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X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

nytimes.com

51–60 of 102 posts

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#51

$19B ?! I think they forgot the comma here. And even that would be generous. All advertisers are gone - it seems like most advertising is some absolute crap. No way it brings any real money. Linda Yaccarino was recently caught lying (or rather, presenting the state of affairs in Elon's way) - suggesting and even naming some big brands that are supposedly back, while they are not (or spend 0.1% of their previous spend…

He didn't pay 44 billion for Twitter. He paid 44 billion to restore free speech. I think his cause is more noble than sheer capitalism Edit: down vote and hate all you want... mark my words .. Elon is going to go down in history as a visionary, a hero and a champion of free speech. a bunch of angry ex-twitter employees on hacker news is not an accurate representation of reality

lol, you can't be serious ...

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#52

That's the cost of free speech apparently. Elon's cause is more noble than sheer capitalism. Advertisers don't want to be on a platform that allows honest, open communication. A sterile non-controversial platform is much safer for them. At some point as our rights and our freedoms in this country slowly erode, we're going to be grateful to have Twitter and to Elon Musk for being one of the last platforms to put our f…

Can you give us an example of things that can't be said anywhere else but twitter?

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#53

$19B ?! I think they forgot the comma here. And even that would be generous. All advertisers are gone - it seems like most advertising is some absolute crap. No way it brings any real money. Linda Yaccarino was recently caught lying (or rather, presenting the state of affairs in Elon's way) - suggesting and even naming some big brands that are supposedly back, while they are not (or spend 0.1% of their previous spend…

He didn't pay 44 billion for Twitter. He paid 44 billion to restore free speech. I think his cause is more noble than sheer capitalism Edit: down vote and hate all you want... mark my words .. Elon is going to go down in history as a visionary, a hero and a champion of free speech. a bunch of angry ex-twitter employees on hacker news is not an accurate representation of reality

Weird that in the process of "restoring free speech", Musk permabanned dozens of journalists who had ever been critical of his companies.

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#54

That's the cost of free speech apparently. Elon's cause is more noble than sheer capitalism. Advertisers don't want to be on a platform that allows honest, open communication. A sterile non-controversial platform is much safer for them. At some point as our rights and our freedoms in this country slowly erode, we're going to be grateful to have Twitter and to Elon Musk for being one of the last platforms to put our f…

Not being able to see replies without logging isn’t putting freedoms over capitalism. Twitter Blue replies pushed to the top of threads isn’t putting our freedoms over capitalism.

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It wasn't worth $44B when he bought it, so I'm not sure why the NY Times would even use that number in any way. If I pay someone $100,000 for a stick they found on the side of the road, it doesn't make that stick worth $100k. I doubt Twitter was worth $19B even before Musk overpaid for it. It was a 15 year old company that couldn't make money.

> If I pay someone $100,000 for a stick they found on the side of the road, it doesn't make that stick worth $100k. So why did you pay $100,000?

This line of thinking is so basic. Say I bought a lotto ticket for $5. Does that mean it's worth $5?

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But $26B seems like a pretty good tax write off. Seriously tho, How much of this drop (adjustment to reality) could Musk potentially write off on taxes, etc? Especially when it was pretty obvious he tanked it on purpose.

Can you write off this stuff? You can only personally write if like 3k of loses per year

$3,000 loss limit is the amount that can offset ordinary income.

Capital losses can offset unlimited capital gains.

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#57
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, more job cuts? Sounds like slow walk into death to me, they seem to be barely keeping up and/or delivering any new features?

Does Twitter need "new features"?

Isn't there a current push for it to act as a whole payment platform?

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#58

$19B ?! I think they forgot the comma here. And even that would be generous. All advertisers are gone - it seems like most advertising is some absolute crap. No way it brings any real money. Linda Yaccarino was recently caught lying (or rather, presenting the state of affairs in Elon's way) - suggesting and even naming some big brands that are supposedly back, while they are not (or spend 0.1% of their previous spend…

He didn't pay 44 billion for Twitter. He paid 44 billion to restore free speech. I think his cause is more noble than sheer capitalism Edit: down vote and hate all you want... mark my words .. Elon is going to go down in history as a visionary, a hero and a champion of free speech. a bunch of angry ex-twitter employees on hacker news is not an accurate representation of reality

I hope this is sarcasm. In the case that it is not: Musk's entire complaint was about Twitter acquiescing to government's content moderation requests. Since he took over, Twitter has complied with more government content moderation requests than before his arrival.

On top of that, he's very clearly just picking and choosing which accounts to treat with "FREE SPEECH!" (these tend to be far-right wing figures), and who to ban (these tend to be journalists who cover Musk)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/27/tw...

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took Elon 17 years to get Tesla profitable... why do you think he'd give up in a year? The largest problem with businesses these days is the "we must make profit next quarter" mindset and the "I hope he fails" is either that - or a pocket dislike of free speech. Each option is questionable in it's own right. I hope Elon succeeds. Not because I agree with everything he says or does but because I value free speech. “I…

What does free speech have to do with Twitter? https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/rcna81961

It essentially became a public square of the internet, so it's important to have it as censorship free as possible.

Re: X says it is worth $19B, down from $44B last year

#60

The "Elon is saving free speech, so this is worth it" argument for this incredible destruction of value is what cracks me up. The internet had/has no problem hosting repugnant viewpoints. Plenty of web hosting providers are available for you to share your most vile, hateful thoughts. We're watching a very powerful person discover in real time that free speech isn't something that generates value on its own.

Saying Elon is "free speech" at all is a joke. He could have lined up certain principles and been fine. It's not like the last CEO and ownership group was really killing it. There was a lot of unfairness. Elon just made it much worse. He has even suspended accounts that have merely said something negative about him. On a few popular threads critical of Elon, likes keep disappearing and reach gets limited.
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