Live data from Hacker News

More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

nytimes.com

71–80 of 89 posts

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX, Tesla, Starlink, Neuralink, Boring Company, are you serious that because of some dumb tweets and a questionable personality or political views not everyone agrees with, you think history will overlook all of this? Not a chance, sorry.

He's the CEO of six companies and still finds time to tweet throughout the day. I'm more inclined to believe that these companies are successful despite him, not because of him.

I’m actually starting to believe that the more companies he is a CEO of, the better they will do, as he will have his attention divided between them all and less time to negatively impact them on an individual level.

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#72
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to refer to heads of state as having the wealth of the state. Musk can effectively spend all of his wealth if he chooses to (after paying his debts). Heads of state really can't, except on the state itself. Not even absolute monarchs.

> Musk can effectively spend all of his wealth if he chooses to Ehhh kind of. Within certain limits he can liquidate all his stocks and other assets, sure, but unless done over a very long period of time what he winds up with at the end is far less than his theoretical wealth. And even done over a long period of time probably. There isn't actually the demand on the market to liquidate all his assets at the susposed m…

I'm just saying that there aren't state powers that would literally stab him in the back to prevent him from doing so. Even Stalin would have had a quick death if he tried to spend the entire wealth of the USSR on himself.

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The British Crown is barely a billionaire. Augustus may have been independently wealthy, I'm just saying don't attribute the wealth of the state to him as well.

> The British Crown is barely a billionaire. The Crown is a billionaire many, many times over. The monarch as an individual may or may not be "barely a billionaire", depending on how you look at things.

I thought it was only in the mid 10 figures, but it does appear to be 11 figures.

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#74
Haha, the US is leaning towards the right wing, and Elon probably has an advantage in doing what he did. Similarly, he mentioned that AI needs to stop, but then proceeded with AI projects. He says what grabs attention to divert from what he truly wants to do.

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#75
post #4

There is a lot here to be think about. Three most interesting points to me are 1. These companies have bottom-of-the-barrel moral standards and don't care what one person on Twitter is Tweeting. This has to be political manoeuvring of some sort. 2. A lot of advertisers were quitting Twitter a while ago weren't they? But it has been months now. If they're still quitting, that suggests the flood of quitters is more of…

This is an odd take. Today on Twitter I saw an ad for a whites-only dating service with the photo of a celebrity who very likely did not endorse the company with the use of a racial slur (with an "r" at the end). Whatever you think about the "moral standards" of the companies in question, it makes sense that they would not want to put their brand on the same platform that would serve these ads alongside theirs. That…

Bit of tell, isn't it? The advertisers were fine with that, nytimes.com didn't write an article about it, etcetera.

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#76
post #30

Lools like the monetization to move away from relying on ads was the right one all along

The monetization currently is bringing revenue less than one percent of their ad revenue. With no signs of improvement.

That’s like having to go to work 100 miles away, intentionally crashing your car and going like “well, looks like putting on my running shoes this morning turned out right all along!”

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#77
post #66
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would require it actually being sufficient to pay the bills, which at present it is very far from.

You have to start somewhere. Since Twitter was so deep in the red for so long anyway they have a mountain to climb

The reason Twitter's so deep in the red right now is because of the leveraged buyout by Musk. Pre-acquisition Twitter was, at worst, treading water. Musk's mismanagement is what's causing Twitter's current poor financial state.

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#78
post #30

Lools like the monetization to move away from relying on ads was the right one all along

The monetization currently is bringing revenue less than one percent of their ad revenue. With no signs of improvement. That’s like having to go to work 100 miles away, intentionally crashing your car and going like “well, looks like putting on my running shoes this morning turned out right all along!”

But imagine if they could get everyone on Twitter to pay more than $800/mo.

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#79
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The attention he got because of Twitter has always been overwhelmingly negative, by his own doing. Do you think the guy who founded Tesla and SpaceX needed any more media attention?

He did not found Tesla, did he?

I'm not a general Musk defender (anymore), but yeah, he kind of did.

Others incorporated the company, but he was key to its initial success.

Re: More advertisers halt spending on X in growing backlash against Musk

#80
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clear he's a great 'salesman' in terms of raising capital and spruiking up share prices, and he's turned that toward some interesting concepts. What is also interesting is part of the act is pretending he is the genius behind the ideas and has a hand in the novel engineering of them, which makes some of his fans love him, and anyone with subject matter expertise on whatever technical things he's saying realise he'…

> pretending he is the genius behind the ideas and has a hand in the novel engineering of them Musk has always been brutally transparent with investors. The personal genius schtick isn't one he pulls when raising capital. (It does play well to a lay audience.)

It's a bit of both, isn't it? I do remember the "production hell" perspective, but also many over-optimistic predictions along the lines of "I swear we'll have full self driving by the end of the year" for 5 years.
Post reply on HN