- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
“Fidelity is currently valuing X at about $9.4 billion”
I found this funny.
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Honestly terrifying that they still think it is worth that much.
they still own the twitter trademark, that might be their biggest asset
Since they don’t seem to care about it, start using “tweet” for every social media post to devalue them further.
Tweets are a specific type of a microblog post you do on twitters. Have you tried tweeting, make your own twitter at https://joinmastodon.org/ today!
Which has been crashed and burned to a fraction of its value.
If someone were to buy it, ban the Nazis and get advertisers to come back it’s still salvageable, I guess. The longer Musk owns it, the bigger the chance is that it’ll become the next MySpace.
At least the MySpace guy was able to run a fun site, cash out before social media became crazy, and spend the rest of his life having fun with that money.
Trump will lose, and Musk will be holding on to a useless site that serves nothing. He’ll probably sell for a fraction of what he paid (not that it was his money in the first place), but by that point it’ll be too late. Twitter will be long dead.
I doubt the saudis will be very happy if Musk doesn’t repay them their investment. I’m surprised they haven’t threatened him into stepping down and handing their investment to someone who can properly manage a social media platform already
That’ll probably be what happens if Trump loses. Musk didn’t spend “his” money so it’s no loss, and many from the Middle East have wanted control of Twitter ever since the Arab Spring.
I think MySpace is a more likely scenario that the former already.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if part of this remaining value is because the Japanese internet still heavily relies on it as a platform, even if the west has begun moving elsewhere.
I was going to say that they could have stopped the headline at “quarter” as far as I’m concerned.
This is the stock market, the value is set by what investors think the value could be. Mostly, they’re probably assuming people would come back if he sold it. Literally everyone knows the name Twitter.
This actually isn’t the stock market, Twitter isn’t publicly traded since being bought.
Just because it’s not publicly traded, doesn’t mean that there isn’t stock nor that there’s no market. Usually, you can technically still buy/sell the stock, just not as a random member of the public on a public stock exchange like the NYSE or FTSE.
There’s usually defined periods for sales as well. Gives employees and other stock holders a way to cash out and get new investors in.
I understand the basics. I still find it difficult to grasp why it is worth 9 billion.
And yet, he’s still one of the what, 5 richest people on the planet?
He doesn’t give a shit, and neither should you (as nice as the schadenfreude might feel). He got something worth more to him than plain old money - an established propaganda platform, which he is using as he intended - to war monger and otherwise interfere in politics to ensure fascism progresses as fast as he can help it. The “dent” (more like a surface scratch) it put in his finances is completely invisible and irrelevant to him.
And it should be to you, too.
He is NEVER going to end up without means or power, not even fucking close, unless we take them from him, and abolish the system that encouraged and enabled him to amass them in the first place.
What is completely wild to me is that there are only 4 main apps: Reddit, twitter, instagram, and Facebook. Almost every public conversation happens on one of those platforms. And of those four platforms, one of them was bought by one singular person. Some people just don’t get the absolute scale of how much one person can just buy of our communities.
Like it or not, there are businesses on Twitter. Celebrities are easy to reach and talk to. Even companies use Twitter for support. News outlets post there. It’s a whole community. Was it a bit toxic? Yeah. But it wouldn’t have mattered. One guy bought it.
Similar to what you said, if you were to run the numbers on this I’m pretty sure owning twitter to Elon is not much different than owning a cable subscription to your average family. A whole community of tens of millions of people bought by one person and its success doesn’t matter. Capitalism is broken. And if you think that’s bad, imagine how he can affect your government when a Supreme Court justice goes for a small small fraction of the price…
Edit: I did the math and it turns out that twitter has lost so much money that this is no longer a cable subscription. It’s about a 6% yearly loss to Elons net worth, dependent on his current stock values. Which means it’s not cable, but about the cost the average person spends on food in a year ($10,000 yearly cost to a 200k net worth). Still insane.
Well said, after losing access to twitter it’s really hard to get information on game companies for example, since they don’t have their own blog for you to RSS and get information about the newest game updates and what not, and they only post on youtube if they have a new trailer.
I suppose it’s too much to hope for, for RSS feeds to make a comeback. Or JSON feeds being more prevalent. I’m totally serious, I miss being able to just check the headlines without going through a bunch of bullshit.
The average family’s cable subscription doesn’t cost 20% of their net worth.
I think the average family’s net worth is a negative number, so you’re technically right.
A cable subscription isn’t a depreciating asset, though.
To clarify, I was thinking of the depreciating asset part as a loss of value the same way that a subscription is.
It’s a fair argument, especially given how much… entertainment he seems to derive from owning it.
