7 ms·

Imagine spending only 30% of your net worth and getting to experiment with buying and growing one of the most used and talked about sites on the internet. If I

Imagine spending only 30% of your net worth and getting to experiment with buying and growing one of the most used and talked about sites on the internet. If I spent 30% of my net worth I could buy a condo in the bay, possibly. Although odds are it would be worth close to that if I needed to sell it. But many people spend 30% of their net worth trying to start businesses with almost no traction. Musk spent 30% to buy something known internationally.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nr2x 4y ago
I mean I could buy a very expensive Mercedes and drive it straight into the Bay at high speed. That doesn’t make it a good idea.
- nicenewtemp84 4y ago
  Definitely doesn't make it a good idea. But it's still interesting that he's playing with one of the most talked about sites on the internet without really affecting his finances at all. Of all the random things to do with your money, it's not even that bad of an experiment.
  - nr2x 4y ago
    He’s just a rich kid pulling the legs off an ant. I actually find it perverse.
    - nicenewtemp84 4y ago
      He's not a kid using his parents money. He's using his own and his personal name/reputation to secure money. He's not hurting an ant. He fired people and let them go find other jobs which seems pretty fair instead of for example reducing their pay drastically and forcing them to quit, or paying them minimum wage and profit sharing. Which still would have been pretty fair IMO. Not every ceo or company owners needs to be operating a charity like the previous Twitter CEO was.
      - yangikan 4y ago
        It can be done without being an asshole (for example without insulting a handicapped person) https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-gets-involved-humiliating-170216062.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-gets-involved-...
        mlindner 4y ago
        Note: he did not insult a handicapped person. At no point did he attack his disability. That was a cruel twisting of facts by the media. Further he was misled by someone feeding him incorrect information and promptly apologized for the confusion. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257
        cactusplant7374 4y ago
        He found out Twitter would need to pay him 100M. That is a big incentive to backpedal.
        mlindner 4y ago
        There's no evidence to support that statement. Given he continues to talk with the man at times (he replied to one of his tweets the a few days ago) and there's no evidence to support the idea that he did it for monetary reasons, other explanations are much more reasonable. Namely that it was a simple mistake.
        nr2x 4y ago
        Honest question: why do you see it as your job to defend Elon Musk online? I see a lot of people doing it and I find it strange. Why do you care?
        nicenewtemp84 4y ago
        Some of us like sticking up for people of similar temperament to us. I'd stick up for the average person that gutted a company he bought and kept it running just like I would Musk. I like Musk because he doesn't appear to be a woke tool. Is he a tool of a different kind? Probably. But I don't like woke, so I stick up for the non-woke. Is he perfect? No. None of us are.
nacs 4y ago
The condo you buy with 30% of your net is going to be worth 30% or more later. That's a good investment. Musk spent 30% of his net worth on it then immediatly burned 90% of the already questionable value it had. What Musk did was just bad business.
- wfme 4y ago
  > then immediatly burned 90% of the already questionable value it had citation needed
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    BBC has some good sources
    - wfme 4y ago
      Hmmm seems that the most recent number is ~20bn [0][1], at least 5x the >90% number quoted by the parent. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65084254 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65084254 [1]: https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1639737042828673024 https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1639737042828673024
onion2k 4y ago
Imagine spending only 30% of your net worth and getting to experiment with buying and growing one of the most used and talked about sites on the internet. That sounds like one of the least interesting things I could do with $44bn. With that sort of money I could fund 1000 Twitter rivals, and after a couple of years combine the successful and interesting ones into a single rival that would actually do something better than Twitter.
- nicenewtemp84 4y ago
  I think most of us would do that, but I don't think musk has the desire or time to start a VC studio.
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  > "That sounds like one of the least interesting things I could do with $44bn." You could fund The Manhattan Project ($21Bn). And the Panama Canal ($13Bn). And the Concorde project ($2.5Bn). And the Hoover Dam ($0.8Bn). And an Eiffel Tower, a Statue of Liberty, and a statue of Christ the Redeemer. ($100s of M) Buy yourself a B52 Stealth Bomber (~$2Bn). And a Hindenburg ($100M), and a Titanic ($400M). And still have a couple of billion left over.
  - v0idzer0 4y ago
    Except you couldn’t really do most of that without government support and approval
    - jodrellblank 4y ago
      Rather missing the point that any of those are more interesting than "a thousand Twitter clones". But even on that point, Musk managed to do a lot with SpaceX and Tesla supercharger network which need various government support and approvals.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nr2x 4y ago

