5 ms·

I disagree. The fact that someone is willing to buy a stake in a company suggests the company has some potential. The fact that someone having bought a company

by osrec 5y ago

I disagree. The fact that someone is willing to buy a stake in a company suggests the company has some potential. The fact that someone having bought a company is willing to dump their entire ownership so quickly suggests the company may be rotten from the inside. The latter would exert a much stronger downward pressure on the stock, in my opinion.

williamsmj 5y ago
That makes sense if you assume Musk has learned something shocking about Twitter from the inside in the past couple of weeks. How likely is that? It seems spectacularly unlikely to me that a demonstrably impatient person with a pre-existing thesis about Twitter would take the time to investigate and learn new things about its product/financials/culture/governance. It also seems unlikely that a person with a known strong stomach for legal and ethical "flexibility" would be especially bothered by anything they did learn, assuming they took the trouble. But YMMV.
- cambaceres 5y ago
  His point is that it will look like Elon didn't like what he saw and changed his mind, it doesn't matter what he truly saw.
  - moffkalast 5y ago
    "Musk, what do your Elon eyes see?" "They're taking Twitter to Isengard!"
- MadSudaca 5y ago
  As a hypothetical investor on Twitter, would you be willing to take that chance?
- supramouse 5y ago
  I do think something like twitter longterm could a big play at something like authenticity verification in the world of deep fakes, similar to what keybase was trying to do but they already have traction with public figures
MuffinFlavored 5y ago
> suggests the company may be rotten from the inside. Even if there are 0 actual facts open to the public that prove this, the optics suggest that this narrative can be made. He moved the stock 30%+ in a few days by publically buying in. If he sells it, why wouldn't it give up all of the gains he brought (and maybe more)? I don't know what he thinks he stands to gain by buying Twitter. Can a rocket scientist/electric car guru really get into tweets + advertising?
- andrepd 5y ago
  Why do rich people buy newspapers and media conglomerates? Why did Jeff Bezos "get into journalism" via Washington Post? There is your answer.
  - MuffinFlavored 5y ago
    Washington Post can control what is posted through journalists, etc. (digital or not) Twitter is like... an aggregator of a bunch of people tweeting. The people tweeting aren't being paid by Twitter to tweet (like journalists are for Washington Post, even if it's like $75 for an opinion piece/basically blogspam) I feel like that's a pretty big difference?
    - jkukul 5y ago
      Twitter can control what who can post and who cannot (remember Donald J Trump being banned?). Twitter can control what is being read by deciding what is promoted by their algorithms and what gets buried down. These are just few examples. We can't pretend that Twitter is a fully decentralised service and that there's no one pulling the strings.
- gpm 5y ago
  To strongman the case for him running twitter, he clearly has significant experience and success with running large engineering oriented companies - which is the primary job of twitter executives. Both Tesla and SpaceX have significant software organizations, and he also has experience in running a pure software company back when he was involved with paypall. As a heavy user of twitter, and the de-facto PR person for Tesla and SpaceX he also has a good understanding of the product, both from a normal users perspective and a marketers perspective. That said, I don't think this is primarily about buying twitter being profitable, but that he is motivated by a mix of politics, fun, and funny. I also don't think he's likely to get that into the day to day of running twitter, just because he's already busy with Tesla and SpaceX.

by osrec 5y ago

williamsmj 5y ago

That makes sense if you assume Musk has learned something shocking about Twitter from the inside in the past couple of weeks. How likely is that? It seems spectacularly unlikely to me that a demonstrably impatient person with a pre-existing thesis about Twitter would take the time to investigate and learn new things about its product/financials/culture/governance. It also seems unlikely that a person with a known strong stomach for legal and ethical "flexibility" would be especially bothered by anything they did learn, assuming they took the trouble. But YMMV.

cambaceres 5y ago
His point is that it will look like Elon didn't like what he saw and changed his mind, it doesn't matter what he truly saw.
- moffkalast 5y ago
  "Musk, what do your Elon eyes see?" "They're taking Twitter to Isengard!"
MadSudaca 5y ago
As a hypothetical investor on Twitter, would you be willing to take that chance?
supramouse 5y ago
I do think something like twitter longterm could a big play at something like authenticity verification in the world of deep fakes, similar to what keybase was trying to do but they already have traction with public figures

MuffinFlavored 5y ago

> suggests the company may be rotten from the inside. Even if there are 0 actual facts open to the public that prove this, the optics suggest that this narrative can be made. He moved the stock 30%+ in a few days by publically buying in. If he sells it, why wouldn't it give up all of the gains he brought (and maybe more)? I don't know what he thinks he stands to gain by buying Twitter. Can a rocket scientist/electric car guru really get into tweets + advertising?

andrepd 5y ago
Why do rich people buy newspapers and media conglomerates? Why did Jeff Bezos "get into journalism" via Washington Post? There is your answer.
- MuffinFlavored 5y ago
  Washington Post can control what is posted through journalists, etc. (digital or not) Twitter is like... an aggregator of a bunch of people tweeting. The people tweeting aren't being paid by Twitter to tweet (like journalists are for Washington Post, even if it's like $75 for an opinion piece/basically blogspam) I feel like that's a pretty big difference?
  - jkukul 5y ago
    Twitter can control what who can post and who cannot (remember Donald J Trump being banned?). Twitter can control what is being read by deciding what is promoted by their algorithms and what gets buried down. These are just few examples. We can't pretend that Twitter is a fully decentralised service and that there's no one pulling the strings.
gpm 5y ago
To strongman the case for him running twitter, he clearly has significant experience and success with running large engineering oriented companies - which is the primary job of twitter executives. Both Tesla and SpaceX have significant software organizations, and he also has experience in running a pure software company back when he was involved with paypall. As a heavy user of twitter, and the de-facto PR person for Tesla and SpaceX he also has a good understanding of the product, both from a normal users perspective and a marketers perspective. That said, I don't think this is primarily about buying twitter being profitable, but that he is motivated by a mix of politics, fun, and funny. I also don't think he's likely to get that into the day to day of running twitter, just because he's already busy with Tesla and SpaceX.