Yeah a lot of people miss the fact that the play for Twitter was never about money, but control. Owning one of the most popular social medias makes it easy to spread propaganda and amplify your voice.
Lots of people spout this conspiracy theory, but Ive yet to hear a good reason why he had to be sued into making the purchase (after making price manipulating statements) if it was some sinister plan.
Far more likely he’s just a fuck up.
Fucked up then adapted musk is a welpling but like every rich WASP be it from England or its colonies he is weirdly adaptable. Which is why the most effective method of WASP removal is via flamethrower.
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And I’ll never own a house, yay
Thanks, that’s one race I definitely don’t keep up to date on. All billionaires need to cease to exist.
Not only that, but the folks who helped bankroll him saw what social media could do to organize protests and evade censorship and wanted to reduce its power. The Saudis saw the Arab Spring and shit their collective thobe.
PayPal and Tesla and SpaceX been pretty big successes. But Twitter is a real fuckup for him. It shows that his judgment and temperament and perfect boy genius mystique have all jumped the shark in a big way.
But Twitter is a real fuckup for him
Except it clearly fucking isn’t, it’s doing exactly what he bought it for, including convincing people like you to feel sympathy for him and his “loss”, which is equal parts hilarious and really fucking sad. You’re looking at his life from the point of view of a poor person, something he never was and never will be, yet he’s still so easily manipulated you in to feeling bad for him (and the billions he’s lost, leaving him… still the motherfucking richest person on the planet), and even fucking (think you) relate to him and the idea that he can “fail” just like you can, using you as a living breathing mouthpiece to make his life easier. Not yours.
perfect boy genius mystique
I just threw up a little in my mouth, thanks.
I don’t know who you’re talking to. I have no pity for the man and don’t relate to him. I don’t have to argue with you over whether Tesla and SpaceX have been successful businesses because those are objective facts. It’s also pretty idiotic to deny that years ago, he had a boy genius aura about him - investors still throw billions at that image. Sorry it makes you throw up, especially because you already appear to be absolutely choking on Elon hate. I despise the man but I’m not slobbering all over myself with jealous disdain as you sound to be.
Musk did not buy this as an investment. He bought it to flip elections and manipulate public opinion.
Tesla is writing him a check that will cover the entire purchase price, and Saudi Arabia and Russia will pay the operating costs.
Active users are what matters; if they lost 75% of their users then I’m paying attention.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure he gave an outlandish bid for Twitter to manipulate it’s stock prices when he pulled put, but he was sued into following through.
I don’t think he ever wanted to buy it, or at least he wanted to crash it’s value to come back and buy it on the cheap.
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If he was that competent why would he resort to openly pumping and dumping meme coins in public just prior to this stunt.
He has some dangerous strings he can pull, but that doesn’t make him a good puppet master.
Broken clock and all that
then why not buy it normally like a human from earth and instead involve this lawsuit to make himself look like an absolute moron
Aren’t 75% of the users Russian bots? Lol
I think you’re giving the guy too much credit. Sometimes things are as they seen. He just didn’t like the moderation scheme on Twitter, made a gesture buying it, fumbled a little bit and overbid, then after having been forced to acquire it tried to turn it into something closer to what he wanted it to be.
I think it’s even pettier than that. He’s the loud guy on the forum who literally bought the site so he could be admin.
Honestly, everyone needs to listen to the episode of Search Engine about Elon. It’s such a clear narrative of what happened between the Iron Man cameo and now. It’s pure hubris - someone who is very unlikable desperately hungry for love to the point where his brain bust a fuse.
We’ll never know since Musk is nurturing a state-funded “user”-base that will always keep their numbers inflated
If he’s trying to flip elections, he needs to at least pretend it’s being operated in good faith.
I agree 100%. Liberals retweeting how Elon is losing money is actually making him money
Elon Musk’s greatest personal achievement has been his tireless work and incredible effort toward disproving the myth of Billionaire Exceptionalism.
Couldn’t have happened to a douchier bag.
The funny part was when he said he was a free speech absolutist, but then he started restricting the free speech of people he doesn’t like
The hypocrisy!
Oh, and you’ve never been a total and complete hypocrite with global consequences before?
I actually check Twitter from time to time and it is slowly dying. Ken Klippenstein was one of the accounts I was following and now he’s gone too.
We knew this was going to happen before he made the purchase.
Everyone said, the best way for Elon to keep his money was to change very little, or even take a hands-off approach.
Masnick suggested this would happen
It was that and so much worse. Moral of the story: Running a huge social media service is hard. Maybe don’t assume that because you’re a billionaire you’re the best at doing stuff.
