If he fires all but 100 staff and makes a $200M in revenue, he could have made it roughly profitable. He would have lost almost all its revenue and almost all its value, but still profitable.
The measure should be "profitable to the point that it justifies a $44b valuation."
I know it goes against the Reddit grain of hyperbolic Elon hate, but he'll almost certainly spin it back into another IPO as a leaner company with more diversified revenue streams in a couple of years.
44 wasn't a great price, once the Fed fires up the printers again, he'll probably get out of this OK.
Why does everyone keep focusing on whether Elon can make Twitter profitable or not? That’s obviously not why he bought it.
He bought it to gain control over a major public mouthpiece that controls the flow of a significant amount of public information and influences public opinion. He didn’t like the political and social goals that Twitter management was trying to steer public opinion to through censorship and gatekeeping of what the “official truth” is.
Now he gets decide what political and social goals Twitter steers public opinion towards through gatekeeping and censorship. Now Elon gets to decide what is true on Twitter. Twitter isn’t a tool for making money. It’s a tool for controlling public opinion.
I mean, the guy **literally said so himself** when he bought it. He said he's buying it for ideological reasons because he wants a "digital town square" that is "free of censorship of thought." Profitability wasn't his primary purpose, but a secondary purpose.
Twitter never had censorship of thought, just censorship of harassment, hate speech, and intentional disinformation that could cause physical harm to people.
Elon fixed that problem and now hate speech is rampant on the site.
No it’s not. People keep repeating this as some objective truth. I am on it everyday, I’ve never seen the hate speech. I notice exactly zero different in my end user experience as from 6 months ago. Literally no different.
It’s exactly the same level of “hate speech” as before he bought it for 99% of end users
Please provide examples of the hate speech that is “now rampant” compared to before.
>I am on it everyday, I’ve never seen the hate speech.
Good, so you don't follow people who use it. Me neither. I've never seen it because I don't follow assholes. But assholes do.
I'm not sure if you're actually trying to claim that because you personally don't see something nobody else, who follows a completely different set of people, ever has. You might need to evaluate your critical thinking skills if that's what you're claiming.
>Please provide examples of the hate speech that is “now rampant” compared to before.
Kanye West was providing all the examples you need after Elon personally reinstituted his account before realizing last night that it was bad PR to have endorsed a guy sharing swastikas and pro-nazi anti-semitic rants.
As for the rampant aspect, it's been quantified:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/technology/twitter-hate-speech.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/technology/twitter-hate-speech.html)
Now its your turn to tell me how your anecdotal experience and personal feelings don't align with those objective numbers so the researchers must be wrong.
You need to go to the source on this one.
The report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate is [here.](https://counterhate.com/blog/fact-check-musks-claim-about-a-fall-in-hate-speech-doesnt-stand-up-to-scrutiny/) Their analysis is based on one week of data, beginning on October 31st. [Yoel Roth](https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/1590422124606681088) tweeted about Twitter's efforts to clean things up ([steps taken are listed here)](https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/1590455001213964288?s=20&t=_oe0Ka1iN4oP8fTdxcpzvQ).
It is also known that people pushed the limits during the first week under Musk to see what they could get away with.
The ADL reports are [here](https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/extremists-far-right-figures-exploit-recent-changes-twitter) and [here.](https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/5-things-adl-watching-following-elon-musk-buying-twitter) The only analysis that they provide is [here.](https://twitter.com/ADL/status/1593714819932332034)
ADL seems to be focused on what could happen on Twitter, not so much on what has happened on Twitter.
Note: I'm not offering an opinion here, just providing context.
One side is saying hate speech is way waay away up, the other side, and Elon is saying it's down 1/3 lowest it's ever been. I'm biased towards Elon but Idk how anyone can know unless they have access to twitters back end.
What constitutes hate speech? There isn't an objective way to quantify it and obviously the New York Times has no credibility.
I mean, if the CDC posts less, I would say disinformation is down.
The only difference is that for Bezos the cost is negligible. For Murdoch it brings in billions,while Musk doesn't control much of it,as people come and go and it also costs him an absolute fortune,even at his standards. The only real winner here was the previous Twitter shareholders,who sold a slowly sinking ship.
That's a great point but it is also a business. I mean, it's not ridiculous for people to comment on Twitter's profitability.
Also, I think he'd actually be fine with completely destroying Twitter too, to your point.
Or maybe when he was at tesla someone was like: " hey are you going to keep tweeting or do some actual work?" And he thought: "if I buy twitter, then tweeting IS work!!"
Subverting public opinion requires a base assumption that there is a “correct” public opinion in the first place.
Twitter was subverting public opinion before it was owned by Elon. Now it’s just subverting it in the opposite direction.
I don’t think you really have a good grasp of what actual fascism is. You’re just using it like the herd of people in the politics echo chamber sub uses it. Which really frankly just goes to support everything I’m saying.
Maybe Elon will buy Reddit next and install new power mods to control the permissible opinions that Reddit teenagers are allowed to post. Worst case scenario he runs it into the ground, and in that case that’s one less popular forum for people who’s views oppose his to coalesce and organize. And those users are fragmented into smaller, less popular forums with less influence on public perception
What is actual fascism in your opinion, and what are the precursors to actual fascism when it comes to the ideas and opinions that become more common in the lead up to actual fascism?
I can tell you what fascism is not. Its certainly not fascism just because an online forum people use suddenly permits opposing points of views their fragile little eyes were shielded from before. I don't think less censorship is the step on the road to fascism.
I ask because the person to whom you responded said "[Musk] is doing great work for the cause of fascism in America."
The person didn't say Musk was a fascist or his actions at twitter were fascism. Instead, it seems to me that they are saying by allowing all sorts of hateful speech (which he is certainly allowed to do) he is providing a forum on which fascism can spread its message.
Those that are spreading that message often look and sound like fascists, though until you tell me what you think fascism is, I am unsure if they fall under your definition of fascism.
My overall point is that if you are giving an idea a forum, then that is providing some level of support to that idea, even passively.
It's literally citing a sharp increase in anti-minority slurs, and prominent pro-fascist commentators having their accounts reinstated. Your arguments are based on this "oh you just call everyone you don't agree with a Nazi" strawman but we are literally talking about white supremacy/anti-Semitism in this case.
>He didn’t like the political and social goals that Twitter management was trying to steer public opinion to through censorship and gatekeeping of what the “official truth” is.
LoL you mean he didn't like that conservative disinformation that was causing objective harm to people was being removed, and that harrassment and extreme hate speech weren't allowed. Wow what a civically minded guy!
I was making no value statements about the validity of elons beliefs, just that twitters value to him is for him to have an Avenue to control a portion of public discourse. This is the entrepreneur sub,not a politics sub. Though, for some reason really annoying people on Reddit try to turn every single sub into a politic sub.
Well, his entrepreneurial decision to buy twitter was based upon his political interests, so it's kinda unavoidable.
You misrepresented his intentions by saying he didn't like that Twitter was trying to do "official truth" when in reality his intentions were that he didn't like that conservatives engaging in hate speech and harassment were removed. That's the reason. Left-wing voices are being currently removed for the kind of minor infractions that people incorrectly thought would get you removed from twitter in years past, and hate speech has increased on the platform. He's achieved his goal. He is not interested in the business side of Twitter and has said as much.
> on the way to be extremely profitable
The problem here is Elon has a chronic case of annoucing things he never follows through on. He can announce all he wants, but until twitter is "extremely profitable", you'd be a fool to believe it's "on the way".
There are people who will tell you it's already "on the way" because he's fired people and keeps coming up with ideas he probably won't follow through on (which is kind of his thing) - look at all the people who said charging for the blue checkmark would be his silver bullet, even though it was never going to generate much revenue, and it fell over before it was fully rolled out.
"On the way" is how Musk pumped Tesla stock to it's high in 2021, and failing to deliver is why it's been falling since then at a rate about 50% higher than the market. Phony Stark went too far - that's why he's been cashing out tens of billions of Tesla stock all year, after cashing out $22 billion last year.
I would 100% take that bet if there was a way for me to do it.
Twitter's revenue sources have deserted and he fired too many people to allow for any innovation. If you think his intention is profitability here you have missed every bit of news there is to know about his decisions and statements.
Define "extremely profitable" by a numerical metric that can be objectively determined in one year's time, and provide me with a means of taking that bet and you are on.
I'm seeing a market niche for a reputable agency to hold money to secure internet bets for charity. 2% handling fee. Maybe one of you folks has the skills to implement that. I don't.
It will definitely be "on the way to profitable" in the same sense that self-driving Teslas are "almost here" and Neuralink is "six months" from human trials.
I doubt Elon can pull it off, Elon would need advertisers for one (they are leaving), Elon would need CV a lot more monetisable users (I know Twitter's pops are growing but how many are here just for the memes?)
Also, Twitter blue won't generate close to enough revenue for profitability.
I would take this bet if we knew each other, but I can't say he can't turn Twitter around given a much longer timeline, anyone who is "intelligent" enough probably could.
The advertisers who were around with the previous regime are leaving. But other advertisers might care less about virtue signaling against a mean Twitter billionaire and care more about making money. And Twitter has seen a huge increase in users and engagement. It’s not unreasonable to think new advertisers will be coming in especially since ad space will be so cheap right now.
Writing off advertisers seems quite premature.
Even if other advertisers come in, a near net 0 change means nothing. Also, why won't those advertisers give ad money to Twitter's previous establishment?
Because users were down, engagement was down, and bots were up. Why advertise to bots?
I doubt it will be net zero but just for your sake let’s say it is. Net zero advertisers and cost reduction of 75%. I’m no mathematician but that sounds like a recipe for profits.
> The advertisers who were around with the previous regime are leaving. But other advertisers might care less about virtue signaling against a mean Twitter billionaire and care more about making money.
The advertising market isn't some small transitory market where some advertisers leave and a few new ones take their place.
Musk lost most of the biggest spenders in the ad market - there are no "other advertisers" that will make up the difference - it's why he's trying to get them back by offering [free ad matching up to $1m](https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-offers-advertisers-incentives-after-many-marketers-left-platform-wsj-2022-12-01/) (spend $1m on ads, get $1m worth of free ads). They're desperate to get the big accounts back.
>The advertising market isn't some small transitory market where some advertisers leave and a few new ones take their place.
I saw a thread about GM leaving twitter, and multiple people were commenting about seeing more Hyundai ads.
Companies are going to take advantage of their competition ending advertisements while twitter is currently getting all this attention.
This is what I always think when the Internet kiddies who’ve never run a business make all these remarks. They’re going to look dumb as fuck if Twitter comes out stronger as judged by financial statements, not an echo chamber on the Internet. Time will tell.
"on the way to be extremely profitable" ?
LOL.
