7 ms·

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the sort of damage control id expect to see from someone only peripherally aware of or involved in their business

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the sort of damage control id expect to see from someone only peripherally aware of or involved in their businesses accountability or strategic operations. This concern from advertisers has existed far too long for an executive action to have any meaning. the marketing conference call on november 3rd was your red flag where advertisers voiced their displeasure with firing large swaths of the content moderation team. The checkmark fiasco that wiped billions off corporate ledgers on a friday of active trading left a pretty sore spot with them as well that you never seemed to completely address. To corporations looking at this release today youre just some guy dragging a plumbing fixture through the lobby of your new office demanding hardcore work and cutting staff and --lets be honest-- at least Chainsaw Al Dunlap made stockholders rich in the process of scorching earth. So far youve just made the entire platform look like the bombing of dresden. by the 14th most reasonable advertisers had paused their spend if not backed out entirely. but after the bombshell office lockout and mass exodus today? to think a ToS change with a skeleton crew of H1B's and lifers that arent even allowed at their desks is going to reverse the course of decline is farcical. This is the kind of massive failure that triggers disaster recovery plans. This ship is sinking, and whatever life thats valued on it will either jump ship to a competing platform or Mastodon. You took a 44bn USD risk and managed to absolutely destroy any credibility in your leadership in under a month. At this point its best to hope markets dont start reconsidering your other companies as risky business.

thomascgalvin 4y ago
> At this point its best to hope markets dont start reconsidering your other companies as risky business. I think this is inevitable. One, Elon is trying to prop up Twitter by using SpaceX money to buy ads. He's dipping his hand into other companies to keep his new toy afloat for a while longer. I don't know if the word "contamination" is appropriate here, but it's pretty clear that Elon doesn't see any kind of sharp boundaries between his various enterprises. And two, I think a lot of customers are going to start rethinking Elon's offerings. Tesla used to be a status symbol. Driving one meant you were forward thinking, that you were on the bleeding edge, and probably conscientious about the environment. Now, Tesla is "that company Elon owns." There is no way this doesn't hurt Tesla's bottom line, and there's no way investors don't realize this. All Elon had to do was shut up and bask in the accomplishments of others, but he couldn't manage to take his own ego out of it. Will it ruin him? Probably not. We he still be the richest man in the world in a year or two? Also probably not.
- bb88 4y ago
  Elon deserves a lot of credit for Tesla. But now I'm starting to hear the term "Muskmobile" bandied about when people refer to his car. It's not like Tesla is the only game in town anymore either. In a weird tangent, I've been thinking about the TV Show "Ted Lasso", and why it's so popular lately. Ted Lasso is the exact opposite of Elon Musk, even to a fault. People don't care if Elon succeeds anymore, but they do want Ted Lasso to.
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    Electric Jesus deserves credit for not firing the right people and shit a muskmobile that works eventually !
  - jen20 4y ago
    "Magamobile" is the name I've been hearing. Unfortunate timing for Tesla really given that their early mover advantage has been basically eroded at this point.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Tesla used to be a status symbol. Driving one meant you were forward thinking, that you were on the bleeding edge, and probably conscientious about the environment. I hate to break it to you, but generally only other Tesla owners feel that way. Otherwise, I doubt the public does. In fact, I personally feel the opposite, that's it's a symbol of a "techbro".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Kye 4y ago
    Correct. All of my few encounters with a Tesla in the wild were a near accident. That + the attitude I see from Tesla fans online cement a negative view.
    - KerrAvon 4y ago