Meanwhile he is on track to become the world’s first trillionaire
I think the purchase was more about welding power than any financial gain
He tried to back out, I don’t think any of this was about anything. He’s just a dick with a weird sense of humor.
First step to becoming a billionaire: start with 1 trillion
Hasn’t his wealth kinda flatlined lately though? X is doing terribly, Tesla is struggling a bit, I think SpaceX is at least doing well.
I don’t think he’s going to be a trillionaire any time soon.
Now, call me crazy, but if I was optimizing for maximum welding power, I’d start with oxy acetylene and at least try a few other options. How would buying a website even be a good start?
No wonder people are making fun of him!
He needs all the welding power he can get to keep the Tesla’s held together
Would you not agree that he has a tool of influence with X? I see that as the main aspect of why you’d still buy twitter, even though he knew he wouldn’t earn money with that.
I mean the people at Twitter were very happy to sell it off. Remember how they actually sued to force him to go through with the deal and succeeded in stopping him from backing out?
Even if he’d managed it as well as the prior stewards, it was always a losing business.
If the price offered is actually a good price then I think they might have some obligation to shareholders to pursue it. (Many of the people making that decision likely also being shareholders.) Like if someone offered you more than what your stuff is worth but tried to changed their mind, wouldn’t you pursue that? I don’t think that’s any sort of indicator that they thought it was a sinking ship. It’s just in their best interest to take a good deal when they get one.
I think you make a good point. But we don’t have to guess whether they thought Twitter was struggling. We know it was.
Twitter never managed to develop an online ad business that matched the scale of its influence in popular culture and society at large. Twitter has lost money in six of the eight years since its IPO.
Source: CNBC
My point is that if someone offers you a good price for what you believe you have have, you take it. If they thought it was good and they got a good price for it they’d take it. If they thought it was bad and they got a good price for it they’d take it.
Yes I did read your comment before :)
You’re saying that accepting his offer is not necessarily a statement of low confidence in their own business. I get you.
But we can’t separate the notion of it being a good price apart from its being a bad business. It was a great offer in part because the business was so poor. By all estimates he vastly overpaid.
So yes, it was a good price.
And yes, it was a bad business and yes they knew it. With no other offers on the table, they pulled out all the stops to ensure it went through. It was their and their shareholders only chance for a payday with the business as bleak as it was.
All of these things are true.
Masnick’s post is well put, but also a disturbing reminder of how much power nation-states can exert over the Internet.
I mean, yeah we all knew he overpaid, but losing over 75%? I didn’t expect that.
Twitter wasn’t profitable right? So most of the “value” is in the name of the product. Elon changed the name and added his signature to everything the platform was doing, completely changing the platform Twitter is. So yeah, I do get why 75% of the money is gone now.
Changing the name of one of the most valuable brands isn’t something I’d expect even him to do.
Masnick gives 20 levels of development. Elon stopped here:
Level Two: “We’re the free speech platform! But no CSAM!”
And that’s about it. Ex-Twitter has copyright infringement, hate speech and doesn’t give a fuck about local laws unless the law actually has teeth (Brasil, anybody?).
and then he fires trust and safety and it gets riddled and plagued with csam
“Maybe don’t assume that because you’re a billionaire you’re the best at doing stuff.”
This is literally every second generation billionaire. They seem to have the tendency to believe that their success is solely due to their intelligence and not at all due to their parents’ connections and money.
The way to make it hurt is to establish a replacement that keeps discussions away from trolls and hate propaganda.
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Still worth billions though.
“Y’all my current portfolio is worth 9 BILLION dollars!” “Ah sick, seems to be going pretty well for you.” “Yeah, I’m down 75%”
“Still worth billions tho” is one of the dumbest things I’ve heard on this platform and that’s saying a lot.
I’d cheer on if Elon Musk becomes a pauper. $9 billion is still worth a lot. It’s still, as the article says, billions.
look even 1 billion is more than enough to live on for a lifetime and then quite a bit left over, so that is not really that dumb
While you are correct, that’s not the point of this article. It’s about how X lost value. Elon isn’t homeless, so yeah it’s still worth a lot of money.
If they influence the election to their desired outcome, then the value won’t matter. The damage will have been done.
Is elon a Trump fan?
Yes, he gets a raging fascist boner every time someone fails to assassinate Trump because he thinks it’s the cue to go full Nazi but really he just keeps jumping the gun and making it far too obvious deeply part of Trump’s ongoing fascist takeover schemes and really not the guy we should have any significant government contracts with
I see, thanks for the insight. I don’t have Twitter so I didn’t really know about this stuff 😂
Uhm… Yes. Like a lot.
Yes, trump has also offered him a spot on his cabinet
I just checked and it’s worth nothing to anyone important.
its worth comes from being able to influence world politics. Does he seem like someone who cares or needs money?
