this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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[–] FlyingSquid 148 points 11 months ago (3 children)

What? The super genius couldn't turn it into a cash machine? I thought he was the smartest (and funniest) person on the planet!

[–] [email protected] 96 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

I think this is the saddest part, at least for him. Before Twitter, a lot of people thought he was relatively intelligent to be a part of a groundbreaking electric car company, a crazy tunnel digging company, and wild space vehicle company doing innovative things. Now since Twitter, we see an insanely rich narcissistic meglomaniac that was kept out of most Tesla big decisions as he just wanted the publicity for himself, the tunnel digging company was nothing more than a way to interfere with green projects, SpaceX did the same thing as Tesla and succeeded despite Musk's involvement, and a once respected medium of open communication worth a reported $44 billion dollars devolve into a cess pool of bigotry and arbitrary restrictions. Whatever good will he built for himself over the years that saw him even get a cameo in a Marvel movie next to Tony Stark, he's burned through most of it in the eyes of a lot of people.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's great for everyone with imposter syndrome! I used to fear I was too inexperienced, inept, unprofessional... but then this happened 😅

[–] whatsarefoogee 21 points 11 months ago

Does your daddy own an emerald mine though? That's kind of the key here.

[–] rtxn 34 points 11 months ago (2 children)

SpaceX and Tesla both grew with his continuous involvement. The managers were trained (out of necessity) to keep his "genius" in check without destroying the company or getting themselves fired. In a sense, Musk's continuous presence gave the companies a form of immunity.

When he infested the bird, the managers didn't know how to protect it. It was like bringing smallpox to the new world.

[–] clutchmatic 10 points 11 months ago

Also, there were no managers left after Musk's big purge

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[–] dojan 14 points 11 months ago

Buying Twitter was just him getting a fleshlight for his ego.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Well his mum says he is so it must be true.

[–] [email protected] 123 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Good. Fuck him and fuck Twitter.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

No thanks. I have standards.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago

You mean cozying up to human traffickers and literal Nazis and limiting people to reading a handful of tweets per day didn't convince advertisers to invest??? Who could have imagined that?

[–] YoBuckStopsHere 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Maybe you should not have fucked up a good thing.

[–] RubyDaCherry 26 points 11 months ago (5 children)
[–] TenderfootGungi 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] somethingsnappy 3 points 11 months ago

Mildly profitable for about 2 years. After 12 years of losses. Then lost money even before the moron bought it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Twitter was a great space for breaking news, official alerts like weather, earthquakes and tsunamis, for developing election day tallies.
The "you mean Grimes left the king of SpaceX?" manchild broke all that.

[–] FlyingSquid 6 points 11 months ago

She left him for Chelsea Manning, which almost makes me believe in karma.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I think everyone who thought twitter was bad/hated it just really used it the wrong way.

All you had to do was follow specific accounts akin to your interest (and probably avoid reading comments) and it was fab. That was the intended use anyway until they started forcing more algorithmic content you didn't ask for into a new 'home' feed.

It was a fantastic tool for keeping up to date with things you are interested in and there was nothing else like it, still isn't to that scale.

If you were browsing trending sections and engaging in comment threads, then you were always going to have a bad time and get bullshit shoved into your face.

[–] YoBuckStopsHere 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Early Twitter was good, started going to crap around 2012.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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[–] MicroWave 37 points 11 months ago

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is also CTO and executive chairman of Twitter, said early Saturday morning that cash flow remains negative at the social media company because of a nearly 50% drop in advertising revenue coupled with “heavy debt.”

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago

I’m gonna be honest with you, Elon: that sounds like a “you” problem.

[–] chairman 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well, at least he has the "sink" in...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My mom said you can't post mean messages about me anymore.

[–] Leeharveyteabag 3 points 11 months ago

The stepmom that’s also your sister? Because that’s embarrassing dude, you should talk to somebody about how your dad married your sister.

[–] phoneymouse 17 points 11 months ago

Not my problem

[–] nocturne213 15 points 11 months ago

Nelson laugh

[–] minnow 14 points 11 months ago

The hundreds of thousands of dollars he's paying his right-wing buddies to post on Twitter are going to have a great ROI any day now, he's sure of it!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

Didn't they just start that "ad-sharing" thing? This really emphasizes that they are just trying to bribe content creators to drive traffic to the website.

I need some popcorn for when they panic and shut that down.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

I never really used Twitter, but I am enjoying dumpster fire.
Now if the government could only get his Muskiness to pay taxes.

[–] PreciousTater311 12 points 11 months ago

Too bad the My Pillow guy doesn't have cash to throw at Twitter ads.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Inconceivable.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Screw around and find out, Elon Musk...That man's choices lead to this outcome, and I want to see him simmer in the shit stew. Keep the great news rolling in! 😏

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Yeah this is all lining up way too neatly on the timeline of him meeting with Putin, then buying twitter. Guys a russian asset working to undermine western communications supportive of ukraine.

[–] whatsarefoogee 6 points 11 months ago

People need to stop with these conspiracies that it's some kind of 4d chess. We have a recorded history of Musk trying to get out of the deal with every excuse in the book. He only folded when his private communications becoming were being considered to become part of the legal process.

He ran his mouth, like he has done before with Tesla, except this time he got held accountable for it.

[–] Deerhorne 3 points 11 months ago

That's a good point I've been thinking for a while too. Elon even tried to interfere with the comm setups... Forgot the name of those now. But yeah he's a complete Russian tool.

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[–] Tygr 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

You don’t buy a heavily liberal swayed network and flip it heavily conservative. All of your advertisers will have an issue and it takes a long time to bring in new advertisers that like the new direction.

That’s like buying Truth Social and banning Trump.

P.S. I can’t stand Twitter. Never liked it, never will.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Hell lets be honest here, I think many advertisers do sway more heavily conservative but the problem is advertisers want stability. Elon basically opened the flood gates to let anything go (as long as he agrees with them) and that created massive change at once. So you have to play the game of pandering to your audience who are likely going to be on the left just due to the left being a far more numerous group and no big advertiser would want an ad anywhere near a racial tirade. Like the higher ups of these corporations can and may be incredibly racist but you don't want your brand associated with it since you basically cut off a sizeable part of your market in the space you are trying to advertise. At the end of the day they want money and they don't want to rock the boat visibly.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"heavily liberal" citation required

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

You don’t buy a heavily liberal swayed network and flip it heavily conservative.

That was never the point. The point was that it would either change, or die from the $13bn debt the purchase saddled Twitter with.

  • Musk paid $26 bn, underwritten by Tesla stock.
  • $5 bn was from other investors, including a Saudi prince.
  • $13 bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on Musk's behalf.

The "heavy debt" that drives Twitter's cashflow into the negative is a direct result of the purchase.

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[–] Nepoleon 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Elon Musk being honest: Twitter numbers and financials are down bc I bought the company and ran it down

[–] SamXavia 7 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Glad it's sinking, most likely will be removing my whole account from the platform very soon and gonna be so glad to do so

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Also, because there seems to be "some kind of moron running it"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Heavy debt, he caused by overpaying for Twitter with loans with high interest rates. And now Twitter needs to somehow "make a profit".

[–] query 3 points 11 months ago

Imagine how much money they would be losing if they didn't stop paying their bills.

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