notadev 4y ago
Please stop spreading the falsehood that Eli Lilly lost billions because of a fake verified tweet. https://medium.com/@westwise/did-twitter-just-take-8-billion-off-eli-lillys-stock-bd6f8f89f0ea https://medium.com/@westwise/did-twitter-just-take-8-billion...
- dekhn 4y ago
  is that all your evidence?
  - automatom 4y ago
    Even if it is, he's right. Although this is anecdotal, I have a friend who works in finance that said the drop in stock was coincidental to the stock price dropping. Apparently pharmaceuticals are a defensive sector in a bear market, and the market popping up last week meant the price of Eli Lilly dropped, as I understand it. In his words that tweet causing the stock to drop was "fake news"
    - cto_of_antifa 4y ago
    - mbreese 4y ago
      There is never going to be a way to conclusively ascribe the drop in stock price to any one event. However, the act of pointing out the high cost of insulin to a large audience not causing a drop in stock price would be highly suspect. I personally doubt it was the Tweet itself that caused the drop. No one should/would have believed it was an actual statement by Eli Lilly. But in a bear market, this bad publicity about the high price of a mandatory medication for a large population is likely going to have an effect. Or it could have also been a coincidence... there's no way to know.
      - theonething 4y ago
        > bad publicity about the high price of a mandatory medication for a large population is likely going to have an effect. I know this is orthogonal to the stock price drop, but this kind of bad publicity (gouging sick people in need of your product) actually turned out to be a good thing for the public and for overall justice.
pannSun 4y ago
Advertisers sure have a lot of influence in what gets published. Perhaps it's time to look critically at that. They're certainly the last group of people I'd trust with... anything. Their job is literally to manipulate people, yet somehow they became the arbiters of morality and permissibility.
- rchaud 4y ago
  > Perhaps it's time to look critically at that. What is there to look at? If you want other people's money, chances are it'll come with strings attached.
  - pannSun 4y ago
    For example, we've put severe restrictions on what kind of strings employers are permitted to attach. We also look very carefully at concentration of capital and collusion. Note that this is not necessarily a call for legislation, but certainly people should be aware of who shapes and filters their communications, and how, just as they should be aware that e.g. 90% of US media are owned by 6 companies (in 2011, down from 50 in 1983) [1]. There are entire university departments dedicated to analyzing the influence and cross-ownership of media and capital, even though one could just as easily dismiss that with "What is there to look at? It's just free markets at work." [1] https://infographicjournal.com/media-consolidation-the-illusion-of-choice/ https://infographicjournal.com/media-consolidation-the-illus...
tejtm 4y ago
It has to be deliberate. I have never been on twitter, and have not even been able read incidental twits that get pushed my way since they required JS. So it is truly a non issue one way or the other for me. But I can not see any possible goal except to not only destroy the particular company but to further destroy the idea of something like it as viable.
ALittleLight 4y ago
I've seen a lot of people comment, especially on Twitter, about "The checkmark fiasco that wiped billions off corporate ledgers on a friday" - but it's completely untrue. Eli Lilly was the pharmaceutical company that attracted the most attention. Their stock was down 4% the day of a fake tweet. But pharmaceutical companies were down generally that day, some as much or more than Eli Lilly. Lots of companies had fake tweets written about them - some had good days on the stock market, some had bad - almost like stock market prices are a random walk day to day, sometimes up and sometimes down. From a common sense perspective it's pretty implausible that an obviously fake tweet could shift market perceptions by billions of dollars. I don't think that really happened at all. I also don't see why advertisers would care about the office lockout or layoffs. Advertisers certainly don't want their ads running next to offensive content, but if Musk can control that - why should advertisers pull out?

