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Twitter To Rebrand As X (www.theverge.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/technology@beehaw.org
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[–] 121 points 3 years ago (24 children)

There’s a woman over on Mastodon making the argument that he’s trying to destroy it so it can’t be used to organize left-leaning political action (fundraising, activism, issue messaging, etc) any longer. She makes a compelling argument.

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  • [–] 97 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    I don't buy that. He tried to cancel the purchase. He's also losing money, and so it's definitely not a 3D chess.

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  • [–] 49 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Didn't Twitter almost take him to court if he didn't follow through with the purchase? I think he got caught in his over investment in Twitter last year, and rather than go through a trial with discovery (I think he NEEDED to follow through to avoid this specifically), he decided to go through with the purchase. I wonder what the hell they would have found during a trial discovery that made him sink $44B.

    But what he's doing now? I don't think it's related to that. I think it might be to help manipulate stocks, as we have seen him do several months back. Maybe he thinks that destroying left-leaning political action saves him in taxes? He destroyed public transportation in California just so people would theoretically purchase more Tesla cars. Nothing is beyond being trampled by Musk if he thinks he can benefit by stumbling over the other side of the corpse.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago

    Yeah, he was way too cavalier with the documents he signed while negotiation with Twitter. It would have cost him $1Billion to back out. But that is a bargain compared to what he had to do to come up with the $44B he paid for Twitter.

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  • [–] 29 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Not only that, it would have been easier and cheaper to just shut the whole thing down after taking ownership. His very public (mainly by his own tweeting) stewardship of Twitter is damaging to his reputation, and the reputation of his other businesses. The reality is, he just is that dumb.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    His net worth has only gone up since he bought it, iirc. Tesla will continue to print money at least for a little while until other automakers catch up on EVs. SpaceX doesn't seem to have any viable competitors, and both sides of the aisle agree on privatizing space, so that's a big growth industry. This is the unfortunate fact of capitalism in general and late-stage capitalism in particular.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago*

    His net worth has only gone up since he bought it, iirc

    It absolutely didn't. His net worth dropped over 50% in the months following the purchase. It's back up above $200b at this point according to Forbes, but he's still down from his pre-purchase state.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I mean it can be all of the above. Musk isn't very coherent.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago

    He's the consummate failson. Rich enough that he'll never actually experience any tangible negativity from his various ventures, if he has a skill, it's in self-publicity and (historically) throwing money at ventures that are already on an upward trajectory.

    But I feel that all the cocaine and being surrounded by Yes Men have led to him tipping over the edge.

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  • [–] 42 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    I'd believe it if I hadn't already heard of Musk being the type to fire workers in his line of sight at pure random simply to fire someone. It apparently got so bad that aids would plan the route he would take to the meetings around having as few victims as possible out in the open.

    It would be a smart move for anyone, and he is succeeding to a good extent (they'll just go elsewhere?), but I think that's just a happy accident of his. I feel like he's really just using it as a chew toy so he can feel all big and important with the headlines. If he were being journalistically gray rocked, I wonder what he'd do.

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  • [–] 31 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    The issue with that argument is... Why? He is a business man, activism generally doesn't effect him, tesla cars are generally liked by left leaning middle class, why would he spend so much money to destroy something?

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  • [–] 15 points 3 years ago

    One factor is his obsession with crypto and Blockchain shit. Left-wing activism generally stands against that stuff because of the environmental impact. Additionally, right-wing political movements recently have been lowering safety standards in business. Bad for the worker, but great for the bottom line.

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