True, but that power is also diminished greatly as more and more regular users abandon the site. No eyes on the propaganda makes it worth a lot less.
Yeah I’m sure I’m not the norm but I’m actually shocked when I see companies advertising their talent’s twitter accounts on tv broadcasts. I truly can’t believe that site is still mainstream after everything that’s happened.
Idk then I look over and see trump as a presidential candidate and ugh… I guess I’m just still not comfortable/accepting of how far off the rails things have gone 🙁
Twitter currently has $1.5 billion/year deficit which is a lot, even for Musk, to bankroll.
that brightens my day a little to hear
Source? Where is that money going?
Interest on loans, payroll, cloud infrastructure e.g. AWS
Those are mostly operating costs, offset by revenue, but are they actually losing 1.5 billion dollars a year? I mean, I hope so, but are they really?
The natural language dataset is worth a lot. That’s why they’re and Reddit made the sites harder to use/scrape.
Does he seem like someone who cares or needs money?
He got a massive load to buy Twitter, so yeah, he does.
He didn’t bilk Tesla shareholders into his huge pay package because he doesn’t care about money.
Elon is a genius at losing money.
No wonder he is starting to get along so well with Trump
Like his buddy Trump!
that’s why he is the richest person in the world with 270B net worth.
look, i hate the asshole as much as the other guy, but changing meaning of words and underestimating the enemy never helped anyone.
it’s just that he could take big risks (not even a smart one) in investment because he didn’t care about the money, he has so much that he can never lose it all, so of course if you can invest blindly you’ll for sure win at some point
it’s just that he could take big risks
yes, that is definitely part of his success. and since this strategy got him to position of richest person in the world, it is pretty clear that “genius at losing money” is not really accurate description of situation.
as for twitter, he clearly is not in it for the money, otherwise he wouldn’t be there to begin with. he originally hoped to buy position of cheered and admired hero and when he failed, he settled for a position of hated douchebag. infamous still means people know you, i guess 🤷♂️
It would appear that he didn’t want to buy Twitter and was literally forced to do so. I think for him Twitter is a temper tantrum. He didn’t get what he wanted so he’s destroying everything around him as a result.
More to the point though, I do wonder why he didn’t just pay the billion dollars to get out of the deal (with his 270 billion net worth - which by the way includes assets not necessarily liquid cash).
I don’t know that he’s not in it for the money. I think the point is to destroy it so he doesn’t have to pay back what he borrowed to buy it.
More to the point though, I do wonder why he didn’t just pay the billion dollars to get out of the deal
I don’t know that he’s not in it for the money.
your first sentence explains he is not in it for money, if money were the concern, eating the 1b fine would be logical thing to do (i am not fact checking that 1b piece of information, i trust you on this).
with his 270 billion net worth - which by the way includes assets not necessarily liquid cash
that’s how it works, no one has 270 billion in cash
I think the point is to destroy it so he doesn’t have to pay back what he borrowed to buy it.
that doesn’t make sense, destroying twitter doesn’t absolve him of obligation to return money he borrowed.
This is just conjecture though. I do think he originally did not intend to buy Twitter. I do think he was essentially forced to buy it. I know from news articles around the time of the sale that he gave significant pushback when relevant parties forced the issue. Things may very well have changed after he became the owner (and what deals he made to be able to afford it may never be known).
I do think he was essentially forced to buy it.
he was, but it doesn’t contradict what i said. if he had a way to back out of his stupid bragging offer for 1b, and all he cared about was money, the reasonable thing would be to pay the fine, instead of paying 44 billion for something that doesn’t generate profit.
Musk is and always has been an incompetent yet lucky scammer.
Twitter will be bankrupt within two years.
!Remindme 2 Years
Ho wait it’s not working here
And may it continue to crash and burn. It’s just 4 chan at this point.
It’s like 4chan but it didn’t know where the line was for the amount of right wing people to be on a social media and ran a marathon
4chan at least had a consistent brand of being the anti-social network and being full of Nazis, weirdos, pedophiles and people who are just anti-social for the lulz. You couldn’t ruin 4chan.
Twitter’s image was being the “internet town-square for serious thinkers” with politicians, scientists, journalists and a small but good measure of standard shitposters. Loosing that brand diminishes it’s value massively. Unfortunately neither Bluesky nor Mastodon was able to catch that clientele yet.
How to become a billionaire: Start with 54 billion
Didn’t he pay too much for it in the first place?
Yea. He made a baseless offer before investigating. And the. Got called on it.
paying too much is when you buy a ubisoft game. what he did is officially the worst deal since the financial crisis.
It is amazing how some people can fail upward