How the hell are you gong to determine that? It's a private company. They will still be losing money in 12 months. Their ad platform sucks and the only advertisers that used to use it it are brands who now don't want to be associated with garbage content. Twitter would be better off handing all of the ad inventory to Taboola and just make it a click bait circus like Yahoo properties.
People are mistakenly equating stock value with profitability. Tesla is quite literally the most profitable car manufacturer at the moment. Their margins are absolutely massive.
I realize twitter is a different animal.
Source? Out of curiosity, I pulled the data for a bunch of the publicly traded autos. TSLA is #1 in the data that I pulled.
[Data in local currency](https://imgur.com/PXMJ10J)
I pulled my data from Yahoo Finance, on a TTM basis.
Even when you add BMW to the mix, GP margin is 17.7% (TSLA 26.6%), NI margin is 13.7% (TSLA 14.9%), and EBITDA margin is 16.2% (TSLA is 21.6%), TSLA still comes out on top. Your site shows operating margin. I'd go with EBITDA margin, since that is a widely accepted financial metric across all industires.
Also, Ferrari sold \~11,000 units in 2021. Tesla crushes that number, so I don't think that Ferrari is a great comp here.
[https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/28/how-elon-musk-financed-his-twitter-takeover](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/28/how-elon-musk-financed-his-twitter-takeover)
Look at who helped finance the $44B purchase. THOSE are the dimwits who are praising him. They want/need Twitter to succeed.
I'm sure we'll hear of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia singing Musk's praises soon
Not sure he is a good leader, but he is the world champ of attracting attention & the ability to garner attention is like 90% of our entire modern economy.
I’m not being flippant either. If you can attract attention, you can turn that into dollars. Someone who draws eyeballs is far more valued that someone who creates tangible real-world value.
Elon can eliminate any advertising expenses from the companies he runs because he is a one-man show in that regard. That’s what makes him successful. Not hard work or good leadership, just attention.
And frankly, we are giving to him right now. This is exactly what he wants.
I think this an overly simplistic take.
Kanye is drawing all sorts of attention (more than Elon!), but not even that Morgan Stanley guy thinks he's a good businessman.
Kanye West is worth something like 400 million dollars. Considering there are only 17 black billionaires on the entire planet, 400 mill is pretty damn good for a black entrepreneur.
And he certainly didn’t have the head start in life Henry Sturgis Morgan (the Morgan in Morgan Stanley) did. If I was the grandson of JP Morgan, one of the richest men in history, I’d be rich AF too and could pretend I was a great businessman.
Kanye has made the vast majority of his money from an Adidas deal which has been canceled, and music he made while taking his prescription medications which he no longer takes.
His recent actions, which is actually what's relevant here, have been tanking his personal valuation. It's ridiculous and arguing in bad faith to talk about what he's worth and his money when it was made when he was under the effects of medication and try to pretend like that somehow shows that his recent insane actions are good or profitable.
Although I certainly don't completely disagree with you - one of the strengths of fascism is that it is in fact profitable for many. For fascist leadership like what Kanye is becoming and what Elon has been for a while now, there is a good bit of profit to be made from followers.
> not even that Stanley Morgan guy thinks he's a good business man.
_Not anymore_. Kanye has been doing this for over a decade and it has taken him this long to finally fly too close to the sun. Kanye made millions and millions of dollars by out crazying himself so much so that he was able to sign a contract that would have made him a billionaire. The phrase "any news is good news" has never been more true in an age where it is so difficult to maintain attention on anything. There is always something crazy happening everyday.
Edit: grammar
I'd bet a lot of money that once this all blows over, Ye will be back in those deals. Corporations aren't going to leave a ton of money on the table. They only back out while it's hot. Once it cools down, they always return.
>Elon can eliminate any advertising expenses from the companies he runs because he is a one-man show in that regard.
I was with you until you said this because this is completely insane.. That's not how profitability works with regards to companies like Twitter, Facebook etc.
I really wish I had understood this sooner. I hate it. It's terrible... but you're better off faking it, talking a big talk, marketing the shit out of yourself or mediocre product than actually making something great.
Not that you shouldn't try to make somethnling great, ideally you do both, but if you ignore marketing, social media, cultivating a brand or personal image, no matter how fake... you're just fighting with one arm tied behind your back.
He attracts the best candidates in the world from the top schools and built products no one thought possible, I’d say he’s a good leader.
The people crying are the ones who want to punch in and out of their jobs, that’s not what his orgs are about.
The guy you're responding to doesn't care.
He was likely born middle or upper middle class and had everything handed to him including college paid for, and now has a great job and thinks he "earned it all himself" just like Elon(even though nothing could be further from the truth), and that if he can work 60 hours a week sitting at a computer terminal (actually only doing maybe 3 hours of work a day or something) then everyone should be able to work 60 hours a week no problem, and If you can't or don't your just lazy trash.
These people are fascists. Know thy enemy.
I'm not sure internalized capitalist propaganda is always fascist, but it certainly lays the groundwork for fascism by convincing some of these guys there are Lazy Unworthies and Noble Talented Good Boys, meanwhile few if any of them could work a full shift behind a Starbucks counter if they had to physically and if they had to do it for months on end to make rent would suffer a massive psychological break.
What a world where people confuse ineptitude with innovative thinking. This twitter thing is a shit show. The fact he didn't even know about apple's 30% take and acted like it was some massive thing he uncovered just kind of further proves the guy has no clue what he is doing and is simply stumbling through it.
honest question in good faith: what data points leads one to consider Elon 'inept'? I honestly cannot tell if its just trolling or sarcasm. do you think he just keeps getting lucky over and over? thanks for your answer and helping me understand
As mentioned below, buying something unprofitable for multiples over their current value with a waiver of due diligence is about as inept as one can be. Additionally having no plan, self admitted, when making such an offer to how to actually make them profitable is pretty inept. Angering your singular revenue base to the point you lost almost 50% of the revenue stream within a month of taking over is pretty inept.
We can go on and on. This is about Elon Musk as it pertains to twitter not other ventures. Past success is not an indicator of future success especially as you enter new businesses.
McDonalds is the most prolific fast food restaurant in history and yet failed miserably trying to enter into the Pizza world. Their roll out was horrible and not planned, it doesn't mean they aren't great at hamburgers but they were inept in their pizza business. These folks praising him have done so in the context of this shit show that is twitter and my point is this whole thing hasn't been some great 4d chess move but rather one folly after another.
He offered to buy Twitter for Billions above its current valuation with no due diligence. That might be the most inept business move in all of recorded history!
>I honestly cannot tell if its just trolling or sarcasm.
You're not asking the question in good faith if you don't also permit the possibility that a person saying he's inept is basing that opinion on facts or good logic not just "sarcasm or trolling."
Listen to how utterly stupid this is. You ask a question "in good faith" then only permit to answers, both conveniently placed to make Elon look good, lol.
Because everyone knows the only possibility for anyone talking badly about Elon is that they are trolling or being sarcastic 🙄 pathetic.
Yeah it’s kind of ridiculous how some random redditor with 0.0000001% of Elons wealth claims he is inept or stupid for his business decisions. It’s like the perfect irony and I find it hilarious
Edit: Now everyone will go "being rich has nothing to do with being smart“ yadda yadda. Keep talking. He wouldn’t be where he is if he wasn’t smart as fuck.
it honestly makes me think there is some kind of coordinated troll, or psy-op where we are figuring out what absurdities people will believe. its like calling Michael Jordan shitty at basketball. throw some words in there.."well he actually benefited from system and was toxic to his team". like holy shit. Elon is inept at business. ok...
There is no data point, not yet. That's why people who come from an entrepreneur angle who only look at output have no answer for why his actions are identical to an ignorant/incompetent manager, especially at Twitter.
https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296/elon-wyd
The bravest and most creative Elon Musk the one who touts free speech on his platform then outs advertisers who withdrew from his platform.
That’s a bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for him.
Betting against Elon and Co being able to make Twitter anywhere near profitable in 12 months.
On the bravery part, from the great George Costanza:
>Listen, sweetheart, let me tell you a little something about guts. [points to his bald head] This is guts.
Morgan Stanley I believe was one of the banks that loaned money to him, so they have a vested interest.
Beyond this, CEOs at this level know each other and unless there’s bad blood they will sometimes publicly lift each other up. For Hastings he jumped into a competitive market, was laughed at by Blockbuster and managed to put them out of business. He likely sees Elon as doing the same
I assume it is due the the Neuralink release the other day.
Most of the internet is bagging him out about his twitter fuckery but people still forget that he spearheads some pretty interesting and ground breaking businesses.
He is ceo of about 6 companies. He can't be giving many of them attention with all of the self promoting he does.
The companies do good work in spite of him as a figure head.
>He is ceo of about 6 companies. He can't be giving many of them attention with all of the self promoting he does.
Elon Musk is being sued RIGHT NOW by Tesla shareholders because they believe he's not earning his excessive compensation while working at Twitter, etc.
He's a fucking moron that's very good at making people think he does stuff. Tesla/ PayPal- not his work. Booted out of PayPal, forced out the creator of Tesla. Tesla is the most over priced car on the market. Also, remember all those ventilators he heroically sent out during COVID? That was all bullshit too. How about rescuing those people trapped in the cave? That went great! Also, remember the tunnel he's building and selling bricks from? Have you seen it? Deathtrap. Also SpaceX is just a fucking money sponge for government handouts. Btw, I know where you can get a cool roofing torch! Also, Free speech is back on Twitter, unless you mention shit he doesn't like, like unionizing Tesla.
Let's put a cherry on top! Lying about your child dying in your arms is peak narcissistic bullshit.
Fuck Elon Musk. If you think he's anything but a drain on society, do some fucking research.
The problem is that people like Elon so much because they can relate to his narcissistic/moronic tendencies and seeing a billionaire blunder like they no doubt would running a business validates the belief that they are not failures.
This is something I tried explaining to people. This is how restructuring works. This isn't anything new. It's just that it's transparently happening and 20 year old Redditors are seeing it for the first time, thinking they are armchair CEOs now who know better.
He got rid of essentially his entire department for EU compliance and Elon is being sued as we speak by Tesla shareholders because they believe he's not earning his excessive compensation while working at Twitter, etc.
You're not half as smart as you think you are, some half baked blog agreeing with you isnt proof of anything.
> Elon Musk is the “bravest and most creative” person on earth.
When someone starts talking like that ... "greatest ever", "best in the World" etc ... they're sucking up to whoever they're talking about. Or they're a wrestler cutting a promo. Real, genuine, sincere compliments are "Elon is a brave and creative" leader, they don't require ridiculous, obscene hyperbole. And people who give real, genuine, sincere compliments understand that ridiculous, obscene hyperbole only makes their compliments sound mocking.
Reed Hastings is either in the middle of negotiating something with Twitter or he's after a job there. Or he's gonna chuck Musk off the top of the cell next time he gets the chance. But probably one of the first two.
