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I think the simple explanation seems to be that he vastly overpaid for it, tried his best to get out of buying, and now that he has sunk all this money into it,

I think the simple explanation seems to be that he vastly overpaid for it, tried his best to get out of buying, and now that he has sunk all this money into it, he is trying all quickfire ways of making money via Twitter (most of which seem ridiculously bad but I doubt there are many good options for making good money via Twitter).

sidibe 3y ago
He should have tried at least a little bit the way that has made Twitter profitable for some quarters in the past instead of diving head first into thinking people would want to pay. Making the platform appealing to advertisers and having a sales team get them to spend.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jqpabc123 3y ago
In other words, his purchase was more political than economic, more ego than sound business judgment. He is totally out of his element and flying by trial and error. A crash and burn is the most likely result IMO. Social media and advertising is an inherently humanistic/social endeavor requiring a deft business touch. Musk isn't exactly famous for his humanity or his humility or his social skills. He is waddling around like a duck out of water.
- devjab 3y ago
  > In other words, his purchase was more political than economic, more ego than sound business judgment. Not necessarily. I'm not a fan of the guy, but I do work in investment finance. The increase of interest rates might've been the reason he didn't want to go through with the buy. We went from a world where borrowing money was almost free to a world where it's very expensive. When Elon signed himself into buying Twitter loaning money for you and me was between 0.25% and 0.50% rate, when it finalized it was between 3.75% and 4.00%. The organisational loans are different, but not by much, and not only did those 6 months show the increase in rate, our financial industry also went through the realization that this wasn't likely to end as soon as they first hoped. I'm not sure we can ever really get into the details, but I do think that going from free money to very expensive money likely had more to do with this than his ego and bad judgement.
  - jqpabc123 3y ago
    Musk himself has said he paid twice what the company was worth. Too bad he didn't take time to figure that out before he placed his bid. Too bad he didn't figure out that social media wasn't a good fit for his style.

sidibe 3y ago

He should have tried at least a little bit the way that has made Twitter profitable for some quarters in the past instead of diving head first into thinking people would want to pay. Making the platform appealing to advertisers and having a sales team get them to spend.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jqpabc123 3y ago

In other words, his purchase was more political than economic, more ego than sound business judgment. He is totally out of his element and flying by trial and error. A crash and burn is the most likely result IMO. Social media and advertising is an inherently humanistic/social endeavor requiring a deft business touch. Musk isn't exactly famous for his humanity or his humility or his social skills. He is waddling around like a duck out of water.

devjab 3y ago
> In other words, his purchase was more political than economic, more ego than sound business judgment. Not necessarily. I'm not a fan of the guy, but I do work in investment finance. The increase of interest rates might've been the reason he didn't want to go through with the buy. We went from a world where borrowing money was almost free to a world where it's very expensive. When Elon signed himself into buying Twitter loaning money for you and me was between 0.25% and 0.50% rate, when it finalized it was between 3.75% and 4.00%. The organisational loans are different, but not by much, and not only did those 6 months show the increase in rate, our financial industry also went through the realization that this wasn't likely to end as soon as they first hoped. I'm not sure we can ever really get into the details, but I do think that going from free money to very expensive money likely had more to do with this than his ego and bad judgement.
- jqpabc123 3y ago
  Musk himself has said he paid twice what the company was worth. Too bad he didn't take time to figure that out before he placed his bid. Too bad he didn't figure out that social media wasn't a good fit for his style.