The didn’t buy Twitter for a profit.
He bought Twitter to destroy it because big free horizontal communication platforms are bad for billionaires.
He can’t just close it, so he just destroy it little by little until it is no more.
The same way conservative groups bought Tumblr because it was too sexual liberating for their conservative views.
he offered to buy twitter for a joke, and he actually did buy twitter because a court forced him to. not because this was some grand plan to accomplish anything - he literally spent months in court arguing that he shouldn’t have to buy twitter, and he lost. that’s the only reason he owns twitter now.
Yeah, he owns it because he’s a dumbass and he’s running it into the ground like a dumbass
the court didn’t force him, he could have paid a penalty that was much lower than his current losses.
You cannot make a “joke” offer file it with the SEC and expect to get out of it.
He bought Twitter because he (along with the Saudi royal family, the monarchy ruling Qatar, and the larger worldwide cabal of authoritarians) thought he could use it to control public discourse in the same way oligarchs bought up newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations in the past. He’s killing it because he never understood what most people liked about Twitter, he only understood what he liked about Twitter (getting a lot of attention and being able to be shitty to people without having to actually socialize).
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Why couldn’t he just close it, if that was his goal? He owns it outright doesn’t he? He could announce that Twitter was ceasing operations, sell off the remaining assets, cover (or default on) the debts, and then Twitter would be no more.
So no, I don’t think destroying it was his aim. He’s just really, really bad at this.
He owns it outright doesn’t he?
Others own equity, approximately 1/3 of the initial payment he made was from some of his close friends. Close friends or not, they’re not going to let him off the hook for about 7b, additionally he could not afford to pay them if he shuts it down, he had to borrow between 2 and 3 billion to secure the deal in the first place beyond what they’d invested.
If Twitter becomes profitable, they get paid and everyone on their side is happy. If Twitter doesn’t become profitable, Elon is the one that takes the fall and they get paid anyway so they don’t care, although I’m sure they’d prefer more than their investment back.
But as the richest man in the world, he could cover their stakes. If the goal was to end Twitter, he has the resources to do so without losing anyone else’s money.
But as the richest man in the world, he could cover their stakes.
As previously stated, no. He couldn’t. He needed their money just to acquire the company, he did not have enough liquid assets himself to make the purchase and sold a lot of his stock in Tesla beyond just the equity shares. If Twitter fails he’ll be on the losing end financially for once, so he needs it to be successful. The courts did the world a favor and forced a purchase by actually upholding the law.
He didn’t need their money, he just wanted it. Worse comes to worst, he can find enough in the couch cushions to cover them.
He didn’t need their money, he just wanted it.
Oh, okay.
He bought Twitter by mistake, and was forced into it by Twitter shareholders who saw the opportunity to make bank.
“mistake” in this case actually means by shooting his mouth off and thinking he was smarter than everyone else in the room. He fucked around, then immediately began finding out.
But, $420.69, bruh!
It’s so frustrating to be in the Valley, and be subjected to one set of rules to tightly follow, while a group of special sociopaths (e.g., Musk, SBF, Holmes, Neumann) are free to do whatever they like.
Just playing devil’s advocate. But aren’t two of your examples either on their way or in jail right now?
I should have been more clear: The Valley allows and even encourages certain sociopaths to flout rules and conventions around ethics and reporting, while the rest of us are held tightly to those rules and conventions. For example, Sequoia seemingly didn’t even perform de minimis due diligence when leading a nine-figure round in FTX.
This is also the case, however he had the option to drop out with much lower losses.
That would involve him backing down and admitting an error, which he’s clearly not capable of.
You give Musk too much credit. The fucking guy is a big baby with impulse issues - who happens to have billions of dollars at his disposal. He is running Twitter exactly as I would think a dipshit narcissistic tantrum baby would run it, although dismantling Twitter does coincidentally benefit the top .1% for now
Exactly. His old friend Peter Thiel couldn’t make a rival platform take off, so Musk bought Twitter and saddled it with an untenable $13bn of debt.