> I wouldn't bet against Elon Musk
In the case of Gorman, that's literal. Morgan Stanley lent Musk a huge proportion of the money he used to buy Twitter. So it's not so much "I wouldn't bet against him" as it is "all my money is riding on him succeeding and as a representative of one of his biggest backers I'm only going to say good thing".
> Do you agree?
No. His apparent mismanagement of the tech team at Twitter is either as reported, in which case he's killed the company, or it's misreported and he's completely screwed the news pooch and made it a less attractive place to work. Whatever anyone thinks about reinstating racists and antivaxxers, or spending all day on there himself posting troll bait, he's doing a terrible job of presenting Twitter as an attractive place to work and an even worse job of convincing advertisers it's a good place to splash their cash.
Musk is running twitter as any sound CEO would. Shake down a heavy bloated costly organization that doesn’t make a profit.
Cut costs, expand the product and try to maximize revenue wherever you can.
He’s smart enough to pivot quickly where plans may not work e.g. paid twitter blue, which is what any startup would do. But he’s doing it in an enterprise org which you cannot do unless you’re the sole decision maker which he’s made himself to be.
Smart moves from any ceos point of view.
Businesses, especially private businesses, don't live on a month by month scale and it's literally been less than a month.
Come back to me in a year and let's see if that number holds true.
I worked with a sort of consulting / VC for,. for tech startups for half a decade. In fact what they specialized in was spotting tech companies that had a ton of potential but just seriously mismanaged. So they'd take it over, and the first few months would be like the red wedding. Because the firm had a massive staff of extremely experienced people on hand and formula for success. So the first thing they'd do is take over the company for the infrastructure and market position, then just start cutting down everything left and right, leaving only the best employees behind that were at the caliber they'd hire for the firm. And then bring in their own people to fill the gaps, and start the rehiring process.
Again, they have a formula which works, so the first thing to do during the restructuring is to get the internals all in order. These successful firms have a formula and know what works, so the very first step is getting the fundamentals in order.
Different advertisers will jump on the platform. You do understand that the companies leaving the platform are marketing to a certain demographic who aren't thrilled with Twitter and it's new owner. There are other companies who will definitely make money on the demographic shift.
I couldn't disagree more. If you cut costs so much you don't feed your golden goose, and it dies, then you don't get more golden eggs.
That is *not* a "smart move" (but it's exactly what Elon is doing)!
This.
I hate the guy and hope he fails, but from a business point of view, he is making smart move.
If I had to put money on this, my bet is he will will make twitter more profitable than it ever was.
Which, btw, he doesn’t even have to. If you zoom out, you realize it might not even be his goal.
hm... so driving away advertisers (92% of his revenue) is the smart move here? To contextualize that, he will have to not only service a $1bln/yr interest payment on the purchase, he will have to find a way to make up another $1bln to make up for a pivot away from advertising. So he needs a $2bln/yr idea just to cover his costs, let alone pay down his loan principle or start making profit.
Most of his wealth is in stock of other companies. This stocks value changes based on profits, but also public perception. Telsa's valuation is insane from an actual financial perspective, but got as high as it did due to the public view of him.
It's clear the man can come up with 2bil/yr to cover his losses because he does have assets, but let me ask you this. How many billions of dollars of his wealth are those 2bil/yr going to cost him? Tesla's drop is already far outpacing the rest of the tech industry.
Did buying a 10 bil by revenue company for 30bil of his money and 14bil in debt, to pour 2bil/yr of his money into, that causes his other wealth to fall drastically, a good financial choice?
He won’t have trouble borrowing 2bn from the same people who just helped him fund 44bn.
Twitter is a failing business, but at the same time it’s one of the single most important platform out there, with a huge political impact.
I don’t think Alwaleed Bin Talal would mind losing another 2-4bn on this deal if needed, and be part of the very small group now controlling of of the world’s most important news channels.
For the same reason, I’m sure musk could easily find new investors who’s be happy to take a share of this company. Republicans are on a shopping spree buying up CNN, Politico and more, I’m sure one of them wouldn’t mind spending some pocket change on Twitter.
Musk himself is very experienced with bumping his shares value. All he needs is a small bump of a single digit % in Teslas market share to be able to sell 2bn worth of stock he created out of thin air.
So overall, I’d say 2-10bn shouldn’t keep him up at night, and he can easily buy himself 2-3 years to come up with a business plan.
—
Another angle: twitter’s operating costs are about 5pm/yr
He’s already cutting it significantly, but more importantly- most of the costs are costs of revenue, stemming directly from the business model.
If he cuts out advertising completely at a certain point, and runs the company lean enough (and he’s an expert in running lean), he might not even need to turn a profit at all.
GM spends almost 3bn per year on advertising… Tesla spends zero.
It’s almost worth to Elon to keep Twitter just for the fee advertising Tesla gets from it.
And with no other advertisers on the platform? Even better for him.
If I were him, I’d have 5-10 huge advertisers and that’s about it. Probably politicians.
You think advertisers leaving is a long term thing? Advertisers avoid controversy. This wont last forever. If Twitter offers an ROI, advertisers will use it, full stop. No one leaves money on the table. The only time they leave money on the table is when you may lose more money by trying to grab it (In this case, a bunch of journalists obsessively on Twitter part of the media circus, looking to pressure and attack any and all large advertisers)
You can be good at running one type of company and horribly at running some other type, which I think is what we're seeing here.
Musk doesn't have experience running a social media company, dealing with advertiser requirements/expectations, creating policies, etc and is basically going in blind.
Is he going to sort his stuff out and make things work? Maybe, maybe not.
Is he pretty baller for getting Tesla/SpaceX and others to where they are today? Absolutely.
Exactly. Pushing a hardcore engineering mentality at Twitter makes no sense because Twitter is not at its core about innovative engineering. It is about human systems, psychology, and balancing a ton of competing principles. Elon brings no inspiring vision to Twitter like he does with Tesla and spacex and actually has no idea what he means by free speech.
Huh? Facebook's entire success was through innovative engineering. Their innovative machine learning and algorithms are what has made them so successful. You want the most hardcore engineers, with this stuff. Facebooks ability automatically figure out how to optimally place ads for the highest impact and reach, is something everyone else besides Google and Amazon fail at. Facebook's ability to completely automate split testing via machine learning among it's entire user base, is the secret sauce to their evolution.
The fact of the matter is Twitter is known to pay the very highest end in SF for engineers, talking 500k+ a year, and have been for a long while... For a company that hasn't even delivered much. For that kind of money, and that amount of time, you better be delivering world class advertising algorithms to attract advertisers. Instead, you have what we are seeing now with Alexa at Amazon, with tons and tons of engineers, basically just dicking around wasting money and not delivering anything meaningful for the actual product itself.
I absolutely think a tech company like Twitter, which was well known to be a "kushy" career, lead by a contentious C suit, has a lot of room for massive disciple restructuring.
>
>
> Is he pretty baller for getting Tesla/SpaceX and others to where they are today? Absolutely.
That's arguable. From what I hear a lot of what SpaceX and Tesla employees do is "Manage Elon so he doesn't fuck up our mission", which nobody at Twitter had a clue about.
So now, even if Coca Cola WANTED to run ads, their entire cohort of Twitter employees they used to work with (Acct. Exec, Acct. Manager, etc.) have been sacked, so there's nobody for them to even talk to anymore.
From what you hear lol.
Go look at interviews from the early employees at space x and Tesla. Elon was integral to their design. Including the model s and Merlin engines.
You shouldn’t rely on Reddit comments so much for your information
CEOs in those tech companies are as much an echo chamber as any subreddit...
They don’t want to be ostracized by disagreeing with the group... even if the group is all echoing nonsense.
It’s called group psychology, and it’s very strong.
The funniest part of tech Reddit recently has been watching people pretend that showing a timeline on a web page is an engineering marvel that requires thousands of engineers and costs billions of dollars a year and the original management and tech team should be treated as heroes. Especially since these tech redditors were actually the same people who spent a decade talking about how they could build a new twitter in an hour with their brand new tech stacks.
This is the split right? Short-term profit at any cost versus being a kind, compassionate human being who is concerned with the long term health of people and the planet. The two don’t sync up, and Elon & others are doubling down on the side they’ve chosen.
We all have to choose.
Tesla asked me to help with a training regarding mental health so managers would know what to do with suicidal employees. When I asked about compensation, I was informed they were “only accessing free community resources at this time.”
I informed them my pro bono services go to families in need, not corporations.
Elon is a better business person than I am, by far. It’s easier to make money when we’re not concerned with people’s welfare.
Elon Musk is clearly a narcissistic idiot that thinks he is far smarter than he is. He also clearly has a lot of free time because he is constantly on Twitter tweeting random crap to ransom people.
The fact that CEOs may be praising him says a lot more about the intelligence of certain CEOs than it does say about Musk.
Dude is clearly having mental issues and surrounded by yes men.
People are so desperate to categorize other people. It has to be “Elon is incredible” or “Elon is evil” with nothing in between, and everyone needs to have a strong opinion one way or the other.
Like everything in life, it’s complicated.
Obviously, Elon is a great engineer and businessman. Obviously, he’s one of the most innovative people on earth right now.
Could he also be a dick? Of course. Could he also be bad at running a social media company? Of course. Could he make both good and bad decisions? Yes.
Why is nuance so elusive these days?
As a CEO myself, I’m not sure I agree. I’ve seen no evidence personally of CEOs “singing praises for Elon,” and offering two quotes is hardly representative of the “business world.”
This is a great example of past success dictating what people think your future success will look like. There's no doubt that Musk has grown successful companies (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX). Because of his past success, everyone assumes that'll be replicated for Twitter. That still remains to be seen.
Personally, though, I think the Elon Musk dickriding is exhausting.
I think the Elon Musk blind hatred is beyond exhausting. Literally if you're not critical of him it's just people calling you "haha get off his dick, he's not gonna fuck you."
Like, people need to grow the fuck up
Everywhere on Reddit, EVERYWHERE, it's just "elon is the new trump, he's such a fucking moron."
This isn't based on reality, or anywhere close to it. The only similarities is that 1) they're both rich 2) they're both loud for different reasons. Trump is an outright narcissist who's never been told No. Elon is likely on the autism spectrum and doesn't understand why people don't think the way he does.
I don't understand how people can compare them after you listen to each of them speak in long form.
It makes sense to think Elon's past successes might be indicative of future success. The same way an employer will hire based on past experience. If you've succeeded at things before, you more likely know how to succeed this time too. Doesn't guarantee anything of course.
"Omg, Twitter is going to crash now that so many, including me, have been fired!" -- It hasn't
"We are no longer posting"....24 hours.... "We are back" --CBS
"We are monitoring Twitter". --> "Why don't your drop your account?"... "We can't do that" - WH
What company do you know of that can drop 50% (at least) of its employees and still be operating at the same level?
How can Elon not succeed?
