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Elon Musk is considering taking Twitter out of Europe amid EU compliance investigation
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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It is increasingly likely that the point of purchasing Twitter was to destroy it.
Edit - FWIW, I waffle back and forth on this one. I mean, the guy's not a complete idiot. Though I don't certainly think he's the genius people often think he is. He's needed had a fair amount of luck and self-serving coercion to get where he is. The Twitter stuff is just so blind to market reality that I wonder if there's some self-sabotage in there?
(Either way, I am genuinely enjoying the the follow-on comments here!)
Well, mostly to take it away from the libs and hand it to fascists.
Expect a fire sale to Trump Social.
Except he bungled that and now it's dying
Oh no! It's just resting!
Pining for the fjords!?
Hush little Twitter don't you cry;
Papa Elon Musk won't let you die.
Hush little Twitter don't say a word;
Papa's gonna make you a mocking bird.
His point of purchasing Twitter was to pretend that he was purchasing Twitter. He never intended to go through with it.
Remember that he tried to back out but courts forced him to go through with it.
Since he was an idiot and gave a no reservations or conditions bid for the company. At way overpriced at that. The existing biard and owners must have been fainting from shock and glee.
No one sane ever gives no reservations and conditions bid. That is insanely stupid thing to do.
Twitter didn't make Elon buy Twitter. Elon did that to himself. Under normal bid, absolutely he could back out by arguing one of the conditions his lawyers would have put in.
Either his lawyers were highly incompetent, he didn't use them or he ignored their advice that it would be highly unusual and monumentally stupid to issue such bid while waiving ones right to have terms and conditions included. Well negotiate in terms and conditions. Since obviously otherside might refuse to accept the buying contract, if they don't like the terms and conditions.
In this case all the judge did was looked at the bid contract and went "Mister Musk, you signed bid to buy with no terms and conditions. So you have to honor the bid."
Sorry but that's dumb. You don't spend $44B to ruin it, when you can use it for own benefit.
EU doesn't like the changes he did and started investigation. Melon hopes that by threatening to withdraw they might stop, or be easy on him.
I mean if the goal was indeed so ridiculous as shutting Twitter down, it would be easy as shutting it down. He would save his image by just doing that instead of what he is doing right now.
His goal is to turn Twitter around and use it for affecting next elections, he is running into pesky EU and their regulations.
He didn't plan on spending 44B. The plan was to manipulatie stock price with pretending to buy, but Twitter management saw that one coming and let him sign a document for 44B that the rich idiot didn't read.
So when the "I changed my mind" phase of his master plan started, Twitter pulled out the document and forced him to cough up the 44B. So yeah, now he pretends it was the plan all along.
It’s trying to give him a little credit to justify messing up a purchase that large.
If the intention wasn’t to shut it down or disrupt then everything that’s happened is literally just Elon being a complete dunce. Which is definitely more likely, but scary to think someone can be that reckless with 44 billion dollars
Which is yet another reason to add to the list of reasons no one needs that much money. That $44b could have positively changed thousands of lives (at least). Instead, it just continued flushing things down the Xitter.
But that wouldn't work. If the community was snuffed out in a day then it would move to some clone pretty easily. It dying slowly means the community is divided and diluted many ways.
EU is waking up to the danger to democracy that is unregulated social networks ruled by trolls and dysonformation. They would be glad for them to leave.
He owns it though, he doesn't have to respond to shareholders anymore it is his company, so he can just shut it down if he wishes.
He took some debt to purchase it, but in case of debt, when coolant goes down lenders don't care if it was his fault or not.
It is ridiculous to think that he is doing this purposefully.
I think some people still have hangups, because how somebody who created Tesla and SpaceX could be this bad. The thing is that those companies are run by different people he is just their face.
Immediately after purchasing the site state "during this time of transition for Twitter, we're going to take the service offline for a period of time while the team evaluates the best way forward." then never turn it on again and eventually say "after extensive deliberation, we cannot determine a viable method towards profitability and will not be resuming services."
No one looks bad and the service is totally destroyed from day one.
That's not what was done, actions were taken with some other non-obvious goal. Although, it may be charitable to suggest that he's got a goal.
When company is go longer public and you own it, what argument somebody would have to sue you for?
The theory that he is purposefully destroying his company is just dumb, there's no upside for him to do that.
~~Nah, he never wanted to buy it.~~
~~It was a pump and dump and then the SEC forced him to actually buy it.~~
He tried to back out but was forced to complete the sale.
Now he has no idea what to do with it and is just digging himself deeper and deeper and deeper.
He signed a contract to buy it, then tried to back out.
Good point, you are correct. I worded that incorrectly and have edited it.
To people like EM, laws are only there to force others to do what they want, not to bind or limit their actions. When he decided to back out of the deal, as far as he was concerned, he should have been allowed to.
