4 ms·

I don't think he ever wanted Twitter to succeed

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hristov 3y ago
So he just wanted to blow away 30 billion of his own money? He felt he had too much money but he did not want to give the money to the needy or anything woke like that he just wanted to waste it in an extravagant gesture? I think the answer is different. He wanted it to succeed he was sure it would succeed, but like many people blinded by previous success and personality worship he thought it would be easy and a bunch of half baked simple solutions would be sufficient. Fire most of your employees and increase fees for most of your users. Seems very simple, right? Guess not.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  Very little of what made Twitter successful was its engineering. Thats what he didn’t understand. It’s a social network. Network effects are the most important. People will use a second rate network if all of their friends are on it.
- permo-w 3y ago
  what's $30bn to someone with $260bn? that's like the average person buying a mac, or maybe a cheap car, except less important because Elon Musk doesn't need the other 7/8 of his wealth to survive on I sincerely do not think Elon Musk is that stupid. you don't build Tesla, Paypal and SpaceX with the kinds of decisions that have been made at Twitter, and I think it's quite silly to take the basic assumption that no one ever buys a company to deliberately destroy them. why wouldn't that happen?
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    You do realize he didn’t have hundreds of billions laying around, right? He had to take out loans to raise the cash. He used his best asset (Tesla stock) as collateral as well as promises of future Twitter profits. Having stocks as a part of your valuation means it’s not easy to spend a lot quickly. It would be like if you had $100 but spending $20 means you only have $65 left.
    - permo-w 3y ago
      none of this is relevant. so what he has to take 2 extra steps to access the wealth? it's still there, and it's not like he has to sit down and do it himself
JeremyNT 3y ago
What would he have wanted it for then? Just a toy to mess around with and annoy people as it fails? Or he's burning it down as part of some as-yet-unrevealed long term strategy? I have to think Hanlon's razor applies.
- permo-w 3y ago
  Twitter/X is/was the biggest ever platform for public organisation. Unionisation, protests, independent journalism, all things that an authoritarian like Musk and his Saudi backers would very much like to crush. what's $30bn to a man with $260bn? if I was that rich, you can be damn sure there'd be businesses I'd be buying and deliberately running into the ground
janalsncm 3y ago
That’s giving him way too much credit. Let’s not forget he tried his hardest to back out of the deal before the Delaware courts forced him to buy (based on the terms he agreed to, or pay $1B to get out). If he wanted to tank Twitter, he would have bought it happily. No, he said some things online, then signed a legally binding document, then realized he was in over his head, then proceeded to perform exactly as well as an owner in over their head (actually worse, since the status quo was not nearly this bad).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

So he just wanted to blow away 30 billion of his own money? He felt he had too much money but he did not want to give the money to the needy or anything woke like that he just wanted to waste it in an extravagant gesture? I think the answer is different. He wanted it to succeed he was sure it would succeed, but like many people blinded by previous success and personality worship he thought it would be easy and a bunch of half baked simple solutions would be sufficient. Fire most of your employees and increase fees for most of your users. Seems very simple, right? Guess not.

janalsncm 3y ago
Very little of what made Twitter successful was its engineering. Thats what he didn’t understand. It’s a social network. Network effects are the most important. People will use a second rate network if all of their friends are on it.
permo-w 3y ago
what's $30bn to someone with $260bn? that's like the average person buying a mac, or maybe a cheap car, except less important because Elon Musk doesn't need the other 7/8 of his wealth to survive on I sincerely do not think Elon Musk is that stupid. you don't build Tesla, Paypal and SpaceX with the kinds of decisions that have been made at Twitter, and I think it's quite silly to take the basic assumption that no one ever buys a company to deliberately destroy them. why wouldn't that happen?
- janalsncm 3y ago
  You do realize he didn’t have hundreds of billions laying around, right? He had to take out loans to raise the cash. He used his best asset (Tesla stock) as collateral as well as promises of future Twitter profits. Having stocks as a part of your valuation means it’s not easy to spend a lot quickly. It would be like if you had $100 but spending $20 means you only have $65 left.
  - permo-w 3y ago
    none of this is relevant. so what he has to take 2 extra steps to access the wealth? it's still there, and it's not like he has to sit down and do it himself

JeremyNT 3y ago

What would he have wanted it for then? Just a toy to mess around with and annoy people as it fails? Or he's burning it down as part of some as-yet-unrevealed long term strategy? I have to think Hanlon's razor applies.

permo-w 3y ago
Twitter/X is/was the biggest ever platform for public organisation. Unionisation, protests, independent journalism, all things that an authoritarian like Musk and his Saudi backers would very much like to crush. what's $30bn to a man with $260bn? if I was that rich, you can be damn sure there'd be businesses I'd be buying and deliberately running into the ground

janalsncm 3y ago

That’s giving him way too much credit. Let’s not forget he tried his hardest to back out of the deal before the Delaware courts forced him to buy (based on the terms he agreed to, or pay $1B to get out). If he wanted to tank Twitter, he would have bought it happily. No, he said some things online, then signed a legally binding document, then realized he was in over his head, then proceeded to perform exactly as well as an owner in over their head (actually worse, since the status quo was not nearly this bad).