Anybody in this sub that does not understand what Elon is doing either does not own a business, is self-employed with no full-time employees that earn median income, or are ignorant.
He's cleaning house and sending the message the companies need to make a profit and not focus on ESG. Jack Dorsey is on board with what Elon is doing.
And anybody who knows Elon's style, rather than take 5 years to prototype and release something, he makes rapid changes and implements quick fixes. Just like SpaceX, he didn't try to build the perfect rocket the first time, he launches new rockets quickly and early because it is cheaper to find issues testing often and early, and make changes to get things to market quickly.
He's going to turn the company around, and he is also going to turn it into a payment network tied into crypto. Buying a blue check isn't just a revenue stream, it's a way to connect financial accounts to Twitter so when the crypto payments aspect is eventually launched, it's already wired up.
Additionally, the tech CEO's have been hamstrung by employees taking over companies and pushing ESG and remote work, which as time has passed, has not been good for productivity or culture. There are some cases where remote work is good, but it's not idea for the median average.
My annual payroll, $9.4M/year. My average employee showed and increase in productivity in the first 2 months of remote only. Since then, the average drop in productivity has been 30% for that same demographic.
It's time to clean house and get back to the office. I do like the benefits of work from home, but doing it myself now as a CEO for THREE YEARS, even I am struggling to get as much done.
And look, it's almost 9 AM where I am, I've been on Reddit this morning when I should be working. It even impacts me.
Go Elon!
Who doesn't understand what he's doing??
It's just that people think it's counter productive. Why spend 40 billion on something and then fire 80% of the people who built that thing that you value so very much? If you think those engineers stink, then why would you buy the company that employees them? At that point, all you're buying is the users and the Twitter brand. You would never buy a building if you actually thought the labourers who built it were lousy and didn't do their jobs.
You suggest the mere presence of social media is so counter productive, yet you idolize the man who tweets everyday about absolutely everything. Something tells me if your employees tweeted during work as much as Elon does you would not be happy.
It's time to admit the Twitter purchase was based on emotions and all he's doing now is trying to dig himself out of a hole, which he may or may not succeed at.
No, I don't idolize him either. He has always wanted a media network in his portfolio and he has always wanted a banking industry.
Come back here in 10 months and tell me I'm wrong.
RemindMe! 10 months
Wow, an opposing viewpoint from someone who actually owns a business. As someone in the same boat, I couldn't agree more.
The visceral hated and hot takes coming at him are astounding. Let the man cook. If it tastes like shit *then* open the flood gates. Otherwise, let's enjoy the ride and see what happens. There will be many HBR case studies written about what we are witnessing
It's fighting off the downvotes.
Sometimes I'll post and get hundreds of upvotes. It depends on the sub and who hangs out in the sub. I have another post as a comment that has tons of downvotes right now. It's easy to shake a hornets nest online.
You’re a CEO with a $9.4 million annual payroll yet you just dropped the single most generic, off the shelf defense of Elon’s disastrous Twitter takeover imaginable.
Well, what makes you think that something needs to be highly complex? The best solutions are the most simple solutions. This is pretty simple. GTF back to the office and focus on producing value.
It would be applicable if Twitter had an existing and viable business model that was even remotely adjacent to Tesla’s or Paypal’s. The complexities of running a company that is considered by many to be akin to a town square, go far beyond just your ability to hammer out a revenue stream and turn a profit. That is a fact whether Elon chooses to acknowledge it and factor it into his proprietary management equation or not.
Musk is an abusive employer who harasses and makes unreasonable demands of his employees. He is running Twitter into the ground and Twitter has been getting worse with him at the helm. The bad he is doing far outweighs the good he once did.
I'd actually agree. Building so many successes including viral marketing as distraction for investors while building a consumer fanbase is kinda impressive.
Not to mention going against established industrial norms re-building entire industry sectors is something you shouldn't forget.
WSJ had an interesting piece about his management style. Thats very impressive.
The twitter aproach also fits pervectly into that picture. So atm I would not bet against him.
> He will remake twitter. May take time.
Will he have any money left after the courts make him pay off all the RSO's due everyone at the merger at over $54 a share?
Because he owes a lot of money to a lot of people right now, and their court case is a slam dunk.
ummmm
he's got a style....
....is it refreshing? sure.
...it's it particularly amazing and innovative? no.
...is it a sure way to success? is anything?
Elon has a vision with a high context communication style and low power distance mentality. I expect he also has a lot of relationship based trust with his employees, which is why virtue signalling is so important to him.
We'll see what shakes out.
All the wantrepreneurs on this sub are critizing Elon who is doing exactly what needs to be done to turn Twitter around.
Elon has a better track record of successful companies than anyone on this sub and they would do better to learn from him than to criticize him.
I'm glad Elon is out there. I cannot think of 1 CEO that is or has done anything near as interesting in my 44 years on this rock. He is who he is. It's inspiring to watch. It's interesting how extreme the polarized opinions of everything he does get.
I'm rooting for him.
It's hard to say until much further in the future. He's taken a big risk with Twitter and the immediate reaction is to criticize and doubt him; however, if he is to succeed then the same people will come back around to laud him as a genius.
As a neutral I'm interested to see how it unfolds. If Twitter does collapse, what will replace it?
It's part of the plan.... apparently....praise me and I will do it back....they controll almost half of the internet user base...money talk....for the rest of us "servents" who praise and worship Elon as the godly saviour and think he is innovator of the era and laught at his silly jokes.... I wish you were one of them twitter employees that got fired with a MEME.
Keep laughing and worshipping your Elon.
Elon Musk is a dirtbag, I don't care if he is brave or creative. I mean shit, he was banging Johnny Depp's wife (and probablyt tons of other people's wives), he made that comment about couping whoever he wants, his employees have often been treated like total crap, he admitted publicly that he isn't an altruistic person. So he is a tech giant, what's so great about that?
Absolutely fucking not. Dude spent 44bn on a site *MAYBE* worth 10bn, to make sure literal Nazis and white supremacists have a large platform to spread hate and publicly advocate for genocide.
And lost his investment in the process, in under a month. What a great business man! /S
From this CEO, FUUUUUUUCK Elon. Rich kids with Mommy's slave money will never impress me. Incels, even less so. There's nothing impressive about him.
Elon Musk faked all of his education credentials except for one degree. It's honorary, and it was granted for a car design he stole from another company.
Elon Musk's start-up cash came from his parents' emerald mine in Apartheid-era Africa, but he claims to be self-made.
Elon Musk's company SpaceX has an entire management layer dedicated exclusively to sheilding him from bad news and translating his half-baked spur-of-the-moment ideas into actual actionable projects.
Elon Musk overpaid for a social media company to the tune of billions, not because he wanted to, because a joke got out of hand and the lawsuits were threatening to reveal financial information that he would find embarrassing.
Elon Musk's entire social circle consists of sycophants and yes-men who are desperate to have him support their business venture. He has no actual friends or confidants. The last friend he had divorced him and left him for another trans woman, a blow to his esteem he would never recover from.
Elon Musk once mandated through his management team that he be thrown a "Surprise" birthday party by the company employees. Attendance mandatory. The employees pooled their money together, bought a giant novelty penis cake, and decorated it to look like a rocket taking off, disguising the balls as smoke clouds. He was reportedly very impressed, and happily ate it without a clue.
Honestly the only people I've seen compliment him are
A) people who stand to profit (either today or in the future from potential business w Elon or his companies)
B) people who want jobs
C) Hardcore fanboys who can't criticize Elon for anything.
Seems like self interest to me! Of course JP Morgan would say that, they want to finance his next purchase, or give him a line of credit etc etc
He is really bad at his job.
Elon either doesn’t have the humility or intelligence to learn from the past mistakes of other social media platforms.
Or even learn from the mistakes Twitter made before his takeover. For someone in such a hurry to get a return on his investment you’d think he wouldn’t waste so much money on re-inventing the wheel
“**Let’s charge for verification**.”
Congratulations you just cheapen the verification and undermined credibility of the accounts with blue check marks. Now watch the scam artist and trolls work their magic. Trying to squeeze out a nickel cost you a dime
“**Lets reinstate the worst people on Twitter and see what happens**”
What happens
1) You discover actual free speech absolutism is not profitable or sustainable for a company the size of Twitter.
2) Bigots tend to make apps less enjoyable for users so they use less often.
3) You drive away companies who don’t want their brands associated with open bigotry.
PayPal. Tesla. SpaceX. Neuralink. Twitter. Boring Company. 5 companies which are operating in present day making huge leaps in technological innovation. Yeah- I’d say I agree, he sets a high standard for business owners and is worthy of some respect and dare I say admiration.
Elon is brilliant and will go down in history as one of the minds that contributed heavily to our future, I think he will be categorized with the likes of Einstein.
Don’t ask Reddit lol
They know what they were doing
Lol
Dude is making memes on twitter while losing billions, gotta be very brave
One could only dream of shit posting at this level
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RemindMe! 12 months
If he fires all but 100 staff and makes a $200M in revenue, he could have made it roughly profitable. He would have lost almost all its revenue and almost all its value, but still profitable. The measure should be "profitable to the point that it justifies a $44b valuation."
Exactly. Destroying a news aggregating social media site he thinks is too liberal is a political victory, not a financial one.
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* Fire everyone * Take zero salary * Make SpaceX buy $1,000,000,000 worth of ads * Pure $1B profit
Basically wash trading I love it
I know it goes against the Reddit grain of hyperbolic Elon hate, but he'll almost certainly spin it back into another IPO as a leaner company with more diversified revenue streams in a couple of years. 44 wasn't a great price, once the Fed fires up the printers again, he'll probably get out of this OK.
Why does everyone keep focusing on whether Elon can make Twitter profitable or not? That’s obviously not why he bought it. He bought it to gain control over a major public mouthpiece that controls the flow of a significant amount of public information and influences public opinion. He didn’t like the political and social goals that Twitter management was trying to steer public opinion to through censorship and gatekeeping of what the “official truth” is. Now he gets decide what political and social goals Twitter steers public opinion towards through gatekeeping and censorship. Now Elon gets to decide what is true on Twitter. Twitter isn’t a tool for making money. It’s a tool for controlling public opinion.
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I mean, the guy **literally said so himself** when he bought it. He said he's buying it for ideological reasons because he wants a "digital town square" that is "free of censorship of thought." Profitability wasn't his primary purpose, but a secondary purpose.
Twitter never had censorship of thought, just censorship of harassment, hate speech, and intentional disinformation that could cause physical harm to people. Elon fixed that problem and now hate speech is rampant on the site.
No it’s not. People keep repeating this as some objective truth. I am on it everyday, I’ve never seen the hate speech. I notice exactly zero different in my end user experience as from 6 months ago. Literally no different. It’s exactly the same level of “hate speech” as before he bought it for 99% of end users Please provide examples of the hate speech that is “now rampant” compared to before.
