Well, that didn't take long

LeopoldBloom · 2022-11-12T09:59:46-05:00

Business - Well, that didn't take long (Quote)... (24 replies).

Twitter Inc's new owner Elon Musk on Thursday raised the possibility of the social media platform going bankrupt, capping a chaotic day that included a warning from a U.S. privacy regulator and the exit of the company's trust and safety leader.

The billionaire on his first mass call with employees said that he could not rule out bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported, two weeks after buying it for $44 billion - a deal that credit experts say has left Twitter's finances in a precarious position.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-information-security-chief-kissner-decides-leave-2022-11-10/

I thought this guy was supposed to be a brilliant businessman who was going to make Twitter even more relevant, not an inept clown who was going to destroy it. Of course, the Musk fanbois will tie themselves in knots to justify this, same as they did for Musk's clampdowns on free speech.

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Northwest · M

Musk is personally on the hook for $11B, and he can't get out of it, if Twitter went Chapter 11. The money came through a loan, personally guaranteed by Musk.

The rest of the loan, came from banks/funds, that were guaranteed by people like Larry Ellison, and even P Diddy, as well as a who's who of "conservatism". They are personally on the hook.

I am not big on conspiracy theories, but all these people/institutions, had to be talked into it, somehow, by Musk.

Jason Calacanis was the primary salesman, who convinced the group that charging a subscription fee, is the solution. Funny thing, is the Andreessen Horowitz VC firm, one of the primary investors, founded by Mark Andreessen, the guy who started Nestsacpe, knows exactly how much to charge for something that's offered for free: 0.

Perhaps the goal was to actually shut Twitter down?

bijouxbroussard · F

@Northwest Holy cow…I mean, based on results ?!

Northwest · M

@bijouxbroussard The banks that actually financed the deal, ended up losing $500M a few weeks after the financing deal was closed. They realized they were taken for a ride. They decided to treat it as "hung debt".

This is going down as one of the worst con jobs of all time.

Starcrossed · 41-45, F

I've been wondering if shutting it down wasn't always his goal. How F-ed up.

LeopoldBloom · M

@Starcrossed If that's what happens, he will have done humanity a favor.

SW-User

@Northwest but why would anyone spend billions to shut something down, if it might just naturally fail on its own without changing hands?

In particular, why would right wing "free speech" nuts want to shut it down when they're constantly looking to espouse their views? And if they can espouse their views on other sites like Parler, again, why spend billions to shut down the allegedly "liberal" social media site?

bijouxbroussard · F

@SW-User

And if they can espouse their views on other sites like Parler, again, why spend billions to shut down the allegedly "liberal" social media site?

Hmmm…they want free speech for themselves—not necessarily for anyone else. But that is indeed a lot of money to spend for something like that—even for Musk.

SW-User

@bijouxbroussard the US definitely needs a "wealth tax" to eliminate billionaires and eliminate such wasteful whims in turn (regardless of whether shutting Twitter down was the actual intent behind wasting literally billions of dollars ... but I still have a hard time conceiving of even the richest person in the world wasting billions to just shut down a site when that will hardly silence liberals)

And if it is a valid goal to eliminate billionaires ... there should also be caps on lotteries

Billions of dollars could be spent in so many other ways that actually benefit more than one person or a handful of privileged people

Northwest · M

@SW-User It may boil down to a personal beef on Musk's part, not a right wing thing, even though that may have played into it.

Is $11B too much to waste for someone like him? Perhaps, but his initial plan to buy shares, then pump the stock through a takeover proposal, then dump, may have backfired in a spectacular fashion.

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder, who came back as CEO, left to start another Twitter. So, perhaps Twitter was gong to die on its own, and its replacement was on the way, and Musk simply was not aware of it.

Bottom line, nothing about this deal makes logical sense, and it should not have passed basic VC scrutiny, but I've personally witnessed roughly $75B worth of bad deals at a former employer, that, when post mortem was done, left everyone saying "what were we thinking".

Northwest · M

@SW-User There should be a $B tax. At some point, the peasants will be start polishing off their pitchforks.

SW-User

@Northwest I was particularly surprised to see Andreessen Horowitz on board with this ...

And I'm still not convinced Dorsey is doing anything other than some protocol that seems unlikely to ever go anywhere in terms of adoption by all social sites. Any demo site for this protocol is looking like vaporware, considering the idea began as a Twitter project.

And to me it's nutty to see how many times @jack has tweeted or retweeted about #bitcoin but that's another topic ....

***

Moreover, does this Dave Troy's ongoing writings about this Twitter and Bluesky saga strike you as conspiracy theory or not conspiracy theory?

https://similarworlds.com/social/twitter/4510693-What-are-you-thoughts-on-this-writers-take-on-Musk

Northwest · M

@SW-User nothing about this deal makes any business sense. There’s the data angle, but is the twitter data cache worth $44B? I doubt it.

I’ve done due diligence on companies in the past, the kind of stuff coming out now, you uncover on day 1 of your due diligence exercise. Musk had months to fo that. He could have hired a third to do it. Maybe it’s just an ego thing with him.

I never thought there would be a culture mesh between twitter and Musk, and he should have realized it himself.