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Your other points may or may not be valid, but I think it's fairly uncontested that Musk's reputation took and continues to take huge damage over every aspect o

Your other points may or may not be valid, but I think it's fairly uncontested that Musk's reputation took and continues to take huge damage over every aspect of the Twitter fiasco. He's burning down a $50 billion acquisition like he's a 1980s corporate raider, except that the raiders made money by torching corporations.

hparadiz 4y ago
I don't really see Twitter use going down much which means revenue can likely stay as is at 5 billion annually and likely grow over time. Cut out 80% of the costs and a 50 billion price tag isn't that farfetched. It's possible to recoup the cost within 10 years by increasing revenue only 20% and keeping costs low. He could have done this without being a total dick about it though. It's the billionare equivalent of being penny wise but pound foolish. Why take the hit from public opinion when it's gonna negatively effect your other brands? Just dumb execution.
- edmundsauto 4y ago
  Many of the large advertisers have left, that will be a challenge to maintain revenue. Plus +$1B in annual interest payments and it being more expensive to borrow money due to interest rate rises + being seen as a larger risk than other borrowers.
  - hparadiz 4y ago
    I think that's just temporary. People will forget and move on. Advertisers will want back in on the action. All he has to do is stop talking.
    - edmundsauto 4y ago
      I'm sure some will return, but the default as of now is to not spend on Twitter. From my friends who buy ads at big agencies, they are actually quite happy to not deal with the smaller reach and platform - but felt they needed to, in order to show their clients "effort". In addition, there is general belt tightening, and ad spends are the first thing to get hit. Going after the smaller ad networks reduces the effort to maintain campaigns; add in that there is a reason to drop Twitter instead of across the board reduction, and I think this is a problem for twitter. I'd wager that 50% of the dollars that left aren't going to return, if not more.
- danaris 4y ago
  Twitter's revenue comes almost entirely from advertisers, not from Twitter users, and there's no way it's going to pick up enough paying users to come close to covering its costs. Advertisers are very sensitive to reputation, and to optics. The optics of what Musk's done with Twitter have already driven most of the major advertisers away. The idea that Musk can come out of this with a profit is absolutely ludicrous at this point.
  - hparadiz 4y ago
    I'm in a few different Twitter sub cultures and not a single one has had anyone leave the platform. Usage is still very high. Eventually advertisers will forget about the controversy and want back in on the action. They were previously making 5 billion in revenue annually. Even if they lose half that's still a significant amount of income. And I'm sorry but it doesn't take thousands to run it. Look at Reddit running everything with a skeleton crew.
    - danaris 4y ago
      "Major Tech Site A runs with a skeleton crew, so obviously Major Tech Site B, with a completely different style of interaction and set of requirements, could do so too!" is really not a viable argument. Furthermore, one of the things that's frequently named as a concern with Reddit is their volunteer moderation; Twitter very obviously needs paid moderators for a host of reasons, and that's something you can't scale with tech. You need actual human people spending their time and energy actually doing that work, in proportion to the amount of content that's being created. (You need more than Twitter has had, in fact, given how many problems there have been.) You can, of course, argue that they don't actually need that; that it should be all free speech all the time...but you'll get exactly zero traction with me, and with a very large percentage of the public and Twitter's users.

hparadiz 4y ago

I don't really see Twitter use going down much which means revenue can likely stay as is at 5 billion annually and likely grow over time. Cut out 80% of the costs and a 50 billion price tag isn't that farfetched. It's possible to recoup the cost within 10 years by increasing revenue only 20% and keeping costs low. He could have done this without being a total dick about it though. It's the billionare equivalent of being penny wise but pound foolish. Why take the hit from public opinion when it's gonna negatively effect your other brands? Just dumb execution.

edmundsauto 4y ago
Many of the large advertisers have left, that will be a challenge to maintain revenue. Plus +$1B in annual interest payments and it being more expensive to borrow money due to interest rate rises + being seen as a larger risk than other borrowers.
- hparadiz 4y ago
  I think that's just temporary. People will forget and move on. Advertisers will want back in on the action. All he has to do is stop talking.
  - edmundsauto 4y ago
    I'm sure some will return, but the default as of now is to not spend on Twitter. From my friends who buy ads at big agencies, they are actually quite happy to not deal with the smaller reach and platform - but felt they needed to, in order to show their clients "effort". In addition, there is general belt tightening, and ad spends are the first thing to get hit. Going after the smaller ad networks reduces the effort to maintain campaigns; add in that there is a reason to drop Twitter instead of across the board reduction, and I think this is a problem for twitter. I'd wager that 50% of the dollars that left aren't going to return, if not more.
danaris 4y ago
Twitter's revenue comes almost entirely from advertisers, not from Twitter users, and there's no way it's going to pick up enough paying users to come close to covering its costs. Advertisers are very sensitive to reputation, and to optics. The optics of what Musk's done with Twitter have already driven most of the major advertisers away. The idea that Musk can come out of this with a profit is absolutely ludicrous at this point.
- hparadiz 4y ago
  I'm in a few different Twitter sub cultures and not a single one has had anyone leave the platform. Usage is still very high. Eventually advertisers will forget about the controversy and want back in on the action. They were previously making 5 billion in revenue annually. Even if they lose half that's still a significant amount of income. And I'm sorry but it doesn't take thousands to run it. Look at Reddit running everything with a skeleton crew.
  - danaris 4y ago
    "Major Tech Site A runs with a skeleton crew, so obviously Major Tech Site B, with a completely different style of interaction and set of requirements, could do so too!" is really not a viable argument. Furthermore, one of the things that's frequently named as a concern with Reddit is their volunteer moderation; Twitter very obviously needs paid moderators for a host of reasons, and that's something you can't scale with tech. You need actual human people spending their time and energy actually doing that work, in proportion to the amount of content that's being created. (You need more than Twitter has had, in fact, given how many problems there have been.) You can, of course, argue that they don't actually need that; that it should be all free speech all the time...but you'll get exactly zero traction with me, and with a very large percentage of the public and Twitter's users.