The management of Twitter used it as a social bludgeon and filter to manipulate the public -- with information, misinformation, disinformation, and censorship.
It would not be unfair to say Donald J Trump rode Twitter to victory and governed using it. He made Twitter a powerful political engine and they in turn made him President.
One of the immediate beneficiaries of the Musk regime may be that same Donald J Trump, who now banned may come again to Tweet and ride that pony to the winners' circle yet again.
Musk is focused on the business as a business not as a means to control public opinion and he will "monkey see, monkey do" his way to an even fatter bank acc't.
It is important to remember the US is big enough for all of us and that the pendulum never stops moving.
There is zero doubt that Tesla and SpaceX have benefitted from federal subsidies. Everyone can point to why you should short Tesla. But, until this year its been a tough short. Boring Company is a company that thrives on sales to government as well. Maybe Paul Pelosi needed a Boring Company flame thrower in his house? In Las Vegas, people like their tunnels so far. PayPal wasn't a government backed entity and neither is Twitter.
Sounds like Pelosi hit the panic button and the cops arrived to see both Pelosi and the burglar dueling, each with hammers. He probably left a door or window unlocked and the guy walked right in. If you got over 100mil, hire a night time security guard for heaven's sake.
Musk is very good at business. I hope he has success at Twitter, and if he doesn't he still has my admiration for wading in and trying to make it a useful and profitable business. It takes some courage because there are no guarantees, and both Starlink and Tesla represent his fortune. As I understand it, he's all in and there are no investments in real estate or fine art or gold. What he makes he puts into the next business. Not sure that's the case with Twitter. And he would be foolish not to accept subsidies if the strings attached were not to severe. His competition isn't turning them down, and in terms of the federal government, Tesla is already at a disadvantage because it is non-union.
I found his post funny (and rather fake for the most part), especially the part where Musk added no value after being "embedded", lol. Jeff has spoke a lot about electric cars not being as green as everyone claims they are. But that does not make Tesla a fraud. Plus, name a super successful entrepreneur who does not have a bunch of failures. Like the VC biz Jeff has shared so much about, you take lots of losers for the one or two big hits. Conspiracy theory clowns are a dime a dozen. It will be interesting to see how the CIA's social media social engineering node evolves now, lol
Boy, hard to know without actually going through the finances. It certainly looks like he paid a premium given the broader market and the melt down in companies like Snapchat, Facebook etc. How do you value it? Ad revenue? Actual users? Or, what you think you can do with it? I think it's easy to say "they overpaid" on any transaction. If he doesn't build anything meaningful then that will be the first excuse. One fact out there that says he didn't overpay is there are competing platforms that have no traction. Plus, they have been competing for a long time. Only Parler started to get traction before the Tech Monopoly and government came together to shut it down. I don't know how Twitter's back end works, but Musk et al must know so there is little risk in being run out of business the way Parler was-plus changing the management team to be focused on growth and not left wing social engineering is a huge difference.
Fortune magazine article released yesterday put its value at $25 million. I could not back into that number based on the Yahoo Finance numbers I was using. I do agree with Musk that Twitter can be converted into a WeChat. If he is successful Twitter will be worth much more than he paid for it.
"One VC I know that was an early investor in Twitter didn’t want Musk to buy it because he didn’t think a singular person should own it. " I see a bunch of people, almost all on the Left to one degree or another, expressing great concern about One Very Wealthy Person owning such an influential platform. Funny, I've never seen these people expressing concern about The Washington Post being owned by a fairly-well-off guy named Jeff, or Facebook being just about totally controlled by a billionaire named Mark, or The New York Times being controlled for generations by a wealthy family.
The management of Twitter used it as a social bludgeon and filter to manipulate the public -- with information, misinformation, disinformation, and censorship.
It would not be unfair to say Donald J Trump rode Twitter to victory and governed using it. He made Twitter a powerful political engine and they in turn made him President.
One of the immediate beneficiaries of the Musk regime may be that same Donald J Trump, who now banned may come again to Tweet and ride that pony to the winners' circle yet again.
Musk is focused on the business as a business not as a means to control public opinion and he will "monkey see, monkey do" his way to an even fatter bank acc't.
It is important to remember the US is big enough for all of us and that the pendulum never stops moving.
Bravo, well played and hang on!
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
I don’t trust him but I’ll take him for now. This is interesting: https://2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com/p/elon-musk-officially-takes-over-twitter/comments
There is zero doubt that Tesla and SpaceX have benefitted from federal subsidies. Everyone can point to why you should short Tesla. But, until this year its been a tough short. Boring Company is a company that thrives on sales to government as well. Maybe Paul Pelosi needed a Boring Company flame thrower in his house? In Las Vegas, people like their tunnels so far. PayPal wasn't a government backed entity and neither is Twitter.
Sounds like Pelosi hit the panic button and the cops arrived to see both Pelosi and the burglar dueling, each with hammers. He probably left a door or window unlocked and the guy walked right in. If you got over 100mil, hire a night time security guard for heaven's sake.
Musk is very good at business. I hope he has success at Twitter, and if he doesn't he still has my admiration for wading in and trying to make it a useful and profitable business. It takes some courage because there are no guarantees, and both Starlink and Tesla represent his fortune. As I understand it, he's all in and there are no investments in real estate or fine art or gold. What he makes he puts into the next business. Not sure that's the case with Twitter. And he would be foolish not to accept subsidies if the strings attached were not to severe. His competition isn't turning them down, and in terms of the federal government, Tesla is already at a disadvantage because it is non-union.
I found his post funny (and rather fake for the most part), especially the part where Musk added no value after being "embedded", lol. Jeff has spoke a lot about electric cars not being as green as everyone claims they are. But that does not make Tesla a fraud. Plus, name a super successful entrepreneur who does not have a bunch of failures. Like the VC biz Jeff has shared so much about, you take lots of losers for the one or two big hits. Conspiracy theory clowns are a dime a dozen. It will be interesting to see how the CIA's social media social engineering node evolves now, lol
Do you think Musk overpaid for Twitter?
Boy, hard to know without actually going through the finances. It certainly looks like he paid a premium given the broader market and the melt down in companies like Snapchat, Facebook etc. How do you value it? Ad revenue? Actual users? Or, what you think you can do with it? I think it's easy to say "they overpaid" on any transaction. If he doesn't build anything meaningful then that will be the first excuse. One fact out there that says he didn't overpay is there are competing platforms that have no traction. Plus, they have been competing for a long time. Only Parler started to get traction before the Tech Monopoly and government came together to shut it down. I don't know how Twitter's back end works, but Musk et al must know so there is little risk in being run out of business the way Parler was-plus changing the management team to be focused on growth and not left wing social engineering is a huge difference.
Fortune magazine article released yesterday put its value at $25 million. I could not back into that number based on the Yahoo Finance numbers I was using. I do agree with Musk that Twitter can be converted into a WeChat. If he is successful Twitter will be worth much more than he paid for it.
"One VC I know that was an early investor in Twitter didn’t want Musk to buy it because he didn’t think a singular person should own it. " I see a bunch of people, almost all on the Left to one degree or another, expressing great concern about One Very Wealthy Person owning such an influential platform. Funny, I've never seen these people expressing concern about The Washington Post being owned by a fairly-well-off guy named Jeff, or Facebook being just about totally controlled by a billionaire named Mark, or The New York Times being controlled for generations by a wealthy family.