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this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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I find it really difficult to believe there is any benefit to him buying and killing Twitter for billions of dollars. It would have to be extremely contrived and possibly a really well kept conspiracy.
The benefit is controlling the public narrative. Think about it, how many news media companies get business from Twitter? And now he has the power to suppress their reach or to even kick them off the platform altogether.
I agree that is a really valuable position to be in, but you would still need to maintain your reputation or else they could all leave. The website itself is mostly insignificant and its popularity has everything to do with its reputation and userbase.
We know there's no benefit to him here because a court forced him to go through with the purchase after he tried to back out. He did not want this mess.
Yeah at first it appears it was a major screw up but the screw ups keep coming so i wonder.
Even before Twitter was purchased it was in a really delicate balancing act of profitability. Any misstep that seemed slightly too much had advertisers and users leaving and the opposite meant Twitter couldn't make a profit. Perhaps anyone purchasing Twitter would tip that scale with anything they tried, but Elon here instead of walking back his decisions when they don't work keeps doubling down.
Twitter doesn't generate profits:
If anyone wants to nitpick over the 2/10 years when they reported profitability, consider the real value of getting in the black twice in company history in an environment where you're gearing up for a an IPO. The long-term trend is clearly that this is not a viable business model.
Which is why I find it really hard to believe it's not intentional even if I don't understand the end game.
Delicately balanced is one thing. Making repeated decisions that my technophobe father could see are stupid is another.
I flipped from "wow he's really mismanaging this" to "wow he's trying to kill it" about 2 months ago, and have become nothing but more convinced since then.
No, I just think he's very bad at reining in an extremely impulsive and volatile personality which leads to him making rash decisions. Also he is always wanting to make sweeping changes rather than gradual ones which may have worked with Tesla and Space but doesn't suit Twitter.
And lastly, I don't think he really cares that much either way - as others have said, he had to be forced to buy Twitter remember. He's got this albatross around his neck which is losing him money every day. He probably resents it a bit, has probably nearly hit the truth that the only way you could make a social media company profitable is to make everyone pay - except for the fact that almost everyone then leaves.
I think he's too much of a wild card for anyone to involve in their cunning plan. I mean regardless of politics would you recruit him for your masterplan?
All your points are reasonable, but I don't think the masterplan requires anyone but him. He's gone mask off as far as being ok with or even promoting hate speech of various flavors, and twitter was increasingly hostile to those sorts of folks until he took over. Unbanning Trump was damn near the first thing he did.
He strikes me absolutely as childish enough and rich enough that (incorporating also your "he doesn't really want it" point) buying it, doing everything he can to run it into the ground, then folding or divesting it (who would want it now?) when he thinks he's destroyed it as deeply as he can.
I'm almost entirely with you on this.
But the only thing causing mind on my doubt is how excessively impulsive and not-in-control-of-himself Enlo often seems. That's the only thing that makes "this is just a serious of very stupid decisions made in the heat of the moment" even somewhat plausible.