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Meanwhile: "Twitter has stopped paying rent on offices and is considering not paying severance packages to former employees, among other measures." https://ar

by kibwen 4y ago

Meanwhile: "Twitter has stopped paying rent on offices and is considering not paying severance packages to former employees, among other measures." https://archive.vn/iGZH3 https://archive.vn/iGZH3 The grand irony of Elon Musk forcing formerly-remote employees to work from an office whose rent he refuses to pay for.

propogandist 4y ago
andix 4y ago
What? Why? You can’t run a business like that for very long. 1-2 years max. Then all the law suits will eat you up. Deliberately not paying may lead to criminal charges too.
- yks 4y ago
  Certain individuals like Elon might have acquired a not completely unfounded belief that “rule of law” in fact does not apply to them personally.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - acjacobson 4y ago
    You'd think he'd be disabused of that notion when he was forced to buy Twitter after trying to back out of the acquisition agreement.
    - theCrowing 4y ago
      but he wasn't forced... he could've been but we will never know.
      - kibwen 4y ago
        He spent months publicly attacking Twitter and damaging the platform while trying to weasel out of the contract he foolishly signed. To suggest that it was all an act and that he willingly had a change of heart after being taken to court would be beyond credulity.
- matwood 4y ago
  Bankruptcy was already a high likelihood from the deal terms, though I expected later in ‘23. I see the non-payment news as evidence it may come sooner.
- fleddr 4y ago
  Well, Twitter was a zombie company already. It almost went bankrupt in 2016, they offered to sell but nobody wanted it. Trump and the media explosion to follow bought them some time. Twitter cannot grow because it is unappealing to the masses. Where every other social network has skyrocketed in recent years, Twitter is stagnant. Well over a billion people have signed up for Twitter, but over 75% immediately abandon it. Which is not true for Instagram, Tiktok, the like. Of the few accounts that are sticky, most never post anything. The vast majority of Twitter activity is a tiny elite group of politicians, journalists and celebrities posting hot takes which are then passively consumed or retweeted (which Twitter conveniently counts as a new tweet). Before the Musk take-over there was already a plan to do 800M in cuts, the company was already in existential trouble and very poorly managed throughout its life. Bottom line is that Musk paid a top price for absolute junk.
concordDance 4y ago
Gonna take these kinds of stories with a pinch of salt and wait a few months to see what happens. A lot of journalists are extremely unhappy with Musk atm so there will be many many negative articles written, even if the evidence is dubious. Even odds the "three people who are close to the matter" are wrong.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  The real story is how vindictive journalists have been just because he was going to lower the value of their bluecheck marks.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    No one other than Musk and a small cohort of very online conservatives actually care about the blue checks.
  - SilverBirch 4y ago
    Do you have any actual examples of this? Because all the journalists I've seen on this topic have gone to great lengths to point out that for them the bluecheck wasn't a status symbol - it was a feature for twitters users to know who was verified. Swisher has ranted about this a few times - she couldn't give a shit about her bluecheck it's valuable to twitter, not her, and she was supportive of Musk until the homophobia.

by kibwen 4y ago

propogandist 4y ago

andix 4y ago

What? Why? You can’t run a business like that for very long. 1-2 years max. Then all the law suits will eat you up. Deliberately not paying may lead to criminal charges too.

yks 4y ago
Certain individuals like Elon might have acquired a not completely unfounded belief that “rule of law” in fact does not apply to them personally.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- acjacobson 4y ago
  You'd think he'd be disabused of that notion when he was forced to buy Twitter after trying to back out of the acquisition agreement.
  - theCrowing 4y ago
    but he wasn't forced... he could've been but we will never know.
    - kibwen 4y ago
      He spent months publicly attacking Twitter and damaging the platform while trying to weasel out of the contract he foolishly signed. To suggest that it was all an act and that he willingly had a change of heart after being taken to court would be beyond credulity.
matwood 4y ago
Bankruptcy was already a high likelihood from the deal terms, though I expected later in ‘23. I see the non-payment news as evidence it may come sooner.
fleddr 4y ago
Well, Twitter was a zombie company already. It almost went bankrupt in 2016, they offered to sell but nobody wanted it. Trump and the media explosion to follow bought them some time. Twitter cannot grow because it is unappealing to the masses. Where every other social network has skyrocketed in recent years, Twitter is stagnant. Well over a billion people have signed up for Twitter, but over 75% immediately abandon it. Which is not true for Instagram, Tiktok, the like. Of the few accounts that are sticky, most never post anything. The vast majority of Twitter activity is a tiny elite group of politicians, journalists and celebrities posting hot takes which are then passively consumed or retweeted (which Twitter conveniently counts as a new tweet). Before the Musk take-over there was already a plan to do 800M in cuts, the company was already in existential trouble and very poorly managed throughout its life. Bottom line is that Musk paid a top price for absolute junk.

concordDance 4y ago

Gonna take these kinds of stories with a pinch of salt and wait a few months to see what happens. A lot of journalists are extremely unhappy with Musk atm so there will be many many negative articles written, even if the evidence is dubious. Even odds the "three people who are close to the matter" are wrong.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
The real story is how vindictive journalists have been just because he was going to lower the value of their bluecheck marks.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  No one other than Musk and a small cohort of very online conservatives actually care about the blue checks.
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  Do you have any actual examples of this? Because all the journalists I've seen on this topic have gone to great lengths to point out that for them the bluecheck wasn't a status symbol - it was a feature for twitters users to know who was verified. Swisher has ranted about this a few times - she couldn't give a shit about her bluecheck it's valuable to twitter, not her, and she was supportive of Musk until the homophobia.