thomascgalvin 4y ago

> At this point its best to hope markets dont start reconsidering your other companies as risky business. I think this is inevitable. One, Elon is trying to prop up Twitter by using SpaceX money to buy ads. He's dipping his hand into other companies to keep his new toy afloat for a while longer. I don't know if the word "contamination" is appropriate here, but it's pretty clear that Elon doesn't see any kind of sharp boundaries between his various enterprises. And two, I think a lot of customers are going to start rethinking Elon's offerings. Tesla used to be a status symbol. Driving one meant you were forward thinking, that you were on the bleeding edge, and probably conscientious about the environment. Now, Tesla is "that company Elon owns." There is no way this doesn't hurt Tesla's bottom line, and there's no way investors don't realize this. All Elon had to do was shut up and bask in the accomplishments of others, but he couldn't manage to take his own ego out of it. Will it ruin him? Probably not. We he still be the richest man in the world in a year or two? Also probably not.

bb88 4y ago
Elon deserves a lot of credit for Tesla. But now I'm starting to hear the term "Muskmobile" bandied about when people refer to his car. It's not like Tesla is the only game in town anymore either. In a weird tangent, I've been thinking about the TV Show "Ted Lasso", and why it's so popular lately. Ted Lasso is the exact opposite of Elon Musk, even to a fault. People don't care if Elon succeeds anymore, but they do want Ted Lasso to.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  Electric Jesus deserves credit for not firing the right people and shit a muskmobile that works eventually !
- jen20 4y ago
  "Magamobile" is the name I've been hearing. Unfortunate timing for Tesla really given that their early mover advantage has been basically eroded at this point.
lapcat 4y ago
> Tesla used to be a status symbol. Driving one meant you were forward thinking, that you were on the bleeding edge, and probably conscientious about the environment. I hate to break it to you, but generally only other Tesla owners feel that way. Otherwise, I doubt the public does. In fact, I personally feel the opposite, that's it's a symbol of a "techbro".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Kye 4y ago
  Correct. All of my few encounters with a Tesla in the wild were a near accident. That + the attitude I see from Tesla fans online cement a negative view.
  - KerrAvon 4y ago

notadev 4y ago

Please stop spreading the falsehood that Eli Lilly lost billions because of a fake verified tweet. https://medium.com/@westwise/did-twitter-just-take-8-billion-off-eli-lillys-stock-bd6f8f89f0ea https://medium.com/@westwise/did-twitter-just-take-8-billion...

dekhn 4y ago
is that all your evidence?
- automatom 4y ago
  Even if it is, he's right. Although this is anecdotal, I have a friend who works in finance that said the drop in stock was coincidental to the stock price dropping. Apparently pharmaceuticals are a defensive sector in a bear market, and the market popping up last week meant the price of Eli Lilly dropped, as I understand it. In his words that tweet causing the stock to drop was "fake news"
  - cto_of_antifa 4y ago
  - mbreese 4y ago
    There is never going to be a way to conclusively ascribe the drop in stock price to any one event. However, the act of pointing out the high cost of insulin to a large audience not causing a drop in stock price would be highly suspect. I personally doubt it was the Tweet itself that caused the drop. No one should/would have believed it was an actual statement by Eli Lilly. But in a bear market, this bad publicity about the high price of a mandatory medication for a large population is likely going to have an effect. Or it could have also been a coincidence... there's no way to know.
    - theonething 4y ago
      > bad publicity about the high price of a mandatory medication for a large population is likely going to have an effect. I know this is orthogonal to the stock price drop, but this kind of bad publicity (gouging sick people in need of your product) actually turned out to be a good thing for the public and for overall justice.

pannSun 4y ago

Advertisers sure have a lot of influence in what gets published. Perhaps it's time to look critically at that. They're certainly the last group of people I'd trust with... anything. Their job is literally to manipulate people, yet somehow they became the arbiters of morality and permissibility.

rchaud 4y ago
> Perhaps it's time to look critically at that. What is there to look at? If you want other people's money, chances are it'll come with strings attached.
- pannSun 4y ago
  For example, we've put severe restrictions on what kind of strings employers are permitted to attach. We also look very carefully at concentration of capital and collusion. Note that this is not necessarily a call for legislation, but certainly people should be aware of who shapes and filters their communications, and how, just as they should be aware that e.g. 90% of US media are owned by 6 companies (in 2011, down from 50 in 1983) [1]. There are entire university departments dedicated to analyzing the influence and cross-ownership of media and capital, even though one could just as easily dismiss that with "What is there to look at? It's just free markets at work." [1] https://infographicjournal.com/media-consolidation-the-illusion-of-choice/ https://infographicjournal.com/media-consolidation-the-illus...

tejtm 4y ago

It has to be deliberate. I have never been on twitter, and have not even been able read incidental twits that get pushed my way since they required JS. So it is truly a non issue one way or the other for me. But I can not see any possible goal except to not only destroy the particular company but to further destroy the idea of something like it as viable.

ALittleLight 4y ago

I've seen a lot of people comment, especially on Twitter, about "The checkmark fiasco that wiped billions off corporate ledgers on a friday" - but it's completely untrue. Eli Lilly was the pharmaceutical company that attracted the most attention. Their stock was down 4% the day of a fake tweet. But pharmaceutical companies were down generally that day, some as much or more than Eli Lilly. Lots of companies had fake tweets written about them - some had good days on the stock market, some had bad - almost like stock market prices are a random walk day to day, sometimes up and sometimes down. From a common sense perspective it's pretty implausible that an obviously fake tweet could shift market perceptions by billions of dollars. I don't think that really happened at all. I also don't see why advertisers would care about the office lockout or layoffs. Advertisers certainly don't want their ads running next to offensive content, but if Musk can control that - why should advertisers pull out?