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Let's posit that he didn't buy twitter for the potential profits on twitter revenues, since there are any number of equal/better options for that, some of which

Let's posit that he didn't buy twitter for the potential profits on twitter revenues, since there are any number of equal/better options for that, some of which he's already involved in. Perhaps he bought it because he's interested its capacity to shape (dare I say manipulate) public discourse, which he's utilized heavily, and may have taken umbrage when that was limited in any way. Now, perhaps, he plans to manipulate it further, in the way a singularly-minded owner can. One possible problem with that plan is if internal staff see what's happening, don't like it, and tell the world. Data engineering is the staff likely in the best position to see what's really happening on the platform and potentially tell others. So an owner motivated by wanting to manipulate the platform without pesky whistleblowers might want to fire them all and replace them with people selected for loyalty and/or buy-in on the motivations for manipulating twitter as a platform.

krainboltgreene 4y ago
> Perhaps he bought it because he's interested its capacity to shape (dare I say manipulate) public discourse, which he's utilized heavily, and may have taken umbrage when that was limited in any way. So interested he tried to get out of it multiple times.
- wwweston 4y ago
  Any potential displays of buyer's regret are ultimately framed by the much more weighty evidence that he made an offer in the first place. Certainly no one forced him to do that. "He didn't really want it" just doesn't fly given that context. We don't know why he indicated at some points he wanted to back out. Maybe he just thought he could renegotiate a better deal. Maybe he really did have second thoughts about whatever his reasons were for making the offer in the first place. But he was, at some point, at least $44B or on the order of "one fifth his net worth" interested. Which seems pretty interested to me.

krainboltgreene 4y ago

> Perhaps he bought it because he's interested its capacity to shape (dare I say manipulate) public discourse, which he's utilized heavily, and may have taken umbrage when that was limited in any way. So interested he tried to get out of it multiple times.

wwweston 4y ago
Any potential displays of buyer's regret are ultimately framed by the much more weighty evidence that he made an offer in the first place. Certainly no one forced him to do that. "He didn't really want it" just doesn't fly given that context. We don't know why he indicated at some points he wanted to back out. Maybe he just thought he could renegotiate a better deal. Maybe he really did have second thoughts about whatever his reasons were for making the offer in the first place. But he was, at some point, at least $44B or on the order of "one fifth his net worth" interested. Which seems pretty interested to me.