9 ms·

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that he is tanking Twitter to then get a payout from the Saudis.

by simonklitj 3y ago

darkwraithcov 3y ago
He just did autocrats a huge solid.
- kadoban 3y ago
  Less of a solid than he was already doing by turning it into a haven for extremist right-wingers.
  - spinach 3y ago
    As it was a haven for extremist left-wingers, perhaps now it's balanced out.
    - darkwraithcov 3y ago
      As an “extremist left winger” I can tell you that this is false. We got banned all the time for talking trash to nazis and proud boys (many of whom are now in prison for trying to overthrow the country).
  - User23 3y ago
    I keep hearing people say this, but I'm just not seeing it. Who are these extremist right-wingers that are now on Twitter? I don't know of anyone to the right of Tucker Carlson, and he's a bog standard center-right civic nationalist. As far as I can tell the actual extremist right-wingers are on Gab rather than Twitter.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      Perhaps you don't see the extreme right on Twitter because you think Tucker Carlson is center-right. He is about as right-wing you can get without actively doing the Hitler salute. The fact that he has a slight populist, anti-corporate bent doesn't affect that significantly. And I'm speaking from a US politics perspective, where Hillary Clinton is considered center-left. If we were to take a more international view, then Joe Biden is somewhere on the center-right, and Trump and Tucker are so far on the right that you can barely see the spaces between them and the nazis. For context, far-right Marine Le Pen of France is to the left of Tucker on most issues, except that she's a bit more openly racist.
      - bluescrn 3y ago
        As unpleasant as these right-wing figures are, do you really think that any of them are truly genocidal or likely to engage in military conquest? (and therefore genuinely worthy of comparison with the Nazis)
        hef19898 3y ago
        Regarding their views of minorities, muslims, women and jews, well, let's say they arw frightingly close. For now, they also seem to be rather non-interventionlist, so now outright conquest. But then, people forget that the first country the Nazis conquered was Germany. Not saying all right winger are Nazis, but the "jews will not replace us" crowd definitely is. And the rest is at least authoritarian bordering facist. Same goes for some European parties: the AfD in Germamy, whateber LePen calls her outfit now in France, the current government party in Italy, the current politics of Nethanyahu (arguably not a Nazinof course, but a straight up authoritarian with religious tendencies and disdain for democratic seperation of powers), Hungary, the FPÖ in Austria... The list way too long.
        tsimionescu 3y ago
        The Nazis weren't genocidal until well after they held absolute power. I suspect the same will be true of a lot of these ultra-right-wing figures if they ever get into power. To be clear, I'm talking more of the Richard Spencers of the world, not so much the Tucker Carlsons. But I'm sure Tucker would very much rather see an actual nazi in power than a Bernie Sanders.
        pavlov 3y ago
        That’s exactly what people said about Vladimir Putin 15-20 years ago. “Sure, he has an unpleasant authoritarian stripe, but surely he wouldn’t actually engage in military conquest and genocide.” And here we are. Don’t underestimate the nationalist bloodlust.
        noarchy 3y ago
        >As unpleasant as these right-wing figures are, do you really think that any of them are truly genocidal or likely to engage in military conquest? (and therefore genuinely worthy of comparison with the Nazis) Haven't some of them been clamouring for an attack on Mexico recently? Anyway, there are worse figures than Tucker Carlson on Twitter. Some are outright nazis. Others can name them if they wish, but I won't amplify them here.
3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
You think he wasted his co-investors (including Saudis themselves) about $20 billion and took on a $13 billion dollar loan himself, and was forced to sell billions in Tesla stock, to get a "payout". Like how large a "payout" that has to be for any of this to make a lick of sense? There's no payout. There's no conspiracy. Just a man and his arrogance and mental issues.
- propogandist 3y ago
  [dead]
- KingMob 3y ago
  I agree with you, but fwiw, the conspiracy is that the Saudis want to avoid a repeat of the Arab Spring that was heavily fueled by Twitter, so in that sense, $20 bil would be the price tag to destroy Twitter, not an investment that needs to be recouped.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    Surely they wouldn't pay $20 billion to a guy who purportedly is buying Twitter because he's a "free speech absolutist" and is "defending the future of democracy of the world". Even if it's just PR (and it is just PR, evidently), it's an additional burden to have your PR and your actions be consistently at 180 degrees. Also, $20 billion aren't the "price tag". That money didn't go to Elon. They went to Twitter's shareholders. Elon only ended up with losses and loans, so far, to the tune of another 20-30 billion at the very least. So where's the "payout"? If you "hired" Elon to do this for you, as a Saudi, and you spend $20 billion as a co-investor, and need to cover Elon's $20-30 billion loss, "the price tag" is now up to $50 billion, but we're still only at break even in the short term, and only when we don't consider opportunity cost of Tesla stock dropping last year and future losses to Elon's company brands and so on, because he's coming off as a lunatic and wasting his time on Twitter, instead of being at Tesla and SpaceX. So what's the price tag now? $80 billion? $100 billion? $150 billion? Reminder, the entire Saudi family, all of them, together, have about $1.4 trillion, and that's not cash in the bank, but assets, oil, real estate, all of it. Which means any such "price tag" would imply them giving up all their liquid assets and maybe liquidating more assets, in order to afford this "price tag" so quickly. It's just nonsense.
Sai_ 3y ago
You and me both! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36558581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36558581 At this point, this seems intentional on his part.
- gochi 3y ago
  This is hilarious, it assumes Saudi investors would value silencing dissenters at $44BN. It also requires believing that these machiavellian Saudi investors are so dumb they can't tell how much power they would have by keeping Twitter growing so they can more effectively silence dissenters before it becomes news.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    People can't accept that Elon could do something this stupid, so they assert that he has to be playing some kind of 4D chess.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      Just an hour ago on some news show from a US TV channel, NBC or Fox or what was it, the host said (about the X rebrand) "it doesn't make sense, so there should be a bigger plan here". And that indeed sums up so much of the mentality of Elon's supporters. The more stupid things it does, the grander the delusion becomes.
      - lamontcg 3y ago
        Common falsehood that people believe is that smart people simply can't do stupid shit.
        kamel3d 3y ago
        I agree with you even the saudi investors are also stupid just look at to that line city project
HWR_14 3y ago
It would be far better for the Saudis to use Twitter to shadowban dissent and astroturf support than just shutting it down.
joshish 3y ago
I don't buy this theory — Elon holds the X branding dearly to an absurd degree and wouldn't burn it as an exit plan — but the question that I have is: how is Elon going to transfer x.com to X Corp? He reportedly owns it personally after buying it back from PayPal, so is he going to donate the domain to the newly-formed company or is he going to sell it to X Corp for a fee?
- nashashmi 3y ago
  Right on. He wants to make it more than just a tweet message platform. He wants to make it his own personal portal. That will do X. The price he paid is for the human traffic. Redirected to his world of interests
  - hef19898 3y ago
    So, his pitch is: It is like X for X? For some reason, I like that.
solumunus 3y ago
This is completely silly and nonsensical.
- simonklitj 3y ago
  Indeed!

