The Twitter Debacle

[Aaron44126]

Elon Musk seems chummy with Tim Cook now.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/30/23487040/elon-musk-tim-cook-apple-threatening-twitter

 

Trouble in the EU.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-claims-none-of-our-policies-have-changed-after-abandoning-covid-policy/

[Etern4l]

Alright, we have another line! We're learning here!

 

Elon Musk suspends Kanye West from Twitter for inciting violence

'Twitter's new boss Elon Musk was asked by one user to "fix Kanye".'

 

All you need it pray to Elon himself and fix he shall. This is awesome, finally a greater power that listens to the people.

 

[Aaron44126]

[jaybee83]

On 12/1/2022 at 2:26 AM, Sandy Bridge said:

Musk would probably just buy some struggling Android phone maker for an overpriced amount to have them start making his phone.  Even he probably couldn't afford the really successful ones though (Samsung, LG, Xiaomi).

 

But I doubt he'd have much more luck with phones than Microsoft or Apple did.  Microsoft poured billions into Windows Phone over the better part of a decade, and had Windows CE before that; Elon could launch his own Android-based phone by purchasing someone, but without the App Store he'd be at just as much of a competitive disadvantage as Huawei (aside from not being sanctioned altogether in the U.S.).

 

Meanwhile he's increasing Starlink prices in Ukraine, for both the terminals and service, because it might be losing $100M/month.  I can't help but think that if he hadn't just dropped $44B on Twitter, he could be having a major PR win with Starlink right now... and even after dropping all that money on Twitter he could still afford it.  It's still sort of impressive from a technical standpoint what Starlink is doing in Ukraine, it just doesn't look so good to be price-gouging the Ukrainians while buying social networks for tens of billions.

 

of course, just like he did with Tesla: invest early, throw out all the OGs and call yourself the founder 😄 

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/06/tesla-founders-martin-eberhard-marc-tarpenning-on-elon-musk.html

[6730b]

"Have you gone to your notifications tab on Twitter, only to see nothing there?"

https://gizmodo.com/twitter-down-notifications-breaking-elon-musk-layoffs-1849856992

[Etern4l]

5 minutes ago, 6730b said:

"Have you gone to your notifications tab on Twitter, only to see nothing there?"

https://gizmodo.com/twitter-down-notifications-breaking-elon-musk-layoffs-1849856992

 

TBH That's for the best. The Musk Man deeply cares about the waste of time on Twitter problem.

[6730b]

Just read this, please check if correct, but even if only 1\2 of that = ridiculous disaster:
"Tesla stocks has lost nearly 47% since Elon Musk unveiled his intentions to acquire the social network"

47% or so probably right:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-lost-almost-700-billion-121558314.html

[Aaron44126]

Tesla stock was just under $400 on January 3, 2022, and is currently sitting at $173.  That's a >50% loss from the peak.  It spent much of April in the $330-340 range (that's when the Musk-buying-Twitter stuff was first starting as I recall) so it's even around a 50% loss from that time period.

 

Part of that is due to global market forces (stocks everywhere are mostly down; inflation, supply chain issues, Ukraine war, etc. aren't helping).  But Tesla is having a bad run of it.  And, as I understand it, the loan that Musk used to in part pay for his Twitter purchase is secured against Tesla stock.  Twitter owes about $1 billion per year in interest.  (The loans are actually to be paid back by Twitter, not Elon Musk.)  I wonder how those lenders are feeling right now, given both what is going on with Tesla's stock value and how Musk's running of Twitter is working out.

[serpro69]

Oh yeah, it's very interesting to look at the correlation between his decision to acquire Twitter and the Tesla stock price going down.

 

I think I read yesterday that Musk briefly lost his "richest person place", could well be looking at a longer-term second place.

[Etern4l]

Elon Musk turns Twitter into 'hotel' for staff

 

Hopefully work is the only hardcore activity taking place in the Twitter Hotel now... With all that stress though and given the fact that pretty much only devoted Musk cultists can be expected to remain with the company, let's be realistic... 

[Aaron44126]

Gotta do something with all that extra space freed up by employee departures, I guess...

 

Twitter Blue to cost $11/mo if you sign up on iPhone, $7/mo if you sign up on the web.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/8/23499696/twitter-blue-relaunch-7-11-dollars-apple-tax-30-percent-commission

 

Does Apple have rules about price disparity?  And wouldn't he only need to charge $10/mo on iPhone to have Apple's 30% "tax" covered?

Android is not mentioned but I'd imagine he'd try the same thing with them...

[Etern4l]

TBH That's a good thing. No sympathy for Apple/Google abusing their duopoly and ripping devs off. 

[jaybee83]

4 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

Gotta do something with all that extra space freed up by employee departures, I guess...

 

Twitter Blue to cost $11/mo if you sign up on iPhone, $7/mo if you sign up on the web.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/8/23499696/twitter-blue-relaunch-7-11-dollars-apple-tax-30-percent-commission

 

Does Apple have rules about price disparity?  And wouldn't he only need to charge $10/mo on iPhone to have Apple's 30% "tax" covered?

Android is not mentioned but I'd imagine he'd try the same thing with them...