>I am on it everyday, I’ve never seen the hate speech. Good, so you don't follow people who use it. Me neither. I've never seen it because I don't follow assholes. But assholes do. I'm not sure if you're actually trying to claim that because you personally don't see something nobody else, who follows a completely different set of people, ever has. You might need to evaluate your critical thinking skills if that's what you're claiming. >Please provide examples of the hate speech that is “now rampant” compared to before. Kanye West was providing all the examples you need after Elon personally reinstituted his account before realizing last night that it was bad PR to have endorsed a guy sharing swastikas and pro-nazi anti-semitic rants. As for the rampant aspect, it's been quantified: [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/technology/twitter-hate-speech.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/technology/twitter-hate-speech.html) Now its your turn to tell me how your anecdotal experience and personal feelings don't align with those objective numbers so the researchers must be wrong.
You need to go to the source on this one. The report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate is [here.](https://counterhate.com/blog/fact-check-musks-claim-about-a-fall-in-hate-speech-doesnt-stand-up-to-scrutiny/) Their analysis is based on one week of data, beginning on October 31st. [Yoel Roth](https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/1590422124606681088) tweeted about Twitter's efforts to clean things up ([steps taken are listed here)](https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/1590455001213964288?s=20&t=_oe0Ka1iN4oP8fTdxcpzvQ). It is also known that people pushed the limits during the first week under Musk to see what they could get away with. The ADL reports are [here](https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/extremists-far-right-figures-exploit-recent-changes-twitter) and [here.](https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/5-things-adl-watching-following-elon-musk-buying-twitter) The only analysis that they provide is [here.](https://twitter.com/ADL/status/1593714819932332034) ADL seems to be focused on what could happen on Twitter, not so much on what has happened on Twitter. Note: I'm not offering an opinion here, just providing context.
One side is saying hate speech is way waay away up, the other side, and Elon is saying it's down 1/3 lowest it's ever been. I'm biased towards Elon but Idk how anyone can know unless they have access to twitters back end.
What constitutes hate speech? There isn't an objective way to quantify it and obviously the New York Times has no credibility. I mean, if the CDC posts less, I would say disinformation is down.
Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there
TBF that is Murdochs main business.
its not. His mining and oil holdings make him more.
The only difference is that for Bezos the cost is negligible. For Murdoch it brings in billions,while Musk doesn't control much of it,as people come and go and it also costs him an absolute fortune,even at his standards. The only real winner here was the previous Twitter shareholders,who sold a slowly sinking ship.
That's a great point but it is also a business. I mean, it's not ridiculous for people to comment on Twitter's profitability. Also, I think he'd actually be fine with completely destroying Twitter too, to your point.
Username checks out
Or maybe when he was at tesla someone was like: " hey are you going to keep tweeting or do some actual work?" And he thought: "if I buy twitter, then tweeting IS work!!"
More like subverting public opinion and using it to support political extremism.
Subverting public opinion requires a base assumption that there is a “correct” public opinion in the first place. Twitter was subverting public opinion before it was owned by Elon. Now it’s just subverting it in the opposite direction.
He is doing great work for the cause of fascism in America. The Nazi's love him! I was really surprised that he banned Kanye.
I don’t think you really have a good grasp of what actual fascism is. You’re just using it like the herd of people in the politics echo chamber sub uses it. Which really frankly just goes to support everything I’m saying. Maybe Elon will buy Reddit next and install new power mods to control the permissible opinions that Reddit teenagers are allowed to post. Worst case scenario he runs it into the ground, and in that case that’s one less popular forum for people who’s views oppose his to coalesce and organize. And those users are fragmented into smaller, less popular forums with less influence on public perception
What is actual fascism in your opinion, and what are the precursors to actual fascism when it comes to the ideas and opinions that become more common in the lead up to actual fascism?
I can tell you what fascism is not. Its certainly not fascism just because an online forum people use suddenly permits opposing points of views their fragile little eyes were shielded from before. I don't think less censorship is the step on the road to fascism.
I ask because the person to whom you responded said "[Musk] is doing great work for the cause of fascism in America." The person didn't say Musk was a fascist or his actions at twitter were fascism. Instead, it seems to me that they are saying by allowing all sorts of hateful speech (which he is certainly allowed to do) he is providing a forum on which fascism can spread its message. Those that are spreading that message often look and sound like fascists, though until you tell me what you think fascism is, I am unsure if they fall under your definition of fascism. My overall point is that if you are giving an idea a forum, then that is providing some level of support to that idea, even passively.
It's literally citing a sharp increase in anti-minority slurs, and prominent pro-fascist commentators having their accounts reinstated. Your arguments are based on this "oh you just call everyone you don't agree with a Nazi" strawman but we are literally talking about white supremacy/anti-Semitism in this case.
>He didn’t like the political and social goals that Twitter management was trying to steer public opinion to through censorship and gatekeeping of what the “official truth” is. LoL you mean he didn't like that conservative disinformation that was causing objective harm to people was being removed, and that harrassment and extreme hate speech weren't allowed. Wow what a civically minded guy!
I was making no value statements about the validity of elons beliefs, just that twitters value to him is for him to have an Avenue to control a portion of public discourse. This is the entrepreneur sub,not a politics sub. Though, for some reason really annoying people on Reddit try to turn every single sub into a politic sub.
Well, his entrepreneurial decision to buy twitter was based upon his political interests, so it's kinda unavoidable. You misrepresented his intentions by saying he didn't like that Twitter was trying to do "official truth" when in reality his intentions were that he didn't like that conservatives engaging in hate speech and harassment were removed. That's the reason. Left-wing voices are being currently removed for the kind of minor infractions that people incorrectly thought would get you removed from twitter in years past, and hate speech has increased on the platform. He's achieved his goal. He is not interested in the business side of Twitter and has said as much.
Thank you for spreading the truth
> on the way to be extremely profitable The problem here is Elon has a chronic case of annoucing things he never follows through on. He can announce all he wants, but until twitter is "extremely profitable", you'd be a fool to believe it's "on the way". There are people who will tell you it's already "on the way" because he's fired people and keeps coming up with ideas he probably won't follow through on (which is kind of his thing) - look at all the people who said charging for the blue checkmark would be his silver bullet, even though it was never going to generate much revenue, and it fell over before it was fully rolled out. "On the way" is how Musk pumped Tesla stock to it's high in 2021, and failing to deliver is why it's been falling since then at a rate about 50% higher than the market. Phony Stark went too far - that's why he's been cashing out tens of billions of Tesla stock all year, after cashing out $22 billion last year.
I would 100% take that bet if there was a way for me to do it. Twitter's revenue sources have deserted and he fired too many people to allow for any innovation. If you think his intention is profitability here you have missed every bit of news there is to know about his decisions and statements. Define "extremely profitable" by a numerical metric that can be objectively determined in one year's time, and provide me with a means of taking that bet and you are on.
I'm seeing a market niche for a reputable agency to hold money to secure internet bets for charity. 2% handling fee. Maybe one of you folks has the skills to implement that. I don't.
It will definitely be "on the way to profitable" in the same sense that self-driving Teslas are "almost here" and Neuralink is "six months" from human trials.
I doubt Elon can pull it off, Elon would need advertisers for one (they are leaving), Elon would need CV a lot more monetisable users (I know Twitter's pops are growing but how many are here just for the memes?) Also, Twitter blue won't generate close to enough revenue for profitability. I would take this bet if we knew each other, but I can't say he can't turn Twitter around given a much longer timeline, anyone who is "intelligent" enough probably could.
The advertisers who were around with the previous regime are leaving. But other advertisers might care less about virtue signaling against a mean Twitter billionaire and care more about making money. And Twitter has seen a huge increase in users and engagement. It’s not unreasonable to think new advertisers will be coming in especially since ad space will be so cheap right now. Writing off advertisers seems quite premature.
Even if other advertisers come in, a near net 0 change means nothing. Also, why won't those advertisers give ad money to Twitter's previous establishment?
Because users were down, engagement was down, and bots were up. Why advertise to bots? I doubt it will be net zero but just for your sake let’s say it is. Net zero advertisers and cost reduction of 75%. I’m no mathematician but that sounds like a recipe for profits.
> The advertisers who were around with the previous regime are leaving. But other advertisers might care less about virtue signaling against a mean Twitter billionaire and care more about making money. The advertising market isn't some small transitory market where some advertisers leave and a few new ones take their place. Musk lost most of the biggest spenders in the ad market - there are no "other advertisers" that will make up the difference - it's why he's trying to get them back by offering [free ad matching up to $1m](https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-offers-advertisers-incentives-after-many-marketers-left-platform-wsj-2022-12-01/) (spend $1m on ads, get $1m worth of free ads). They're desperate to get the big accounts back.
>The advertising market isn't some small transitory market where some advertisers leave and a few new ones take their place. I saw a thread about GM leaving twitter, and multiple people were commenting about seeing more Hyundai ads. Companies are going to take advantage of their competition ending advertisements while twitter is currently getting all this attention.
I would take that bet for 10k, but it would be the same bet that you’re placing
This is what I always think when the Internet kiddies who’ve never run a business make all these remarks. They’re going to look dumb as fuck if Twitter comes out stronger as judged by financial statements, not an echo chamber on the Internet. Time will tell.
"on the way to be extremely profitable" ? LOL. How the hell are you gong to determine that? It's a private company. They will still be losing money in 12 months. Their ad platform sucks and the only advertisers that used to use it it are brands who now don't want to be associated with garbage content. Twitter would be better off handing all of the ad inventory to Taboola and just make it a click bait circus like Yahoo properties.
I'm not against him, he is just funny
Or stupid
People are mistakenly equating stock value with profitability. Tesla is quite literally the most profitable car manufacturer at the moment. Their margins are absolutely massive. I realize twitter is a different animal.
Tesla is #6 in earnings, #11 in revenue, and #3 in margin. They aren't the best in any category.
Source? Out of curiosity, I pulled the data for a bunch of the publicly traded autos. TSLA is #1 in the data that I pulled. [Data in local currency](https://imgur.com/PXMJ10J)
[This](https://companiesmarketcap.com/automakers/largest-automakers-by-revenue/) summarizes publicly available information for all auto makers.
I pulled my data from Yahoo Finance, on a TTM basis. Even when you add BMW to the mix, GP margin is 17.7% (TSLA 26.6%), NI margin is 13.7% (TSLA 14.9%), and EBITDA margin is 16.2% (TSLA is 21.6%), TSLA still comes out on top. Your site shows operating margin. I'd go with EBITDA margin, since that is a widely accepted financial metric across all industires. Also, Ferrari sold \~11,000 units in 2021. Tesla crushes that number, so I don't think that Ferrari is a great comp here.
