this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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[–] Buffalox 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In May Fidelity wrote down the value of its stake in the company then still known as Twitter, giving it a value of about $15 billion – or just a third of what Musk paid, The Wall Street Journal Reported.

I think even that was not realistic, and back in May things were not as bad yet as they are now at "The thing formerly known as Twitter". I doubt anyone would buy it at even half that now. Musk added a debt of $20 billion, that's about what it was worth at the time Musk bought it.

With that debt, the company became basically worth Zero. Even at the estimate when Musk bought it.

If the $20 billion debt was somehow removed, it would still be worth less than $10 billion. Meaning that its current actual worth is probably below negative $10 billion! Meaning the only value is the tax value of the deficit. And no creditors get paid. It's basically already bankrupt, unless someone pumps in more money, and I'm not seeing that happening with a company as bad as "The thing formerly known as Twitter".

Seems like the only way forward now, is bankruptcy and maybe reconstruction after selling the company without the debt for peanuts.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Most of the value was probably with the brand itself. Which he then tossed away. Genius.

[–] Buffalox 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, and even the name is probably almost worthless now, he has massacred everything including the original name. It's to bad, because the original concept was OK, and could probably have survived without the insanity Musk brought.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder what term will replace tweet... it worked so well. Oh I tweeted this last night...

People aren't going to say I X'd that last night. Sure you can say I posted something on X or I dunno, but I don't think they'll ever get something as good as tweeting on twitter.

[–] Buffalox 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I agree, you can't create something similar easily, it's like to "Google it". Nobody would dream to say "Bing it" or "Yahoo it". If they had achieved dominance instead of Google we might, but you can't just change such things.

Even if X should become somewhat popular, to X it doesn't really work.

So even with a new service as popular as Twitter used to be, it's unlikely to replace the term "to tweet". It could simply go back to "to message" IDK. That would work disregarding of platform name, but would lack the brilliance of tweeting on Twitter.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was just thinking on this more and had a laugh at someone saying this out loud

Them: "Did you see my X last night, i ripped them a new one!"
Friend: "You did what to your ex last night? Does your wife know!?"

[–] Buffalox 2 points 1 year ago

That's hilarious.

But I'm sure Musk thought that through before implementing the new name for the thing formerly known as twitter. /s

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

That was a truly insane decision. Of all the annoying and idiotic things he's said, "Soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds" is way up there.