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that he is tanking Twitter to then get a payout from the Saudis.

darkwraithcov 3y ago

He just did autocrats a huge solid.

kadoban 3y ago
Less of a solid than he was already doing by turning it into a haven for extremist right-wingers.
- spinach 3y ago
  As it was a haven for extremist left-wingers, perhaps now it's balanced out.
  - darkwraithcov 3y ago
    As an “extremist left winger” I can tell you that this is false. We got banned all the time for talking trash to nazis and proud boys (many of whom are now in prison for trying to overthrow the country).
- User23 3y ago
  I keep hearing people say this, but I'm just not seeing it. Who are these extremist right-wingers that are now on Twitter? I don't know of anyone to the right of Tucker Carlson, and he's a bog standard center-right civic nationalist. As far as I can tell the actual extremist right-wingers are on Gab rather than Twitter.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Perhaps you don't see the extreme right on Twitter because you think Tucker Carlson is center-right. He is about as right-wing you can get without actively doing the Hitler salute. The fact that he has a slight populist, anti-corporate bent doesn't affect that significantly. And I'm speaking from a US politics perspective, where Hillary Clinton is considered center-left. If we were to take a more international view, then Joe Biden is somewhere on the center-right, and Trump and Tucker are so far on the right that you can barely see the spaces between them and the nazis. For context, far-right Marine Le Pen of France is to the left of Tucker on most issues, except that she's a bit more openly racist.
    - bluescrn 3y ago
      As unpleasant as these right-wing figures are, do you really think that any of them are truly genocidal or likely to engage in military conquest? (and therefore genuinely worthy of comparison with the Nazis)
      - hef19898 3y ago
        Regarding their views of minorities, muslims, women and jews, well, let's say they arw frightingly close. For now, they also seem to be rather non-interventionlist, so now outright conquest. But then, people forget that the first country the Nazis conquered was Germany. Not saying all right winger are Nazis, but the "jews will not replace us" crowd definitely is. And the rest is at least authoritarian bordering facist. Same goes for some European parties: the AfD in Germamy, whateber LePen calls her outfit now in France, the current government party in Italy, the current politics of Nethanyahu (arguably not a Nazinof course, but a straight up authoritarian with religious tendencies and disdain for democratic seperation of powers), Hungary, the FPÖ in Austria... The list way too long.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        The Nazis weren't genocidal until well after they held absolute power. I suspect the same will be true of a lot of these ultra-right-wing figures if they ever get into power. To be clear, I'm talking more of the Richard Spencers of the world, not so much the Tucker Carlsons. But I'm sure Tucker would very much rather see an actual nazi in power than a Bernie Sanders.
      - pavlov 3y ago
        That’s exactly what people said about Vladimir Putin 15-20 years ago. “Sure, he has an unpleasant authoritarian stripe, but surely he wouldn’t actually engage in military conquest and genocide.” And here we are. Don’t underestimate the nationalist bloodlust.
      - noarchy 3y ago
        >As unpleasant as these right-wing figures are, do you really think that any of them are truly genocidal or likely to engage in military conquest? (and therefore genuinely worthy of comparison with the Nazis) Haven't some of them been clamouring for an attack on Mexico recently? Anyway, there are worse figures than Tucker Carlson on Twitter. Some are outright nazis. Others can name them if they wish, but I won't amplify them here.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago

You think he wasted his co-investors (including Saudis themselves) about $20 billion and took on a $13 billion dollar loan himself, and was forced to sell billions in Tesla stock, to get a "payout". Like how large a "payout" that has to be for any of this to make a lick of sense? There's no payout. There's no conspiracy. Just a man and his arrogance and mental issues.

propogandist 3y ago
[dead]
KingMob 3y ago
I agree with you, but fwiw, the conspiracy is that the Saudis want to avoid a repeat of the Arab Spring that was heavily fueled by Twitter, so in that sense, $20 bil would be the price tag to destroy Twitter, not an investment that needs to be recouped.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  Surely they wouldn't pay $20 billion to a guy who purportedly is buying Twitter because he's a "free speech absolutist" and is "defending the future of democracy of the world". Even if it's just PR (and it is just PR, evidently), it's an additional burden to have your PR and your actions be consistently at 180 degrees. Also, $20 billion aren't the "price tag". That money didn't go to Elon. They went to Twitter's shareholders. Elon only ended up with losses and loans, so far, to the tune of another 20-30 billion at the very least. So where's the "payout"? If you "hired" Elon to do this for you, as a Saudi, and you spend $20 billion as a co-investor, and need to cover Elon's $20-30 billion loss, "the price tag" is now up to $50 billion, but we're still only at break even in the short term, and only when we don't consider opportunity cost of Tesla stock dropping last year and future losses to Elon's company brands and so on, because he's coming off as a lunatic and wasting his time on Twitter, instead of being at Tesla and SpaceX. So what's the price tag now? $80 billion? $100 billion? $150 billion? Reminder, the entire Saudi family, all of them, together, have about $1.4 trillion, and that's not cash in the bank, but assets, oil, real estate, all of it. Which means any such "price tag" would imply them giving up all their liquid assets and maybe liquidating more assets, in order to afford this "price tag" so quickly. It's just nonsense.

Sai_ 3y ago

You and me both! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36558581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36558581 At this point, this seems intentional on his part.

gochi 3y ago
This is hilarious, it assumes Saudi investors would value silencing dissenters at $44BN. It also requires believing that these machiavellian Saudi investors are so dumb they can't tell how much power they would have by keeping Twitter growing so they can more effectively silence dissenters before it becomes news.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  People can't accept that Elon could do something this stupid, so they assert that he has to be playing some kind of 4D chess.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    Just an hour ago on some news show from a US TV channel, NBC or Fox or what was it, the host said (about the X rebrand) "it doesn't make sense, so there should be a bigger plan here". And that indeed sums up so much of the mentality of Elon's supporters. The more stupid things it does, the grander the delusion becomes.
    - lamontcg 3y ago
      Common falsehood that people believe is that smart people simply can't do stupid shit.
      - kamel3d 3y ago
        I agree with you even the saudi investors are also stupid just look at to that line city project

HWR_14 3y ago

It would be far better for the Saudis to use Twitter to shadowban dissent and astroturf support than just shutting it down.

joshish 3y ago

I don't buy this theory — Elon holds the X branding dearly to an absurd degree and wouldn't burn it as an exit plan — but the question that I have is: how is Elon going to transfer x.com to X Corp? He reportedly owns it personally after buying it back from PayPal, so is he going to donate the domain to the newly-formed company or is he going to sell it to X Corp for a fee?

nashashmi 3y ago
Right on. He wants to make it more than just a tweet message platform. He wants to make it his own personal portal. That will do X. The price he paid is for the human traffic. Redirected to his world of interests
- hef19898 3y ago
  So, his pitch is: It is like X for X? For some reason, I like that.

solumunus 3y ago

This is completely silly and nonsensical.

simonklitj 3y ago
Indeed!