When they sued to force the sale, it was the legal discovery that scared the shit out of him. So he had to go through with the purchase.
What was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter?
Well, he is kinda following a random message he got from an unknown person:
Seems he's killing it to get cheers and adulation from the far right.
Why try to back out then? If this was some catch and kill op why did he humiliate himself and involve a fuck ton of bank loans??
Also it’s not like that text is some grand fuckin plan lmao
It’s a damn copy paste from the fascist playbook, reverse victim and offender/gaslight/silence those you don’t like with your new power
Frankly he's a fucking idiot. He and his parents have been wealthy enough that he's never actually had a meaningful consequence of any decision he's ever made.
And, if he's sad about it, he just cries into a mountain of money until he feels superior again.
If he wanted to kill it, this whole charade would be utterly pointless. He could literally just pull the plug.
porque no los dos?
I think he found himself between a rock and a hard place having to buy Twitter, but now he is realizing he can't make his money back and his attempts to alter the platform to his liking are failing miserably as well, he is probably dead set on killing it for good.
I'm not so sure.
He owns it outright now.
There are no other shareholders to answer to.
If he wanted to close it down tomorrow, he could just turn off the servers and sack everyone.
It is likely that some of his employees have contracts, and he might have to pay out the remainder of those contracts, depending on the details and national labor law.
I also think as he doesn't align politically with a lot of ppl on Twitter, he might wanna phase it out slowly, so there's no sudden jump in other platforms trying to take over the role of Twitter.
Ofc I have no evidence for that, but I could see him doing that.
I like this take, too. I also see him spinning this into major tax write offs, or something. Even losses benefit billionaires in this country it seems.
Anyone that believes this is truly brain dead. He was humiliated when he didn’t look into the deal signed the contract and then tried to pull out when he realized what was happening. He had to beg for loans for fucks sake, putting up Tesla shares and other things as collateral.
He’s just a dumb rich piece of shit who is desperate for control and power. He will say or do anything to get what he wants (especially if he thinks it will garner attention) - that doesn’t require a master plan or any real preemptive thought for that matter
He’s a fucking piece of shit with a golden parachute out his ass and a silver spoon in his mouth since he was a child. He has ALWAYS bought his way in, look at damn near every business venture this piece of shit has had. Shit, he literally bought his way into Tesla, then OUSTED THE OGS AND LABELED HIMSELF A FUCKIN FOUNDER.
It has always worked for him so he kept trying to buy his way thru shit. Just look at his little spat with Zuck. He is ALL talk; especially when his money gets to do the talking. When shit hits the fan he scrambles. Always has always will
That makes No sense. He's just bad at busniess
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
You're giving Musk way too much credit.
I'm sorry, but I've heard him talk. He's not stupid. He's a troll though, and has more than enough money to treat Twitter as a toy that can be destroyed for the lulz or as a vengeance / tantrum for having been forced to buy it. Almost every change he made seems specifically designed to destroy the platform.
I've heard him talk a few times too. It is possible to be intelligent in a couple of areas, and remarkably dumb in the rest. People struggle to understand this, because they equate wealth with skill.
It's also painfully obvious if you have some technical knowledge. You cannot observe the man to be the dumbest person in the room, too many times, before you reach the conclusion that perhaps instead of being a misunderstood mastermind, he is just a bit dim, with a bit too much money.
What kind of technical knowledge are you referring to, that makes it obvious that he's dim after hearing him talk?
Most of the things he's said about Twitter. Most of the meetings he shared while CEO of Twitter. The stupidity behind hyperloop.
So none of the work he's been involved with that actually matters.
What do you mean? He devalued Twitter pretty impressively by both being involved, and being incompetent. What kind of example do you want? Or is your argument that it doesn't matter, because twitter no longer matters?
He's mainly involved in technologies with the potential to transform humanity: making it multi-planet, reducing dependency on oil, expanding intelligence, etc. I don't know if his technical acumen on those fronts is good or not, but you can't honestly look at all these efforts and say "that's a moron".
Twitter is kind of an irrelevant side-project due to his increasing involvement in politics, where he's clearly on the stupid side of things. Judging his intelligence on that alone is a bit ridiculous.
Also you're assuming he's imploding Twitter out of incompetence and not on purpose. Remember he can afford to do it, he's a troll and quite childish. I find it much more likely that he's doing it for the tax benefit, out of spite for having been forced to buy it, or even for the lulz.
And to be frank, who are we to judge his intelligence after all his achievements? You think luck alone can produce SpaceX and Tesla, both incredibly innovative and disruptive companies? What exactly have you achieved that you feel qualified to pronounce him a moron? He may be a horrible person, but a moron?
Maybe hes just using it to hide something.