 

ha ive heard about this automatic system sensing stuff, adjusting pricing on the type of access / system base its detecting. same goes for location, browser type, time of day, etc...madness

[Aaron44126]

Twitter to start deleting inactive accounts (1.5 billion of them) -- https://www.neowin.net/news/twitter-will-purge-around-15-billion-inactive-accounts-to-free-up-usernames/

 

I have an inactive account myself.  I've had it since like 2010 and it has no tweets.  (I do sign in from time to time, I follow some other accounts, but I've been using it way less since the Musk stuff started.)  Will it just go away?

[Etern4l]

Similar boat. Appreciate Musk saving me the trouble of logging in to delete the account. Will be good to see the spam stop too. 

[Mr. Fox]

I love it when an evil plan gets its pants pulled down.

[Aaron44126]

Apparently, today is the day that Twitter Blue is coming back.  Will it work out better this time ....?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/twitter-blue-is-coming-back-with-more-colors-and-assurances-from-musk/

[Etern4l]

Elon Musk pumps Tesla stock with ridiculous $4 trillion target. Is a dump coming next?

 

He thinks this is going to be as easy a job as with the crypto monkeys jumping onto Doge after a tweet, doesn't he?

 

YTD performance:

 

AAPL -21.89%

MSFT -26.69%

NASDAQ -30.49%

GOOGL -35.97%

....

DOW -8.50%

VW -23.90%

GM -37.42%

F -39.46%

TSLA -55.23%

 

That's over $500B of value gone, and at least $150-200B over the par. Utterly ridiculous.

 

Five hundred billion dollars. A company which manufactures a million cars a year into a capped market. P/E ratio still at an idiotic 55 after the collapse.

 

[Reciever]

Removed off topic posts. Carry on everyone.

[Sandy Bridge]

To be fair, Tesla has been massively over-valued for years.  As high as its price was, you'd have thought it was expected to replace GM, Ford, Toyota, and Honda combined in market share.  And actually, that still appears to be the case.  Current market caps:

 

Tesla - $561B

Toyota - $234B

VW - $94B

GM - $54B

Ford - $52B

Honda - $41B

 

That's $475B combined for five of the world's largest auto manufacturers, still less than Tesla which ships a small fraction of the volume, and the gulf was wider before the start of the year.  The others have P/E ratios between 5 and 11; Tesla at 55 is still way higher.

 

So how much of it is Musk's Twitter actions giving people pause, versus people realizing it was priced stratospherically and maybe they should cash in on their earnings or avoid the potential for losses when it leaves the stratosphere, is hard to say.  Probably some of both.

 

---

 

In more direct Twitter-related news, Vivaldi has spun up a Mastodon instance, Vivaldi Social, making it easy for Vivaldi users to sign up for the Twitter alternative.  I suspect the timing is not coincidental.  I perused it a bit but was mostly reminded of why I wasn't a Twitter user even before the new ownership, it seems like a good way to get pulled into debates and waste time on the Internet, but I'm not sure how it would make my life better.

 

One could make an argument that forums serve similar purposes, but at least on NotebookTalk the debates I'm likely to be pulled into are on topics I have some interest in, and I can view NBT today if I feel like discussing notebooks, and some other site tomorrow if I feel like discussing some other topic, and not have it all lumped together.

[Etern4l]

Obviously a speculative bubble. I could understand this pricing if Tesla produced vehicles powered by portable fusion devices good for 20 years, priced about $50k and had this patented globally. Instead they manufacture cars based on technology which is mostly replicated by other manufacturers, based on a battery technology that inflicts horrendous impact on the environment, and replaces a dependency on oil produced by many countries across the globe with dependency on rare Earth elements mined largely in China. 

[Mr. Fox]

More glorious fallout from the woke Twatter echo chamber getting its pants pulled down, LOL.

[Mr. Fox]

More from the Twitter Files...

 

[Etern4l]

On 12/10/2022 at 8:50 PM, Mr. Fox said:

More glorious fallout from the woke Twatter echo chamber getting its pants pulled down, LOL.

 

Just to point out: it's just a random guy talking - at no point do you get any original source information from this. 

 

The second video seems a bit better, at least some plausibly looking pieces of source info, although obviously would take a considerable amount of time to verify. 

 

 

 

[Mr. Fox]

26 minutes ago, Etern4l said:

 

Just to point out: it's just a random guy talking - at no point do you get any original source information from this. 

 

The second video seems a bit better, at least some plausibly looking pieces of source info, although obviously would take a considerable amount of time to verify. 

 

 

 

I generally view the need to verify misbehavior by the internet Nazis like Twatter, Facepoot, Goober and YouPoop as an unnecessary denial of what is already obvious to those paying attention. Also very hard to verify what they do because it is always so deceptive, secretive and misrepresented. What is more revealing is how deep and wide the scope of their evil plan and devices were and are. I am super glad that Musk is releasing all of the dirty garbage from the former Twatter Gestapo. It certainly puts things in perspective.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Reciever
Removed political element of the post as well as some non PG words, however the opinions of said tech companies I believe are in scope. Happy Posting