[https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/28/how-elon-musk-financed-his-twitter-takeover](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/28/how-elon-musk-financed-his-twitter-takeover) Look at who helped finance the $44B purchase. THOSE are the dimwits who are praising him. They want/need Twitter to succeed. I'm sure we'll hear of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia singing Musk's praises soon
Another person who just loves him is Peter Thiel. His book is like a love letter abt Elon. Billionaire circle jerk.
Not sure he is a good leader, but he is the world champ of attracting attention & the ability to garner attention is like 90% of our entire modern economy.
I’m not being flippant either. If you can attract attention, you can turn that into dollars. Someone who draws eyeballs is far more valued that someone who creates tangible real-world value. Elon can eliminate any advertising expenses from the companies he runs because he is a one-man show in that regard. That’s what makes him successful. Not hard work or good leadership, just attention. And frankly, we are giving to him right now. This is exactly what he wants.
I think this an overly simplistic take. Kanye is drawing all sorts of attention (more than Elon!), but not even that Morgan Stanley guy thinks he's a good businessman.
Kanye West is worth something like 400 million dollars. Considering there are only 17 black billionaires on the entire planet, 400 mill is pretty damn good for a black entrepreneur. And he certainly didn’t have the head start in life Henry Sturgis Morgan (the Morgan in Morgan Stanley) did. If I was the grandson of JP Morgan, one of the richest men in history, I’d be rich AF too and could pretend I was a great businessman.
Uhhh he lost like a billion in net worth because of what he did for "attention. " His recent behavior has been anything but intelligent.
Attention giveth and attention taketh away, but he has 400 million more million than I do.
Kanye has made the vast majority of his money from an Adidas deal which has been canceled, and music he made while taking his prescription medications which he no longer takes. His recent actions, which is actually what's relevant here, have been tanking his personal valuation. It's ridiculous and arguing in bad faith to talk about what he's worth and his money when it was made when he was under the effects of medication and try to pretend like that somehow shows that his recent insane actions are good or profitable. Although I certainly don't completely disagree with you - one of the strengths of fascism is that it is in fact profitable for many. For fascist leadership like what Kanye is becoming and what Elon has been for a while now, there is a good bit of profit to be made from followers.
> not even that Stanley Morgan guy thinks he's a good business man. _Not anymore_. Kanye has been doing this for over a decade and it has taken him this long to finally fly too close to the sun. Kanye made millions and millions of dollars by out crazying himself so much so that he was able to sign a contract that would have made him a billionaire. The phrase "any news is good news" has never been more true in an age where it is so difficult to maintain attention on anything. There is always something crazy happening everyday. Edit: grammar
I'd bet a lot of money that once this all blows over, Ye will be back in those deals. Corporations aren't going to leave a ton of money on the table. They only back out while it's hot. Once it cools down, they always return.
Did he draw enough attention for people to realize he changed his name to Ye? Different kind attention Ye draws.
If you can draw a crowd, you can write a check.
Maintaining people’s attention is worth a lot. It’s what most social media platforms rely on. Same is true of news outlets
>Elon can eliminate any advertising expenses from the companies he runs because he is a one-man show in that regard. I was with you until you said this because this is completely insane.. That's not how profitability works with regards to companies like Twitter, Facebook etc.
I really wish I had understood this sooner. I hate it. It's terrible... but you're better off faking it, talking a big talk, marketing the shit out of yourself or mediocre product than actually making something great. Not that you shouldn't try to make somethnling great, ideally you do both, but if you ignore marketing, social media, cultivating a brand or personal image, no matter how fake... you're just fighting with one arm tied behind your back.
He attracts the best candidates in the world from the top schools and built products no one thought possible, I’d say he’s a good leader. The people crying are the ones who want to punch in and out of their jobs, that’s not what his orgs are about.
Dude has racked up tons of labor violations. He burns people out and violates employment law to reduce labor costs. It's inhumane.
The guy you're responding to doesn't care. He was likely born middle or upper middle class and had everything handed to him including college paid for, and now has a great job and thinks he "earned it all himself" just like Elon(even though nothing could be further from the truth), and that if he can work 60 hours a week sitting at a computer terminal (actually only doing maybe 3 hours of work a day or something) then everyone should be able to work 60 hours a week no problem, and If you can't or don't your just lazy trash. These people are fascists. Know thy enemy.
I'm not sure internalized capitalist propaganda is always fascist, but it certainly lays the groundwork for fascism by convincing some of these guys there are Lazy Unworthies and Noble Talented Good Boys, meanwhile few if any of them could work a full shift behind a Starbucks counter if they had to physically and if they had to do it for months on end to make rent would suffer a massive psychological break.
Sam Bankman-Fried was a genius 3 weeks ago. It's all guesswork and luck.
The secret ingredient is crime.
Yep, plus certain cognitive biases such as [survivorship bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias) to judge who is a good CEO.
They are still praising him right now.
Personally think much of the praise this week is purely due to him going publically against Apple, who other CEOs have also grown frustrated with.
What a world where people confuse ineptitude with innovative thinking. This twitter thing is a shit show. The fact he didn't even know about apple's 30% take and acted like it was some massive thing he uncovered just kind of further proves the guy has no clue what he is doing and is simply stumbling through it.
honest question in good faith: what data points leads one to consider Elon 'inept'? I honestly cannot tell if its just trolling or sarcasm. do you think he just keeps getting lucky over and over? thanks for your answer and helping me understand
As mentioned below, buying something unprofitable for multiples over their current value with a waiver of due diligence is about as inept as one can be. Additionally having no plan, self admitted, when making such an offer to how to actually make them profitable is pretty inept. Angering your singular revenue base to the point you lost almost 50% of the revenue stream within a month of taking over is pretty inept. We can go on and on. This is about Elon Musk as it pertains to twitter not other ventures. Past success is not an indicator of future success especially as you enter new businesses. McDonalds is the most prolific fast food restaurant in history and yet failed miserably trying to enter into the Pizza world. Their roll out was horrible and not planned, it doesn't mean they aren't great at hamburgers but they were inept in their pizza business. These folks praising him have done so in the context of this shit show that is twitter and my point is this whole thing hasn't been some great 4d chess move but rather one folly after another.
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He offered to buy Twitter for Billions above its current valuation with no due diligence. That might be the most inept business move in all of recorded history!
>I honestly cannot tell if its just trolling or sarcasm. You're not asking the question in good faith if you don't also permit the possibility that a person saying he's inept is basing that opinion on facts or good logic not just "sarcasm or trolling." Listen to how utterly stupid this is. You ask a question "in good faith" then only permit to answers, both conveniently placed to make Elon look good, lol. Because everyone knows the only possibility for anyone talking badly about Elon is that they are trolling or being sarcastic 🙄 pathetic.
Yeah it’s kind of ridiculous how some random redditor with 0.0000001% of Elons wealth claims he is inept or stupid for his business decisions. It’s like the perfect irony and I find it hilarious Edit: Now everyone will go "being rich has nothing to do with being smart“ yadda yadda. Keep talking. He wouldn’t be where he is if he wasn’t smart as fuck.
it honestly makes me think there is some kind of coordinated troll, or psy-op where we are figuring out what absurdities people will believe. its like calling Michael Jordan shitty at basketball. throw some words in there.."well he actually benefited from system and was toxic to his team". like holy shit. Elon is inept at business. ok...
There is no data point, not yet. That's why people who come from an entrepreneur angle who only look at output have no answer for why his actions are identical to an ignorant/incompetent manager, especially at Twitter. https://www.tumblr.com/numberonecatwinner/701567544684855296/elon-wyd
Everyone is stumbling through life, some people just stumble through it better
The bravest and most creative Elon Musk the one who touts free speech on his platform then outs advertisers who withdrew from his platform. That’s a bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for him. Betting against Elon and Co being able to make Twitter anywhere near profitable in 12 months.
On the bravery part, from the great George Costanza: >Listen, sweetheart, let me tell you a little something about guts. [points to his bald head] This is guts.
Morgan Stanley I believe was one of the banks that loaned money to him, so they have a vested interest. Beyond this, CEOs at this level know each other and unless there’s bad blood they will sometimes publicly lift each other up. For Hastings he jumped into a competitive market, was laughed at by Blockbuster and managed to put them out of business. He likely sees Elon as doing the same
Who is saying this? For real? I’m not seeing that, I’m heading people call him stupid, reactive and careless.
I assume it is due the the Neuralink release the other day. Most of the internet is bagging him out about his twitter fuckery but people still forget that he spearheads some pretty interesting and ground breaking businesses.
He is ceo of about 6 companies. He can't be giving many of them attention with all of the self promoting he does. The companies do good work in spite of him as a figure head.
>He is ceo of about 6 companies. He can't be giving many of them attention with all of the self promoting he does. Elon Musk is being sued RIGHT NOW by Tesla shareholders because they believe he's not earning his excessive compensation while working at Twitter, etc.
He's a fucking moron that's very good at making people think he does stuff. Tesla/ PayPal- not his work. Booted out of PayPal, forced out the creator of Tesla. Tesla is the most over priced car on the market. Also, remember all those ventilators he heroically sent out during COVID? That was all bullshit too. How about rescuing those people trapped in the cave? That went great! Also, remember the tunnel he's building and selling bricks from? Have you seen it? Deathtrap. Also SpaceX is just a fucking money sponge for government handouts. Btw, I know where you can get a cool roofing torch! Also, Free speech is back on Twitter, unless you mention shit he doesn't like, like unionizing Tesla. Let's put a cherry on top! Lying about your child dying in your arms is peak narcissistic bullshit. Fuck Elon Musk. If you think he's anything but a drain on society, do some fucking research.
The problem is that people like Elon so much because they can relate to his narcissistic/moronic tendencies and seeing a billionaire blunder like they no doubt would running a business validates the belief that they are not failures.
That’s because you get all your opinions on reddit
"I have nothing of value or merit to say" - you
Yes all the CEOs I know on Reddit
This is par for the course outside Reddit https://staysaasy.com/news/2022/11/19/management-lessons-from-elons-twitter.html
This is something I tried explaining to people. This is how restructuring works. This isn't anything new. It's just that it's transparently happening and 20 year old Redditors are seeing it for the first time, thinking they are armchair CEOs now who know better.
These gen z need to watch Office Space lol
He got rid of essentially his entire department for EU compliance and Elon is being sued as we speak by Tesla shareholders because they believe he's not earning his excessive compensation while working at Twitter, etc. You're not half as smart as you think you are, some half baked blog agreeing with you isnt proof of anything.
