/999613/53): > > I just read an article in _The Atlantic_ that Tesla is starting to fall behind the curve with their vehicles when compared to their competitors, but their one bright spot is their charging network. > > [Tesla Is Not the Next Ford. It’s the Next Con Ed. - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/04/tesla-cars-batteries-power-company/678168/) > > So it seems like a poor decision to now disinvest in their charging network, but that is veering out of FQ. So again, Musk laid off everyone in the division that was responsible for the one area of the company in which Tesla still had a jump on its competitors and was doing well. This is not the act of someone who knows what they are doing. What seems more likely are the recent reports of the division head being told to lay off some percentage of their workforce (because of the overall poor performance of the company, not necessarily the division), and when the division director pushed back on this, butthurt Musk petulantly retaliated by firing the division director and everyone in the division. > [@TroutMan](#): > > …They can coast on the stations they already have until competition becomes a real thing. So I assume you believe that the existing charging stations require no maintenance or upkeep? At a minimum, they need software updates, and one would think that the dissolved division was the group responsible for this. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9589 "2024-05-01T22:23:49Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > I think you may be unfamiliar with Musk’s “horse story.” He wasn’t buying one for a kid. He was offering to buy one for the woman he wanted to impregnate. I assumed this was a different horse, I thought _that_ horse was for a hand job. Hmm, doesn’t say what act specifically, just “erotic/sexual massage” but my understanding is that’s normally code for a hand job, or a blow job at the most. Definitely nothing involving carrying a child to term at any rate. > **[A SpaceX flight attendant said Elon Musk exposed himself and propositioned...](https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-paid-250000-to-a-flight-attendant-who-accused-elon-musk-of-sexual-misconduct-2022-5)** > > SpaceX paid a flight attendant $250,000 in severance after she accused Elon Musk of exposing himself and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for a sexual massage. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9590 "2024-05-01T22:55:01Z")
Yup, That’s the story I found. I gotta say, when I first started using Google, I did NOT expect that one day I’d be googling “_Did Elon offer a woman a horse in exchange for a fuck or just for a blowjob?_” Life’s full of surprises, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9591 "2024-05-01T23:23:18Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > > [@TroutMan](#): > > > > Is charging really still a crucially important division? Electrify America is starting to build NACS charging stations; Tesla no longer has a monopoly on it. They can coast on the stations they already have until competition becomes a real thing. > > I guess its’s a matter of opinion. The company that had – and via Elmo’s wealth still has – the resources to initially set up the most extensive charging network in the world is still in a position to play a vital role in building it out, because the lack of sufficient charging facilities is still a really major problem for EVs in most locations. One issue I can imagine is that it’s like you’re a biotech company that had a patent on some medicine. You could charge not just the cost of the pill, but also the R&D that went into it, because the patent gives you a monopoly. If the government were to blow away your patent, though, suddenly you’re competing with generics manufacturers who can just build to spec and only charge the cost of manufacturing. You’re doomed. For the supercharger, anyone else with deep pockets and offshore manufacturing can start stamping out fueling stations just as easy or easier than Tesla can, and possibly at a cheaper price. It’s not like people are going to drive around to find a Tesla station if there’s a Shell Electric Station even closer. There’s no actual “network” to Tesla’s charging network; it’s just the public energy grid. One charging station is fungible with the rest, other than price. This is why companies like Shell have rewards cards and membership programs. It’s the only way to try and create some amount of customer loyalty. But, again, the person with the deepest pockets is going to be able to offer the best rewards programs, and Shell probably has deeper pockets than Tesla. Tesla does already have factories tooled and outfitted but they don’t have the land that Shell, Chevron, etc. have. Until competitors are cranking out the supercharger “pumps”, Tesla might be able to continue selling their pumps to malls and parking garages. But pretty quickly, they’re probably going to be at a disadvantage there. And, in terms of building something like a Shell/Chevron/etc. station, with a convenience store, they’d have to buy land and charge for electricity at a price high enough to pay back the cost of the land. They may actually be largely doomed in the charging world, unless they can figure out some high-tech way to charge cars even faster - that somehow is still backwards compatible with the national standard. If that existed, they’d probably have already done it. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9592 "2024-05-01T23:42:40Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > And, in terms of building something like a Shell/Chevron/etc. station, with a convenience store… I am NOT buying that lone “hot dog on the roller” at a Tesla convenience store! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9593 "2024-05-01T23:43:08Z")
Perhaps it’s a hijack, but how will the prevalence of private home ownership\* affect the rate at which the fossil-fuel stations will consider that changing over to (primarily) vending electricity is a profitable endeavor. \*with the implication that such homes can be outfitted with charging stations of their own ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2024, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9594 "2024-05-01T23:47:28Z")
Except they’re not Shell - they’re pre-breakup Standard Oil. They’re in a fairly dominant market position in charging and can remain so until/unless a competitor can build out a network as extensive as Tesla’s. Companies with deep pockets don’t want to take on monopolies just because they can. They’re not going to build a bunch of electric ‘pumps’ attached to existing gas stations/convenience stores just for the sake of doing so. And oil companies often don’t own the land those branded gas stations sit on - they mostly have franchisees, who’d have to pick up the tab themselves or be subsidized to do so. So, that advantage largely dissipates as well. Tesla has (or had?) the means to continue to maintain and potentially extend a profitable business not just for the next couple quarters but for the next several years. Perhaps maintaining or trimming such a division is defensible if he thought it would be dead in a few years (probably not - it’s at least 5-10 off at worst) but it is the height of insanity to cut all staff from such a division. It’s the sort of decision that would have the CEO ousted at a responsibly run company. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2024, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/9595 "2024-05-02T00:22:45Z")
Rats! I remembered it wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=477) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=479)