I mean I could buy a very expensive Mercedes and drive it straight into the Bay at high speed. That doesn’t make it a good idea.

nicenewtemp84 4y ago
Definitely doesn't make it a good idea. But it's still interesting that he's playing with one of the most talked about sites on the internet without really affecting his finances at all. Of all the random things to do with your money, it's not even that bad of an experiment.
- nr2x 4y ago
  He’s just a rich kid pulling the legs off an ant. I actually find it perverse.
  - nicenewtemp84 4y ago
    He's not a kid using his parents money. He's using his own and his personal name/reputation to secure money. He's not hurting an ant. He fired people and let them go find other jobs which seems pretty fair instead of for example reducing their pay drastically and forcing them to quit, or paying them minimum wage and profit sharing. Which still would have been pretty fair IMO. Not every ceo or company owners needs to be operating a charity like the previous Twitter CEO was.
    - yangikan 4y ago
      It can be done without being an asshole (for example without insulting a handicapped person) https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-gets-involved-humiliating-170216062.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musk-gets-involved-...
      - mlindner 4y ago
        Note: he did not insult a handicapped person. At no point did he attack his disability. That was a cruel twisting of facts by the media. Further he was misled by someone feeding him incorrect information and promptly apologized for the confusion. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257
        cactusplant7374 4y ago
        He found out Twitter would need to pay him 100M. That is a big incentive to backpedal.
        mlindner 4y ago
        There's no evidence to support that statement. Given he continues to talk with the man at times (he replied to one of his tweets the a few days ago) and there's no evidence to support the idea that he did it for monetary reasons, other explanations are much more reasonable. Namely that it was a simple mistake.
        nr2x 4y ago
        Honest question: why do you see it as your job to defend Elon Musk online? I see a lot of people doing it and I find it strange. Why do you care?
        nicenewtemp84 4y ago
        Some of us like sticking up for people of similar temperament to us. I'd stick up for the average person that gutted a company he bought and kept it running just like I would Musk. I like Musk because he doesn't appear to be a woke tool. Is he a tool of a different kind? Probably. But I don't like woke, so I stick up for the non-woke. Is he perfect? No. None of us are.

nacs 4y ago

The condo you buy with 30% of your net is going to be worth 30% or more later. That's a good investment. Musk spent 30% of his net worth on it then immediatly burned 90% of the already questionable value it had. What Musk did was just bad business.

wfme 4y ago
> then immediatly burned 90% of the already questionable value it had citation needed
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  BBC has some good sources
  - wfme 4y ago
    Hmmm seems that the most recent number is ~20bn [0][1], at least 5x the >90% number quoted by the parent. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65084254 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65084254 [1]: https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1639737042828673024 https://twitter.com/ZoeSchiffer/status/1639737042828673024

onion2k 4y ago

Imagine spending only 30% of your net worth and getting to experiment with buying and growing one of the most used and talked about sites on the internet. That sounds like one of the least interesting things I could do with $44bn. With that sort of money I could fund 1000 Twitter rivals, and after a couple of years combine the successful and interesting ones into a single rival that would actually do something better than Twitter.

nicenewtemp84 4y ago
I think most of us would do that, but I don't think musk has the desire or time to start a VC studio.
jodrellblank 4y ago
> "That sounds like one of the least interesting things I could do with $44bn." You could fund The Manhattan Project ($21Bn). And the Panama Canal ($13Bn). And the Concorde project ($2.5Bn). And the Hoover Dam ($0.8Bn). And an Eiffel Tower, a Statue of Liberty, and a statue of Christ the Redeemer. ($100s of M) Buy yourself a B52 Stealth Bomber (~$2Bn). And a Hindenburg ($100M), and a Titanic ($400M). And still have a couple of billion left over.
- v0idzer0 4y ago
  Except you couldn’t really do most of that without government support and approval
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    Rather missing the point that any of those are more interesting than "a thousand Twitter clones". But even on that point, Musk managed to do a lot with SpaceX and Tesla supercharger network which need various government support and approvals.