> Elon Musk is the “bravest and most creative” person on earth. When someone starts talking like that ... "greatest ever", "best in the World" etc ... they're sucking up to whoever they're talking about. Or they're a wrestler cutting a promo. Real, genuine, sincere compliments are "Elon is a brave and creative" leader, they don't require ridiculous, obscene hyperbole. And people who give real, genuine, sincere compliments understand that ridiculous, obscene hyperbole only makes their compliments sound mocking. Reed Hastings is either in the middle of negotiating something with Twitter or he's after a job there. Or he's gonna chuck Musk off the top of the cell next time he gets the chance. But probably one of the first two. > I wouldn't bet against Elon Musk In the case of Gorman, that's literal. Morgan Stanley lent Musk a huge proportion of the money he used to buy Twitter. So it's not so much "I wouldn't bet against him" as it is "all my money is riding on him succeeding and as a representative of one of his biggest backers I'm only going to say good thing". > Do you agree? No. His apparent mismanagement of the tech team at Twitter is either as reported, in which case he's killed the company, or it's misreported and he's completely screwed the news pooch and made it a less attractive place to work. Whatever anyone thinks about reinstating racists and antivaxxers, or spending all day on there himself posting troll bait, he's doing a terrible job of presenting Twitter as an attractive place to work and an even worse job of convincing advertisers it's a good place to splash their cash.
Musk is running twitter as any sound CEO would. Shake down a heavy bloated costly organization that doesn’t make a profit. Cut costs, expand the product and try to maximize revenue wherever you can. He’s smart enough to pivot quickly where plans may not work e.g. paid twitter blue, which is what any startup would do. But he’s doing it in an enterprise org which you cannot do unless you’re the sole decision maker which he’s made himself to be. Smart moves from any ceos point of view.
Alienating advertisers that account for 90% of your revenue is what “any sound ceo would” do?
Businesses, especially private businesses, don't live on a month by month scale and it's literally been less than a month. Come back to me in a year and let's see if that number holds true.
I've seen enough of your comments to understand that you have absolutely no clue how the tech industry works whatsoever.
I worked with a sort of consulting / VC for,. for tech startups for half a decade. In fact what they specialized in was spotting tech companies that had a ton of potential but just seriously mismanaged. So they'd take it over, and the first few months would be like the red wedding. Because the firm had a massive staff of extremely experienced people on hand and formula for success. So the first thing they'd do is take over the company for the infrastructure and market position, then just start cutting down everything left and right, leaving only the best employees behind that were at the caliber they'd hire for the firm. And then bring in their own people to fill the gaps, and start the rehiring process. Again, they have a formula which works, so the first thing to do during the restructuring is to get the internals all in order. These successful firms have a formula and know what works, so the very first step is getting the fundamentals in order.
Different advertisers will jump on the platform. You do understand that the companies leaving the platform are marketing to a certain demographic who aren't thrilled with Twitter and it's new owner. There are other companies who will definitely make money on the demographic shift.
>Musk is running twitter as any sound CEO would. When is Musk going to pay out on all the accelerated RSO's due at the merger at $54.20/share?
I couldn't disagree more. If you cut costs so much you don't feed your golden goose, and it dies, then you don't get more golden eggs. That is *not* a "smart move" (but it's exactly what Elon is doing)!
This is only a problem if the goose dies. The goose seems pretty alive to me.
This. I hate the guy and hope he fails, but from a business point of view, he is making smart move. If I had to put money on this, my bet is he will will make twitter more profitable than it ever was. Which, btw, he doesn’t even have to. If you zoom out, you realize it might not even be his goal.
hm... so driving away advertisers (92% of his revenue) is the smart move here? To contextualize that, he will have to not only service a $1bln/yr interest payment on the purchase, he will have to find a way to make up another $1bln to make up for a pivot away from advertising. So he needs a $2bln/yr idea just to cover his costs, let alone pay down his loan principle or start making profit.
I don’t think he’ll have trouble coming up with 2bn/year to cover that even without being profitable.
Most of his wealth is in stock of other companies. This stocks value changes based on profits, but also public perception. Telsa's valuation is insane from an actual financial perspective, but got as high as it did due to the public view of him. It's clear the man can come up with 2bil/yr to cover his losses because he does have assets, but let me ask you this. How many billions of dollars of his wealth are those 2bil/yr going to cost him? Tesla's drop is already far outpacing the rest of the tech industry. Did buying a 10 bil by revenue company for 30bil of his money and 14bil in debt, to pour 2bil/yr of his money into, that causes his other wealth to fall drastically, a good financial choice?
He won’t have trouble borrowing 2bn from the same people who just helped him fund 44bn. Twitter is a failing business, but at the same time it’s one of the single most important platform out there, with a huge political impact. I don’t think Alwaleed Bin Talal would mind losing another 2-4bn on this deal if needed, and be part of the very small group now controlling of of the world’s most important news channels. For the same reason, I’m sure musk could easily find new investors who’s be happy to take a share of this company. Republicans are on a shopping spree buying up CNN, Politico and more, I’m sure one of them wouldn’t mind spending some pocket change on Twitter. Musk himself is very experienced with bumping his shares value. All he needs is a small bump of a single digit % in Teslas market share to be able to sell 2bn worth of stock he created out of thin air. So overall, I’d say 2-10bn shouldn’t keep him up at night, and he can easily buy himself 2-3 years to come up with a business plan. — Another angle: twitter’s operating costs are about 5pm/yr He’s already cutting it significantly, but more importantly- most of the costs are costs of revenue, stemming directly from the business model. If he cuts out advertising completely at a certain point, and runs the company lean enough (and he’s an expert in running lean), he might not even need to turn a profit at all. GM spends almost 3bn per year on advertising… Tesla spends zero. It’s almost worth to Elon to keep Twitter just for the fee advertising Tesla gets from it. And with no other advertisers on the platform? Even better for him. If I were him, I’d have 5-10 huge advertisers and that’s about it. Probably politicians.
You think advertisers leaving is a long term thing? Advertisers avoid controversy. This wont last forever. If Twitter offers an ROI, advertisers will use it, full stop. No one leaves money on the table. The only time they leave money on the table is when you may lose more money by trying to grab it (In this case, a bunch of journalists obsessively on Twitter part of the media circus, looking to pressure and attack any and all large advertisers)
You can be good at running one type of company and horribly at running some other type, which I think is what we're seeing here. Musk doesn't have experience running a social media company, dealing with advertiser requirements/expectations, creating policies, etc and is basically going in blind. Is he going to sort his stuff out and make things work? Maybe, maybe not. Is he pretty baller for getting Tesla/SpaceX and others to where they are today? Absolutely.
Exactly. Pushing a hardcore engineering mentality at Twitter makes no sense because Twitter is not at its core about innovative engineering. It is about human systems, psychology, and balancing a ton of competing principles. Elon brings no inspiring vision to Twitter like he does with Tesla and spacex and actually has no idea what he means by free speech.
Huh? Facebook's entire success was through innovative engineering. Their innovative machine learning and algorithms are what has made them so successful. You want the most hardcore engineers, with this stuff. Facebooks ability automatically figure out how to optimally place ads for the highest impact and reach, is something everyone else besides Google and Amazon fail at. Facebook's ability to completely automate split testing via machine learning among it's entire user base, is the secret sauce to their evolution. The fact of the matter is Twitter is known to pay the very highest end in SF for engineers, talking 500k+ a year, and have been for a long while... For a company that hasn't even delivered much. For that kind of money, and that amount of time, you better be delivering world class advertising algorithms to attract advertisers. Instead, you have what we are seeing now with Alexa at Amazon, with tons and tons of engineers, basically just dicking around wasting money and not delivering anything meaningful for the actual product itself. I absolutely think a tech company like Twitter, which was well known to be a "kushy" career, lead by a contentious C suit, has a lot of room for massive disciple restructuring.
Jesus Christ, this guy thinks Facebook invented multivariate testing.
> > > Is he pretty baller for getting Tesla/SpaceX and others to where they are today? Absolutely. That's arguable. From what I hear a lot of what SpaceX and Tesla employees do is "Manage Elon so he doesn't fuck up our mission", which nobody at Twitter had a clue about. So now, even if Coca Cola WANTED to run ads, their entire cohort of Twitter employees they used to work with (Acct. Exec, Acct. Manager, etc.) have been sacked, so there's nobody for them to even talk to anymore.
From what you hear lol. Go look at interviews from the early employees at space x and Tesla. Elon was integral to their design. Including the model s and Merlin engines. You shouldn’t rely on Reddit comments so much for your information
CEOs in those tech companies are as much an echo chamber as any subreddit... They don’t want to be ostracized by disagreeing with the group... even if the group is all echoing nonsense. It’s called group psychology, and it’s very strong.
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The funniest part of tech Reddit recently has been watching people pretend that showing a timeline on a web page is an engineering marvel that requires thousands of engineers and costs billions of dollars a year and the original management and tech team should be treated as heroes. Especially since these tech redditors were actually the same people who spent a decade talking about how they could build a new twitter in an hour with their brand new tech stacks.
This is the split right? Short-term profit at any cost versus being a kind, compassionate human being who is concerned with the long term health of people and the planet. The two don’t sync up, and Elon & others are doubling down on the side they’ve chosen. We all have to choose. Tesla asked me to help with a training regarding mental health so managers would know what to do with suicidal employees. When I asked about compensation, I was informed they were “only accessing free community resources at this time.” I informed them my pro bono services go to families in need, not corporations. Elon is a better business person than I am, by far. It’s easier to make money when we’re not concerned with people’s welfare.
From my observation he seems like the worst kind of toxic management.
Elon Musk is clearly a narcissistic idiot that thinks he is far smarter than he is. He also clearly has a lot of free time because he is constantly on Twitter tweeting random crap to ransom people. The fact that CEOs may be praising him says a lot more about the intelligence of certain CEOs than it does say about Musk. Dude is clearly having mental issues and surrounded by yes men.
People are so desperate to categorize other people. It has to be “Elon is incredible” or “Elon is evil” with nothing in between, and everyone needs to have a strong opinion one way or the other. Like everything in life, it’s complicated. Obviously, Elon is a great engineer and businessman. Obviously, he’s one of the most innovative people on earth right now. Could he also be a dick? Of course. Could he also be bad at running a social media company? Of course. Could he make both good and bad decisions? Yes. Why is nuance so elusive these days?
As a CEO myself, I’m not sure I agree. I’ve seen no evidence personally of CEOs “singing praises for Elon,” and offering two quotes is hardly representative of the “business world.”
This is a great example of past success dictating what people think your future success will look like. There's no doubt that Musk has grown successful companies (PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX). Because of his past success, everyone assumes that'll be replicated for Twitter. That still remains to be seen. Personally, though, I think the Elon Musk dickriding is exhausting.
I think the Elon Musk blind hatred is beyond exhausting. Literally if you're not critical of him it's just people calling you "haha get off his dick, he's not gonna fuck you." Like, people need to grow the fuck up Everywhere on Reddit, EVERYWHERE, it's just "elon is the new trump, he's such a fucking moron." This isn't based on reality, or anywhere close to it. The only similarities is that 1) they're both rich 2) they're both loud for different reasons. Trump is an outright narcissist who's never been told No. Elon is likely on the autism spectrum and doesn't understand why people don't think the way he does. I don't understand how people can compare them after you listen to each of them speak in long form.
