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Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

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Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#81
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric sports cars Self-landing rockets Underground tunnel systems Brain-computer interfaces OpenAI leading AI research PayPal Accomplished? Meh!

All of those things existed before Musk. Is he retroactively giving himself credit for those things like he did with Tesla? EVs are over a century old. SpaceX was recreating NASA research. Subways have been a thing for over a century; literally millions of people use them every day. Paypal's tech stack used Thiel's startup's technology; they jettisoned everything from Musk's stack and moreover fired him for gross inc…

> SpaceX was recreating NASA research.

Reading such an absurd and idiotic reductionist take on HN just makes me sad. I mostly speaks to you having absolutely zero knowlage about space technology and rocketry.

> moreover fired him for gross incompetence.

They fired him because he had a 10 year business plan to replace banks and become the main monetary system for all payments. A combination of being a bank, an online payment provider and Apple pay.

The other founders wanted to sell the company and make quick cash.

> Subways have been a thing for over a century;

Yeah such an asshole wanting to improve tunneling technology. Only assholes try to improve technology. We should just shoot anybody in the head who tries to improve on technology that is more then 10 years old.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#82

The Elephant in the room is what is being provided. Elon is already at the limits of his hours on a daily basis to devote to things with SpaceX, Boring Company, Tesla, etc. Picture it this way, Twitter is your startup and Elon proposes to buy you out. Would you not question how much time we would devote as part of the buyout talks?

It’s not relevant. Is anyone expecting him to be the CEO? Far more likely he’s going to appoint competent operators to run Twitter. Whether this is a good outcome for the shareholders is the only germane point up for discussion IMO.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#83
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's never been a showman. It's a ridiculous internet myth that thinks that he is. Anyone who says he's a showman really has no understanding of the guy and hasn't looked at what he's said outside of the stuff he's put on twitter. Listen to his speeches, and not the one where it's some bland interviewer that constantly interrupts him.

Here's Musk being a pure showman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcfi8HK1i8 Even though there's a bunch of people (including Carmack) that claim that he's a great engineer, it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this. Like, did he use up all of his thinking fuel on designing rockets that he didn't understand why the boring company's mission was a total non-starter?

A CNN 2 minute video chopping up what he says to make it sound more grand is not him being a "showman". It's called video editing. You can tell the video has been HIGHLY edited because it's not how he talks.

> it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw?t=122

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8ZBJWo73E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zlnbs-NBUI

This is how Musk actually talks.

> Like, did he use up all of his thinking fuel on designing rockets that he didn't understand why the boring company's mission was a total non-starter?

He doesn't spend a lot of time working on the boring company to be frank. It's a small side project. He's doing it to see if it's possible.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the games Elon plays to manipulate the market and pretend to be interested.

I've yet to see any example where Musk "manipulated" the market to his own gain. People love to say this over and over but there's not a single shred of evidence I've ever seen about it. Musk doesn't have a strong ability to deceive. He doesn't have strong interpersonal skills given his mental affliction. You should take what he says at face value other than when he's making an obvious joke and lots of things make a…

Maybe you somehow missed this?

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226

Musk has a trend of doing this with investments. It's purely speculative but I think it is reasonable to suggest based on Musk's previous actions I do not think he is serious about buying Twitter.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#85
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who doesn't fall in line and support the "current thing" is labeled a far-right extremist these days. Ironically, they do this even to people with traditionally liberal views like free speech being a good thing, like Elon in this case.

>Anyone who doesn't fall in line and support the "current thing" is labeled a far-right extremist these days. I Support The Current Thing 5 words that drive the Twitterati nuts because it encapsulates their whole online existence.

I'm surprised they haven't banned that phrase already like they did with "learn to code".

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#86
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on if he follows through on what he is proposing, which seems to be to allow for disinformation and hate speech. If that turns out to not be the case, then I might reconsider.

Can you point to a source that claims that is what he intends to do? If not, seems like you are the one spewing disinformation.

I would suggest googling “Elon Musk Twitter legal speech” - this was one of the top results

https://theconversation.com/amp/if-elon-musk-succeeds-in-his...

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#87
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's Musk being a pure showman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcfi8HK1i8 Even though there's a bunch of people (including Carmack) that claim that he's a great engineer, it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this. Like, did he use up all of his thinking fuel on designing rockets that he didn't understand why the boring company's mission was a total non-starter?

A CNN 2 minute video chopping up what he says to make it sound more grand is not him being a "showman". It's called video editing. You can tell the video has been HIGHLY edited because it's not how he talks. > it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw?t=122 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8ZBJWo73E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zlnbs-NBUI This is h…

The point is, building tunnels underground for personal transport vehicles as a "solution" to traffic is a terrible idea, and something only a showman can sell. Even if he has an awkward 2 hour speech about it, he succeeded as a showman because Vegas funded this terrible idea (just look how it ended up).

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#88
post #72
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter's userbase is immensely valuable, but the company's execution has both been slow to unlock its full potential and also is on a fairly clear trajectory of eroding the window of permissible speech on the platform which presents grave risks to society at large. For an activist investor of the right type, the former checks the box of financial opportunity, and the latter checks the box of impact opportunity.

> is on a fairly clear trajectory of eroding the window of permissible speech on the platform which presents grave risks to society at large. I really feel like a lot of you guys vastly overestimate the impact of Twitter on The Real World. Elon Musk included.

The point is the trajectory, not the position. Given network effects and other phenomena, there's good reason to think Twitter could converge on some kind of universal, global engine for the vast majority of all future short conversational written discourse.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#89
post #85
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone who doesn't fall in line and support the "current thing" is labeled a far-right extremist these days. I Support The Current Thing 5 words that drive the Twitterati nuts because it encapsulates their whole online existence.

I'm surprised they haven't banned that phrase already like they did with "learn to code".

If the phrase is used to harass people in a targeted manner, then sure. Running a platform that excludes those who harass people is quite reasonable, and necessary if you want to keep those sweet advertising numbers up.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#90
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The diver was not a hero. He was an somebody that himself did little, and pushed himself into the media where he actually started insulting Musk and his team. He created a false narrative about what Musk and his team of engineers (literal rocket engineers) were doing. Musk and his engineers had coordinated with the actual rescue team and the Mini-Sub they build was according to specification from the diving team who…

Both of you guys who have responded to my comment have been rampaging through this thread with aggressive defenses of Musk. This is not normal behaviour. If you don't want to consider a man who was instrumental in saving the lives of 12 boys a hero that's fine, there are lots of other adjectives that I'm sure you can find and they're all far more flattering than the one Musk made of himself in that saga. Take a step…

You call it aggressive, I just responding with happened rather then what the cheap clickbait media outlets who provided form this crisis wanted to claim happened.

> instrumental

There was a professional diving team that saved the children he was not himself doing it.

And even if he was pushing yourself into the media and making headlines by insulting somebody who tried to help is not really a good look. Specially because it was not constitutive (or respectful) critism. It was simply a guy who wanted attention and got it.

> Take a step back and think about what you're defending here. It's not a good look.

I'm not defending what Musk said. It was clearly a stupid thing to say.

But if the main critism of a guy who lead 2 important technology companies for decades is 'he got too angry at somebody who insulted him in the media' then that is a pretty lame reason to hate him so much.

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