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

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#71

Post by pastor_bob » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

memish wrote: post #29

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #9

Prediction: Brain drain at Twitter begins as Elon starts enacting unpopular policies. Valuation tanks. Morale becomes non-existent and Twitter slowly starts to fade from existence while competitors begin to fill the void. I give it 3-5 years before it's gone full husk.

Prediction: Twitter becomes more efficient, focused and profitable than they ever have been. And it will return to the platform neutrality and free speech ideals it had prior to 2015ish.

platform neutrality is antithetical to profitability in the social media world.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#72

Post by mkl95 » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

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.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#73

Post by Bubble_Pop_22 » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #17

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #9

Prediction: Brain drain at Twitter begins as Elon starts enacting unpopular policies. Valuation tanks. Morale becomes non-existent and Twitter slowly starts to fade from existence while competitors begin to fill the void. I give it 3-5 years before it's gone full husk.

With a strong vision for freedom of speech and actual value enforcement (edit: of the transparency value, not just start censoring the other side), it would attract the right people. We can argue the recent dilution of Twitter's values to meddle with U.S. politics was the actual brain drain.

Social media are free because they act as a lubricant for commerce, especially e-commerce, via advertising. The whole freedom of speech thing, the public square, section 230 they are a bunch of distractions.

At the end of the day you gotta do what media entrepreneurs have always done: shove stuff down people's throats in exchange for money. That's it. There is nothing tough, poetic or ideological about it.

Twitter has been trying to monetize its users but they had scarce success. That was without an ideologue at the helm. Or an ideologue-lite when Dorsey was in charge.

With an ideologue at the helm the bird will fly right into the ground. Twitter needed somebody who knows how attract the crowd which buys stuff online. Paradoxically Bezos was the right fit for the bird app.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#74

Post by skizm » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

TSiege wrote: post #43

I would really like to hear how he's financing this deal. His net worth has dropped since he's made this play. Most of his money is tied up in equity. So who's funding this deal? The fact that this isn't well talked about and that the company is going private is raising a lot of red flags to my eyes

Assuming the same financing as prior to trying to cancel, it will be $13B from banks loaned to Twitter the company. ~$7B from friends of Elon. Then I think something like half of the remaining was supposed to be margin loans against TSLA stock, but since the stock has tanked recently the margin requirements were too high and Musk has indicated he plans to simply sell a bunch of TSLA stock (or otherwise directly from his personal assets).

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#75

Post by whatshisface » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

danjoredd wrote: post #51

jjtheblunt wrote: post #24

Does Elon Musk own Twitter, or does a group of bankers orchestrated by him jointly own it with him?

Musk himself owns it. He is now the CEO of the place

Musk might own it, but musk's lenders now own a sizable piece of him.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#76

Post by fitzroy » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

I'm still surprised that Google didn't just clone or buy Twitter in the 2009 "Fail Whale" era. Seems like they had 95% of the work done already: a highly-scalabile real-time infrastructure that took Twitter years to catch up to. (Yes, Google+ came later, but the UX of the boundaries, of where the network started and stopped on the web, felt too amorphous for most people as a social media destination)

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#77

Post by exclusiv » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

danjoredd wrote: post #36

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #9

Prediction: Brain drain at Twitter begins as Elon starts enacting unpopular policies. Valuation tanks. Morale becomes non-existent and Twitter slowly starts to fade from existence while competitors begin to fill the void. I give it 3-5 years before it's gone full husk.

Not going to lie, whoever owns it, I have an inner hatred for that hell site. The way I see it, it can go two ways...either Musk somehow manages to actually make the site tolerable, or it dies. Its going to be one or the other...nobody really knows which way yet. Either direction is a win in my eyes though. If it changes for the better: great! If it dies: even better! More social media sites will take its place.

Agreed. Although I do think following just a few hand curated accounts has a lot of value as a topical news feed. Or to get local news in near real-time. The rest of it is worthless to me.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#78

Post by brm » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

memish wrote: post #29

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #9

Prediction: Brain drain at Twitter begins as Elon starts enacting unpopular policies. Valuation tanks. Morale becomes non-existent and Twitter slowly starts to fade from existence while competitors begin to fill the void. I give it 3-5 years before it's gone full husk.

Prediction: Twitter becomes more efficient, focused and profitable than they ever have been. And it will return to the platform neutrality and free speech ideals it had prior to 2015ish.

Prior to 2015, Twitter was the pre-child view source generation tweeting interesting articles and what they ate for lunch.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#79

Post by freespeechrox » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #9

Prediction: Brain drain at Twitter begins as Elon starts enacting unpopular policies. Valuation tanks. Morale becomes non-existent and Twitter slowly starts to fade from existence while competitors begin to fill the void. I give it 3-5 years before it's gone full husk.

I plan on applying to work for Twitter now that it supports free speech.

I’d like to think I can provide a net positive to the org with 15 years experience as a developer, founder and CTO.

Maybe it’ll end up being a net zero brain swap.

Re: Elon Musk owns Twitter: The story so far

#80

Post by spinlock » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #9

Prediction: Brain drain at Twitter begins as Elon starts enacting unpopular policies. Valuation tanks. Morale becomes non-existent and Twitter slowly starts to fade from existence while competitors begin to fill the void. I give it 3-5 years before it's gone full husk.

What valuation? Per the article, it's being delisted and taken private. Which, may attract talent who wants to build something for the long term rather than being pinned to quarterly reports.

My money would be on software developers with certain personality quirks being drawn to Musk's leadership while those who have been building Twitter's compliance and moderation infrastructure would be repulsed. But, I don't think we'll really ever know because - as a private company - I expect Twitter to not disclose that information in the future.