• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

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

    • Bonehead@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • soundasleep@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

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

      • rtxn@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • MrJameGumb@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year 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?

  • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year 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.”

  • minnow@lemmy.world
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    1 year 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!

  • Vertelleus@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

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

  • Tygr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • ThunderingJerboa@kbin.social
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      1 year 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.

    • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Tygr@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I have to disagree because I feel “the point” is profitability. My comment shows a direct issue with profitability when liberal-swayed advertisers have to exit because of a network’s new direction.

        I do understand your argument though. That’s another massive layer that will be impossible to overcome.

  • blazera@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Deerhorne@lemmy.world
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      1 year 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.

    • whatsarefoogee@lemmy.world
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      1 year 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.

    • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      More like, his old friend Peter Thiel failed to set up a rival platform to Twitter, so Musk helped by tanking the company and saddling it with $13bn of debt.