I suspect this may be akin to what he does on the crypto side - make a huge announcement for the fanboys, watch the value rise, and then make a tidy profit by selling before the buzz wears off.
Basically, I don’t think he has any real interest in owning Twitter but has a real interest in the attention (and frenzy of buying) such an announcement would produce.
ETA: it’s not like he has $43 billion in cash lying around. This would have to be funded by things like stock. Maybe he’s willing to part ways with some of his Tesla stock, but I suspect not.
Well, my theory last week was that he intended to create a different social network company (let’s call it MuskSocial), with the libertarian characteristics I outlined in post 240, and to sell all his new Twitter shares on the day he announced MuskSocial so as to make Twitter seem valueless. But now I get the impression that Twitter itself will be MuskSocial.
The first thing Musk will do when (and if) he gets Twitter is to re-enable Trump and his cronies. Then we’ll all be subject to 24-hour BS again (if we choose to listen). I hope the news outlets won’t cover it, but surely Fox will.
Based on how small a portion that amount is of his paper wealth, damn near any financial institution would spot him the $43B, using shares of TWTR or TSLA as collateral.
I think he’s serious about buying it, simply because he’s long been offended by the idea he should be held responsible for what he says there.
Maybe, maybe not. Normally this would be easy but because of Musk’s history of shenanigans and due to restrictions on his ability to borrow against his shares, it may be tougher than that.
Just found this bit from NYTimes asking the same thing, actually.
This is why I’m wondering if he was really being serious. Even if he was, it’s still very possible this is something he put out there with no real thought or research and may come back to bite him with regulators, the other Tesla investors, or the financial institutions he needs for financing.
I was thinking this as well. If the platform becomes an un-moderated cesspool of right-wing trolls and conspiracy crap, like other platforms, will general users abandon Twitter for more sane grounds (where, I could not say)?
He has been fined & sanctioned by the SEC over past comments related to Tesla stock.
He made a(nother!) pot joke in his purchase price
He already runs two companies & now wants to add a third to that?
If he does what I suspect with Twitter, I think he’ll cause many users to turn away & a massive loss of value. I get it, his money (& he’s got way, way, way more than enough of it), his decisions but I think it’ll be driven by ego not rational thought.
I’ve seen a lot of right-wing cranks mocking the idea of people leaving Twitter if Musk takes over, comparing it to people saying they’ll move to Canada if Trump is elected. Apparently, closing a social media account is as difficult as moving your life to a foreign country. Who knew?
I don’t know if I’ll leave just because Musk buys it, but if he does I doubt he’ll make any decisions that will encourage me to stay.
Or, perhaps, he actually believes that big tech censorship of non-wokeness has gone too far? Why should a handful of companies have such control over global communications?
I’m sure he believes that, but that’s dumb. And shifting control to an egomaniac like Musk wouldn’t solve the problem of “a handful of companies having such control over global communications”.
Last time I checked, Twitter is a company that can enact whatever policies it chooses, including what info is shared on it’s platform. If it chooses to scrub what Twitter considers to be outright lies, misinformation, and dangerous content from it’s product, that’s not censorship. If the non-woke snowflakes cannot handle those restrictions, they can either start their own platform or go to another one that is more agreeable to the content they wish to spread. Of course, other platforms do not have the reach (or standards) Twitter has, so I can see how that’s a conundrum for some folks.
I’ve had many years experience on forums, message boards, and the like. Some are strongly moderated, some weakly or not at all. I can say categorically that the weakly moderated boards were horrible. With no exceptions they devolved into rants, flames, threats, porn, crackpots and assorted other nasties. It became impossible to have a reasonable conversation. This is what I’m afraid will happen to Twitter if Elon allows it to become a free-for-all.
The thing about his Twitter takeover that concerns me—beyond being controlled by a repeatedly proven bad person—is that one of his complaints is that Twitter enforces its policies. He’s trying to undo all of the work Twitter has done to stop misinformation and harassment. He’s actively trying to make the world worse because he thinks it will make him more money.
The irony is that Twitter made the decisions it made because it knew it would lose money not doing it. It knew making a hostile place for customers is a bad idea. It knew that becoming a place where deadly propaganda is spread is bad for business. They know that being on the side of the fascists is a bad idea, because either they lose and you get the fallout, or they win and they come for you same as they did everyone else.
People just can’t through their heads that companies “go woke” to make more money. Because, despite what our broken election system would tell you, the majority of people support these sorts of restrictions. That’s why Republicans have to try and gerrymander and otherwise alter the vote. You only have to do that if you know you’re losing popular support.
And this, @nate, is exactly why we hate Musk. All of this was predictable from his past actions. Every single bit of smoke showed us there is a fire. It’s ridiculous how you try to get us caught in these tiny trees while ignoring the forest. And it’s ridiculous you can’t see why someone who attacks someone who disagrees with him by calling them a pedophile is not someone deserving of this level of passion. He’s a billionaire. He doesn’t need your defense.
He needs us to rise up against a guy who wants to use his billions of power coupons to try and control the world.
Actual free speech would still be an improvement over the partisan hacks that moderate and ‘fact’ check so many of these social media sites/platforms. When real news is censored and folks are silenced to protect a favored candidate or party of course there will be those who think that’s a misuse of massive market power.
“When real news is censored and folks are silenced to protect a favored candidate…”
Holy fucking shit, you’ve just described Fox Fucking News, even though you were talking about social media.
It is impossible to know in advance that going woke would make more money for Twitter.
Maybe I don’t spend enough time on Twitter to understand it well, but I question whether Twitter is woke. Plenty of Trumpers are still there, including his spokesperson, Liz Harrington. So are people who frequently complain about alleged transexual promotion. Unless I am missing something, what Twitter moderation does is block the most unreasonable-sounding presentations of these themes.
Editing improves writing. Might it be that Twitter helps conservatives by giving them more editorial guidance than progressives? (Not a rhetorical question — I’m unsure.)