Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#401

Post by dathinab » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:05 PM UTC

rburhum wrote: post #373

bambax wrote: post #353

The reason why Musk eventually bought Twitter, when he did, and at the price he paid, was to avoid having to testify under oath in the lawsuit against him. He was going to be deposed, exposed, and in the end he was also going to lose and suffer the indignity of having to pay a high price for something he fiercely said he didn't want anymore. Better bite the bullet earlier than later. Now that doesn't explain why he w…

He implied in a few interviews that he wants to turn it into a WeChat version of the west. Doesn't 200M+ daily active users opens up that door.

It doesn't for the same reason there isn't already a "WeChat" of the west.

Additionally Twitter has as far as I can tell (speculative) a much much less stable foundation in the EU then it seems if you just look at daily users count.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#402

Post by jcadam » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:05 PM UTC

cbeach wrote: post #365

I find it really distracting that the mainstream media writes about Musk in such derisive style. Do journalists find him threatening in some way? Do the leftwing-dominated media resent him for supporting Republicans? Do they think we’re not smart enough to critically appraise Musk ourselves?

> Do journalists find him threatening in some way? Do the leftwing-dominated media resent him for supporting Republicans? Do they think we’re not smart enough to critically appraise Musk ourselves?

maybe, yes, most definitely yes.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#403

Post by NaturalPhallacy » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:05 PM UTC

kubota wrote: post #354

I think he would've gotten much better value for his money if he acquired Reddit instead

Reddit is privately owned by Advance Publications which is privately owned by the Newhouse family. Nobody can just buy it if they're not willing to sell it.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#404

Post by boppo1 » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:05 PM UTC

victor106 wrote: post #381

I didn’t do it for the money, I did it for “humanity” so I want to appease advertisers to make money and save humanity even though I hate advertising. Oh, also there are more than 30% bots on the platform but I still bought this thing because I want the trial to end because I don’t want to answer any more questions and reveal things that would put me in legal jeopardy. Does he really think people are that stupid? I a…

> reveal things that would put me in legal jeopardy.

Like what?

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#405

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:06 PM UTC

e40 wrote: post #219

nightski wrote: post #130

We can argue about free speech & all that jazz to no end. But at the end of the day it's as simple as not banning elected officials. I don't care how divisive they are, we need to know what they say and do. These are people chosen by the people whether you love or hate them. Secondly, I just visited Twitter today and at the top it has statements about false accusations and fact checking prominently displayed. I follo…

Are you also for allowing elected officials to shout "fire!" in a theatre when there is no fire? What if someone dies in the rush to the exit, when there was no fire? People have already died because of lies being spread. People's lives have been ruined. It's only going to get worse, especially if the election deniers get voted in en masse in Nov.

[deleted]

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#406

Post by flutas » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:07 PM UTC

dexterdog wrote: post #352

ar_lan wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t the Model 3 the “low cost” one? Is there supposed to be a cheaper one? Cars are so confusing these days - $40k USD just seems like the average price now. My neighborhood has so many Tesla roofs I was actually surprised by your comment - but that’s fascinating! I thought they would be doing much better.

The base model 3 starts at 48,490. They were supposed to have a $35K version. I think they sold one to a guy once at that price with bike tires and folding chairs as seats.

> They were supposed to have a $35K version.

They had a $35k version, it was just off menu as recently as early 2020[0]. But it was discontinued around November of 2020[1].

[0]: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1127490_the-35k-tesla-m...

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/16/21569524/tesla-model-3-3...

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#407

Post by nmilo » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:07 PM UTC

> Musk hasn’t said all that much since the takeover on Twitter, but he has replied to a couple of users who have complained about platform censorship in the past. One is a user called “catturd2” who claims he’s shadowbanned and who tweets COVID misinformation among other things. The other is Canada Proud, a right-wing propagandist group that also spreads COVID misinfo and focuses on attacking Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

What a nasty comment from an otherwise fine article. A reply is not an endorsement, and not even linking the tweets in question really lets the author hide the evidence and twist the paragraph into whatever he wants it to mean. Besides, it's not like Justin Trudeau is lacking on things to attack him for.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#408

Post by Ferrotin » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:07 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #388

I was a big Elon Musk fanboy for what he was able to accomplish on both Tesla and SpaceX. I had the impression that he was very genuine and really wanted to "save humanity". I ignored the crazy things he said on twitter. I think his accomplishments overshadowed his less favorable behavior. But after his tweets about Ukraine, it really started to dawn on me that his "save humanity" was not really save humanity, but ju…

So the whole “let’s not escalate to nuclear war” thing is what convinced you he didn’t want to save humanity.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#409

Post by saalweachter » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:08 PM UTC

remram wrote: post #309

mkl95 wrote: post #72

I find it kind of shocking that Musk likes Twitter that much, but at the same time it makes sense. If you ignore the wealth differential, his behaviour is similar to the average Twitter user. He may be the perfect owner in that sense. I also think it will be a clusterfuck within 5 years like some of his "side project" companies.

He bought it on the last possible day a court would allow, so I don't know how much he likes it really. He did try every possible move to get out of it.

The weirdest part to me about this saga is the extent to which Elon Musk is getting away with pretending he didn't spend the last six months trying very hard not to purchase Twitter.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#410

Post by adrr » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 8:08 PM UTC

rburhum wrote: post #373

bambax wrote: post #353

The reason why Musk eventually bought Twitter, when he did, and at the price he paid, was to avoid having to testify under oath in the lawsuit against him. He was going to be deposed, exposed, and in the end he was also going to lose and suffer the indignity of having to pay a high price for something he fiercely said he didn't want anymore. Better bite the bullet earlier than later. Now that doesn't explain why he w…

He implied in a few interviews that he wants to turn it into a WeChat version of the west. Doesn't 200M+ daily active users opens up that door.

Twitter is a microblogging site. Not a messaging platform. He could have bought snapchat which is based on messaging.