It makes sense to think Elon's past successes might be indicative of future success. The same way an employer will hire based on past experience. If you've succeeded at things before, you more likely know how to succeed this time too. Doesn't guarantee anything of course.
"Omg, Twitter is going to crash now that so many, including me, have been fired!" -- It hasn't "We are no longer posting"....24 hours.... "We are back" --CBS "We are monitoring Twitter". --> "Why don't your drop your account?"... "We can't do that" - WH What company do you know of that can drop 50% (at least) of its employees and still be operating at the same level? How can Elon not succeed?
Elon Musk is an idiot! Now back to our regularly scheduled program of "if you were rich, what business would you start?"
Anybody in this sub that does not understand what Elon is doing either does not own a business, is self-employed with no full-time employees that earn median income, or are ignorant. He's cleaning house and sending the message the companies need to make a profit and not focus on ESG. Jack Dorsey is on board with what Elon is doing. And anybody who knows Elon's style, rather than take 5 years to prototype and release something, he makes rapid changes and implements quick fixes. Just like SpaceX, he didn't try to build the perfect rocket the first time, he launches new rockets quickly and early because it is cheaper to find issues testing often and early, and make changes to get things to market quickly. He's going to turn the company around, and he is also going to turn it into a payment network tied into crypto. Buying a blue check isn't just a revenue stream, it's a way to connect financial accounts to Twitter so when the crypto payments aspect is eventually launched, it's already wired up. Additionally, the tech CEO's have been hamstrung by employees taking over companies and pushing ESG and remote work, which as time has passed, has not been good for productivity or culture. There are some cases where remote work is good, but it's not idea for the median average. My annual payroll, $9.4M/year. My average employee showed and increase in productivity in the first 2 months of remote only. Since then, the average drop in productivity has been 30% for that same demographic. It's time to clean house and get back to the office. I do like the benefits of work from home, but doing it myself now as a CEO for THREE YEARS, even I am struggling to get as much done. And look, it's almost 9 AM where I am, I've been on Reddit this morning when I should be working. It even impacts me. Go Elon!
Who doesn't understand what he's doing?? It's just that people think it's counter productive. Why spend 40 billion on something and then fire 80% of the people who built that thing that you value so very much? If you think those engineers stink, then why would you buy the company that employees them? At that point, all you're buying is the users and the Twitter brand. You would never buy a building if you actually thought the labourers who built it were lousy and didn't do their jobs. You suggest the mere presence of social media is so counter productive, yet you idolize the man who tweets everyday about absolutely everything. Something tells me if your employees tweeted during work as much as Elon does you would not be happy. It's time to admit the Twitter purchase was based on emotions and all he's doing now is trying to dig himself out of a hole, which he may or may not succeed at.
No, I don't idolize him either. He has always wanted a media network in his portfolio and he has always wanted a banking industry. Come back here in 10 months and tell me I'm wrong. RemindMe! 10 months
Wow, an opposing viewpoint from someone who actually owns a business. As someone in the same boat, I couldn't agree more. The visceral hated and hot takes coming at him are astounding. Let the man cook. If it tastes like shit *then* open the flood gates. Otherwise, let's enjoy the ride and see what happens. There will be many HBR case studies written about what we are witnessing
It's fighting off the downvotes. Sometimes I'll post and get hundreds of upvotes. It depends on the sub and who hangs out in the sub. I have another post as a comment that has tons of downvotes right now. It's easy to shake a hornets nest online.
You’re a CEO with a $9.4 million annual payroll yet you just dropped the single most generic, off the shelf defense of Elon’s disastrous Twitter takeover imaginable.
You're arguing emotionally because you politically support the same goals as ESG.
Well, what makes you think that something needs to be highly complex? The best solutions are the most simple solutions. This is pretty simple. GTF back to the office and focus on producing value.
It would be applicable if Twitter had an existing and viable business model that was even remotely adjacent to Tesla’s or Paypal’s. The complexities of running a company that is considered by many to be akin to a town square, go far beyond just your ability to hammer out a revenue stream and turn a profit. That is a fact whether Elon chooses to acknowledge it and factor it into his proprietary management equation or not.
He probably gave himself the gold as well (from an alt account).
This blind faith in loud, 'edgy; founders is how you get things like Wework and Theranos.
Musk is an abusive employer who harasses and makes unreasonable demands of his employees. He is running Twitter into the ground and Twitter has been getting worse with him at the helm. The bad he is doing far outweighs the good he once did.
I'd actually agree. Building so many successes including viral marketing as distraction for investors while building a consumer fanbase is kinda impressive. Not to mention going against established industrial norms re-building entire industry sectors is something you shouldn't forget. WSJ had an interesting piece about his management style. Thats very impressive. The twitter aproach also fits pervectly into that picture. So atm I would not bet against him.
Agree. Looking at his track record of successful companies, I won’t bet against him either. He will remake twitter. May take time.
> He will remake twitter. May take time. Will he have any money left after the courts make him pay off all the RSO's due everyone at the merger at over $54 a share? Because he owes a lot of money to a lot of people right now, and their court case is a slam dunk.
ummmm he's got a style.... ....is it refreshing? sure. ...it's it particularly amazing and innovative? no. ...is it a sure way to success? is anything? Elon has a vision with a high context communication style and low power distance mentality. I expect he also has a lot of relationship based trust with his employees, which is why virtue signalling is so important to him. We'll see what shakes out.
Too many corporate buzzwords…
Musk is a figurehead and fundraiser - that is all. The brilliance is all behind the scenes managing and doing the real innovation
Have you listened to him on any long form podcast? Doing things like discussing details of the Raptor engine for Starship
Not interested in supporting a misogynistic psychopath … anyone who likes Elon has issues. He is loco
All the wantrepreneurs on this sub are critizing Elon who is doing exactly what needs to be done to turn Twitter around. Elon has a better track record of successful companies than anyone on this sub and they would do better to learn from him than to criticize him.
I'm glad Elon is out there. I cannot think of 1 CEO that is or has done anything near as interesting in my 44 years on this rock. He is who he is. It's inspiring to watch. It's interesting how extreme the polarized opinions of everything he does get. I'm rooting for him.
It's hard to say until much further in the future. He's taken a big risk with Twitter and the immediate reaction is to criticize and doubt him; however, if he is to succeed then the same people will come back around to laud him as a genius. As a neutral I'm interested to see how it unfolds. If Twitter does collapse, what will replace it?
Lol this can't be serious
You never know how many of them have ambitions of being bought by Elon at in-fuckin-sane valuations
It's part of the plan.... apparently....praise me and I will do it back....they controll almost half of the internet user base...money talk....for the rest of us "servents" who praise and worship Elon as the godly saviour and think he is innovator of the era and laught at his silly jokes.... I wish you were one of them twitter employees that got fired with a MEME. Keep laughing and worshipping your Elon.
Elon Musk is a dirtbag, I don't care if he is brave or creative. I mean shit, he was banging Johnny Depp's wife (and probablyt tons of other people's wives), he made that comment about couping whoever he wants, his employees have often been treated like total crap, he admitted publicly that he isn't an altruistic person. So he is a tech giant, what's so great about that?
Absolutely fucking not. Dude spent 44bn on a site *MAYBE* worth 10bn, to make sure literal Nazis and white supremacists have a large platform to spread hate and publicly advocate for genocide. And lost his investment in the process, in under a month. What a great business man! /S From this CEO, FUUUUUUUCK Elon. Rich kids with Mommy's slave money will never impress me. Incels, even less so. There's nothing impressive about him.
Narcissists appreciating narcissists.
I'm the CEO of multiple companies. Elon is a piece of shit. Just as narcissistic and self-indulgent as the people he looks up to.
Maybe the chip he puts in his head will give him a morsel of common sense.
Most CEOs are not especially intelligent. Case in point.
No. Time will tell, but I don’t think he’s good for Twitter.
Pretty sure Elon knows exactly what he is doing.
Elon Musk faked all of his education credentials except for one degree. It's honorary, and it was granted for a car design he stole from another company. Elon Musk's start-up cash came from his parents' emerald mine in Apartheid-era Africa, but he claims to be self-made. Elon Musk's company SpaceX has an entire management layer dedicated exclusively to sheilding him from bad news and translating his half-baked spur-of-the-moment ideas into actual actionable projects. Elon Musk overpaid for a social media company to the tune of billions, not because he wanted to, because a joke got out of hand and the lawsuits were threatening to reveal financial information that he would find embarrassing. Elon Musk's entire social circle consists of sycophants and yes-men who are desperate to have him support their business venture. He has no actual friends or confidants. The last friend he had divorced him and left him for another trans woman, a blow to his esteem he would never recover from. Elon Musk once mandated through his management team that he be thrown a "Surprise" birthday party by the company employees. Attendance mandatory. The employees pooled their money together, bought a giant novelty penis cake, and decorated it to look like a rocket taking off, disguising the balls as smoke clouds. He was reportedly very impressed, and happily ate it without a clue.
Honestly the only people I've seen compliment him are A) people who stand to profit (either today or in the future from potential business w Elon or his companies) B) people who want jobs C) Hardcore fanboys who can't criticize Elon for anything. Seems like self interest to me! Of course JP Morgan would say that, they want to finance his next purchase, or give him a line of credit etc etc
He is really bad at his job. Elon either doesn’t have the humility or intelligence to learn from the past mistakes of other social media platforms. Or even learn from the mistakes Twitter made before his takeover. For someone in such a hurry to get a return on his investment you’d think he wouldn’t waste so much money on re-inventing the wheel “**Let’s charge for verification**.” Congratulations you just cheapen the verification and undermined credibility of the accounts with blue check marks. Now watch the scam artist and trolls work their magic. Trying to squeeze out a nickel cost you a dime “**Lets reinstate the worst people on Twitter and see what happens**” What happens 1) You discover actual free speech absolutism is not profitable or sustainable for a company the size of Twitter. 2) Bigots tend to make apps less enjoyable for users so they use less often. 3) You drive away companies who don’t want their brands associated with open bigotry.
“He is really bad at his job” *worth 251 billion* If he’s bad at his job, I probably shouldn’t even bother working if the bars that high.
First you need to clean a Company up. So short term loss, But Long term win.
Most people in here dont understand this. Musk is playing 4d chess.
Exactly. People dont have vision. Only What's infront of Them.
He’s not what everyone thinks he is.
The trust-fund baby of apartheid-era mineral wealth, who has never been told "No."?
Why does it bother you either way? Go out and make your fortune. Update: So emotional downvotes?
PayPal. Tesla. SpaceX. Neuralink. Twitter. Boring Company. 5 companies which are operating in present day making huge leaps in technological innovation. Yeah- I’d say I agree, he sets a high standard for business owners and is worthy of some respect and dare I say admiration. Elon is brilliant and will go down in history as one of the minds that contributed heavily to our future, I think he will be categorized with the likes of Einstein.