5 ms·

I suspect the initial decision was something like "hey I could actually just buy Twitter, that would be funny". It's less clear to me why he almost immediately

by TillE 4y ago

I suspect the initial decision was something like "hey I could actually just buy Twitter, that would be funny". It's less clear to me why he almost immediately started trying to back out. It's probably a waste of a significant chunk of money, but is that all?

988747 4y ago
>> It's less clear to me why he almost immediately started trying to back out. That's what you do when you sober up and realize what a mess you've made.
- cowtools 4y ago
  Well, if the purpose of buying twitter was to improve the user experience of internet users and advance the doctrine of free speech, then why not just spend that same amount of money building your own twitter (mastodon instance or something) and use your publicity to attract users?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ChildOfChaos 4y ago
    because that doesn't work.
  - Slartie 4y ago
    "Musk Social"?
    - cowtools 4y ago
      The difference would be that musk's following is more moderate, and they might respect peering agreements unlike Gab or Truth Social.
  - arlcode 4y ago
    Well maybe he realised that in the best case he would govern over Twitter 2.0 with extra toxicity and in the worst case be the proud owner of another cesspool of assholes, pedophiles and people with violent ideas. I don't believe for a second that Elon Musk really cares about free speech for anyone but himself and he is right now probably not limited by twitter's policy but by other externalities
    - cowtools 4y ago
      Pedophiles? I'm pretty sure they would be forced to take down child porn. I mean, it's a public forum. If you are publicly announcing that you are pedophile or terrorist, that sounds like bad news for you. In any case, does twitter not already have a lot of "assholes" and people with "violent ideas"?
      - arlcode 4y ago
        Yes he would (sorry if I went a bit over the top there). My point being that I don't trust Elon Musk to make better moderation decisions than whoever is in charge right now. Past attempts of social media with low barriers of what is allowed have absolutely turned out worse than Twitter if you ask me(e.g. 4chan, 8chan, gab etc) That's why I think the best case is "Twitter but more aligned with whatever Elon Musk thinks at the moment"
  - CoryAlexMartin 4y ago
    An established social media platform's most valuable asset is the size of its userbase. Even with the reach of Musk, I think it would be hard to attract a large enough userbase to make the product more compelling than Twitter.
    - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
      An established platform's most valuable asset is the data of the userbase. Twitter can leverage a huge amount of data about personal preferences, interests, relationship status, political leanings, income, usage profiles, message habits and content, social graph, and location. If you specifically wanted to clamp down on certain demographics, it would be an excellent way to locate them.
      - rtkwe 4y ago
        Can't have a large data trove on your users without users. A huge part of a successful social network is sufficient adoption. If the people your users want to follow aren't on the platform they don't have a real reason to be there. It's a major hurdle for any new social platform and a lot fail at that step.
  - simonw 4y ago
    If spending a ton of money was a reliable way to build a new social network we would all be having this conversation on Google+.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  This seems to happen with some regularity in Musk's timeline.
- civilized 4y ago
  Perhaps underneath the 420 jokes lies the reality that he's high fairly often. I am sure the offer price of $54.20 was a joke. With Musk, the appearance of those digits is never an accident.
  - martin8412 4y ago
    Wine and Ambien is his goto..
    - dubswithus 4y ago
      Is it?
labster 4y ago
Stocks went down almost immediately after the deal across the tech sector. Financing got harder, he would have sell off a lot of TSLA at a discount to complete the deal.
stingrae 4y ago
It also hit at a point when Tesla's stock price started a rapid decent. The Twitter deal is becoming a larger and larger percentage of his net worth.
idiotsecant 4y ago
It makes more sense if you assume that Elon Musk is both a sometimes successful businessman and also suffering from unmanaged bipolar disorder.
- crmd 4y ago
  Agree 100%. I’ve never met Elon but his online behavior in the run up to and immediately after the Twitter deal sure seemed hypomanic to me.
- soganess 4y ago
  Can we not jump to blaming a person's bad choices on the first medical condition that fits? I know Musk has said he has bipolar disorder, and I'm not trying to discount that. I'm just saying what if... gasp... he simply did something foolish? The blame-it-on-the-bipolar out reinforces the narrative of an infallible person who only make mistakes because of a medical condition. Take that line of thinking one step further and you are now fully onboard the bipolar stigma train.
  - appletrotter 4y ago
    Do you have any experience with bipolar?
  - pas 4y ago
    A mistake or doing something foolish is going out in shorts in the winter and then getting a cold. He spent days/weeks/months on setting up this deal, he became obsessed with it at some point. (Hopefully) no one is "blaming" it on the bipolar. It's simply something consistent with bipolar. (But it's also consistent with rich people getting obsessed with something and then spending way too much resources on it.) > reinforces the narrative That narrative is simply bad and pushed by people who have no idea what they are talking about. Musk's previous instances of risk taking (that "all" turned out to be fine) is also perfectly consistent with bipolar. (Of course if you look at it then it turns out that he took many risks that made very little sense, like when he talked about taking Tesla private, the infamous funding secured tweet.) And of course just a label like bipolar means (almost) nothing, these spectrum disorders are complex (and there are usually other comorbidities at the same time, just with different severity), we don't know how he is treating/medicating/managing it, or is it even the right diagnosis or not. Or he could have simply lied.
alasdair_ 4y ago
The market went to shit almost right after the point where he made his offer. Tesla took a dive at the same time. A lot of the loan he took out is against his tesla stock.
towaway15463 4y ago
Did everyone forget about the massive hit the stock market took right after the deal was announced? Maybe that has something to do with it.

by TillE 4y ago

988747 4y ago

>> It's less clear to me why he almost immediately started trying to back out. That's what you do when you sober up and realize what a mess you've made.

cowtools 4y ago
Well, if the purpose of buying twitter was to improve the user experience of internet users and advance the doctrine of free speech, then why not just spend that same amount of money building your own twitter (mastodon instance or something) and use your publicity to attract users?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ChildOfChaos 4y ago
  because that doesn't work.
- Slartie 4y ago
  "Musk Social"?
  - cowtools 4y ago
    The difference would be that musk's following is more moderate, and they might respect peering agreements unlike Gab or Truth Social.
- arlcode 4y ago
  Well maybe he realised that in the best case he would govern over Twitter 2.0 with extra toxicity and in the worst case be the proud owner of another cesspool of assholes, pedophiles and people with violent ideas. I don't believe for a second that Elon Musk really cares about free speech for anyone but himself and he is right now probably not limited by twitter's policy but by other externalities
  - cowtools 4y ago
    Pedophiles? I'm pretty sure they would be forced to take down child porn. I mean, it's a public forum. If you are publicly announcing that you are pedophile or terrorist, that sounds like bad news for you. In any case, does twitter not already have a lot of "assholes" and people with "violent ideas"?
    - arlcode 4y ago
      Yes he would (sorry if I went a bit over the top there). My point being that I don't trust Elon Musk to make better moderation decisions than whoever is in charge right now. Past attempts of social media with low barriers of what is allowed have absolutely turned out worse than Twitter if you ask me(e.g. 4chan, 8chan, gab etc) That's why I think the best case is "Twitter but more aligned with whatever Elon Musk thinks at the moment"
- CoryAlexMartin 4y ago
  An established social media platform's most valuable asset is the size of its userbase. Even with the reach of Musk, I think it would be hard to attract a large enough userbase to make the product more compelling than Twitter.
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    An established platform's most valuable asset is the data of the userbase. Twitter can leverage a huge amount of data about personal preferences, interests, relationship status, political leanings, income, usage profiles, message habits and content, social graph, and location. If you specifically wanted to clamp down on certain demographics, it would be an excellent way to locate them.
    - rtkwe 4y ago
      Can't have a large data trove on your users without users. A huge part of a successful social network is sufficient adoption. If the people your users want to follow aren't on the platform they don't have a real reason to be there. It's a major hurdle for any new social platform and a lot fail at that step.
- simonw 4y ago
  If spending a ton of money was a reliable way to build a new social network we would all be having this conversation on Google+.
jacquesm 4y ago
This seems to happen with some regularity in Musk's timeline.
civilized 4y ago
Perhaps underneath the 420 jokes lies the reality that he's high fairly often. I am sure the offer price of $54.20 was a joke. With Musk, the appearance of those digits is never an accident.
- martin8412 4y ago
  Wine and Ambien is his goto..
  - dubswithus 4y ago
    Is it?

labster 4y ago

Stocks went down almost immediately after the deal across the tech sector. Financing got harder, he would have sell off a lot of TSLA at a discount to complete the deal.

stingrae 4y ago

It also hit at a point when Tesla's stock price started a rapid decent. The Twitter deal is becoming a larger and larger percentage of his net worth.

idiotsecant 4y ago

It makes more sense if you assume that Elon Musk is both a sometimes successful businessman and also suffering from unmanaged bipolar disorder.

crmd 4y ago
Agree 100%. I’ve never met Elon but his online behavior in the run up to and immediately after the Twitter deal sure seemed hypomanic to me.
soganess 4y ago
Can we not jump to blaming a person's bad choices on the first medical condition that fits? I know Musk has said he has bipolar disorder, and I'm not trying to discount that. I'm just saying what if... gasp... he simply did something foolish? The blame-it-on-the-bipolar out reinforces the narrative of an infallible person who only make mistakes because of a medical condition. Take that line of thinking one step further and you are now fully onboard the bipolar stigma train.
- appletrotter 4y ago
  Do you have any experience with bipolar?
- pas 4y ago
  A mistake or doing something foolish is going out in shorts in the winter and then getting a cold. He spent days/weeks/months on setting up this deal, he became obsessed with it at some point. (Hopefully) no one is "blaming" it on the bipolar. It's simply something consistent with bipolar. (But it's also consistent with rich people getting obsessed with something and then spending way too much resources on it.) > reinforces the narrative That narrative is simply bad and pushed by people who have no idea what they are talking about. Musk's previous instances of risk taking (that "all" turned out to be fine) is also perfectly consistent with bipolar. (Of course if you look at it then it turns out that he took many risks that made very little sense, like when he talked about taking Tesla private, the infamous funding secured tweet.) And of course just a label like bipolar means (almost) nothing, these spectrum disorders are complex (and there are usually other comorbidities at the same time, just with different severity), we don't know how he is treating/medicating/managing it, or is it even the right diagnosis or not. Or he could have simply lied.

alasdair_ 4y ago

The market went to shit almost right after the point where he made his offer. Tesla took a dive at the same time. A lot of the loan he took out is against his tesla stock.

towaway15463 4y ago

Did everyone forget about the massive hit the stock market took right after the deal was announced? Maybe that has something to do with it.