• Endorkend@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Most valuations by actual economists and the like was in the 20-25B range. So it still lost a 5x in value, which is only marginally worse than 10x.

      Meanwhile, you have the Elon fanboys still pretending Twitter is doing better than it ever has.

  • Clown_Tempura@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    It astounds and amazes me that there was a time Elon could have feasibly been considered a smart, level-headed entrepreneur. The whole submarine thing with the trapped kids really was the beginning of his unraveling. I for one thank Elon Musk for proving once and for all to even the most shameless corpo-apologists that having a ton of money doesn’t magically make you smart or cool. The dude’s an idiot, and I love watching him self-destruct.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      At one point they even had him cameo in iron man, and had him name dropped on star trek as a pioneer of human discovery. People used to jerk off to this dude’s PR image like he was a real life Tony Stark.

      • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        If he stayed off Twitter he’d have a pretty impressive CV. Mainstream electric cars, actually usable Satellite Internet, Major Solar Panels etc. Even weird shit like Hyperloop would just be random neat things.

        • sushibowl@feddit.nl
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          10 months ago

          Same with JK Rowling, Kanye West, Notch, etc. It’s literally so fucking easy for people like this to remain loved by everyone. Just keep your fucking mouth shut. Give nice polite interviews about your job, stay out of politics, let a boring publicity agent manage your social media for you, and enjoy your billions of dollars in peace.

          Why is it so hard?

          • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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            10 months ago

            I would have a think tank. I would pay a hundred or so smart people obscene amounts of money to tell me my ideas are daft and come up with really great ideas for me.

            The mind boggles as to why someone like musk doesn’t do this. It would be like achieving global eternal financial domination on easy mode. A world hack if you will. It would cost a mere fraction of his wealth.

            Imagine if every descision you made was well informed and well reasoned instead of just shit.

          • RekcuffuckeR@feddit.de
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            10 months ago

            Why should they care about being loved by people they don’t care about? It’s normal to have the desire to express your political opinion.

            • instamat@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Or, you know, you could keep it to yourself and wait until someone asks for it.

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        10 months ago

        They put him on Rick and Morty in the most cringe inducing fashions and it was like watching a cartoon suck off a guy.

        • 100@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Putting aside that that whole show is pretty rough and I’ve mentally decanonized it, the guy who said it is technically a mega space nazi from the space nazi dimension so I choose to believe he just thought that Musk being an aspiring space nazi was as cool in our universe as it was in his.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          I prefer to pretend that they’re talking about another person named Musk, one of his many kids perhaps…

    • bobman@unilem.org
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      10 months ago

      and I love watching him self-destruct.

      I guarantee he’d rather be in his position than yours.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        10 months ago

        Yeah, can lose all this wealth and still be fucking wealthy in a way that literally dozens of people only know.

    • hypnotoad__@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Please stop attacking my character based on terrible purchase decisions

      What a beautiful car

      Until I owned it

      • Nerdulous@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        I’ll never forget my Sweet 3 series… Because I’m still paying for it’s repairs years later.

        • Saneless@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          It’s a fascinating car and I’m always on awe any time one pulls up next to me

          With trim and doors and shit so poorly aligned, I can’t believe it left the factory

          • ditty@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Are you talking about the poor quality control on the Tesla Model 3? OP was talking about the BMW 3-Series, which typically have excellent fit and finish.

  • MaxHardwood@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    I could be remembering wrong but Twitter was only worth $15B at best, and Elon bought it for $44B because he’s that smart.

    • El Barto@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I genuinely think he’s just a pawn in a bigger game in which some powers wanted twitter gone.

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        10 months ago

        Brainless but sounds like a competent leader. Has all the qualities the Illuminati are looking for when appointing a new drone.

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        10 months ago

        Why gone? I understood that the Saudi government just wanted to de-anonymize it (i.e be informed about the authors of any critical tweets).

        Like that guy who has been condemned to death for a critical tweet to his… 8 followers.

        • Stern@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          He hasn’t stopped a lot of folks, including all the shitty ones that would normally be banned. Hell, he unbanned them in many cases (i.e. Trump.) With Blue he gave them a way to be all the top responses in comments no matter how shitty their take is. Making the feed useless can be just as bad (if not worse) then censoring it.

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        10 months ago

        No. He may be influenced by others, but it’s clear his ego is just that enormous and that his emotional immaturity makes him do stupid shit impulsively.

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            10 months ago

            Even if he was ‘manipulated’ he would be the same person regardless if he wasn’t. He is clearly a self-serving person with ego problems. There are no billionaires that aren’t fucked up people.

            • El Barto@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Oh for sure! But a stupid person may do stupid things on their own, and more stupid things when manipulated.

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      10 months ago

      How are you defining worth? It’s value was probably in the 20Bs and it’s market value was well in the 30Bs. By value I am saying a world where owners just dumped all their shares until they were no longer owners, by market value I mean what another entity might pay to buyout twitter.

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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      10 months ago

      Almost. He said that if anyone could present a plan on how to end world hunger for $6B, he’d sell Tesla stock to pay for it.

      The U.N. publicly presented a plan on how they’d use that $6B, but it fell way short of that goal. Which isn’t surprising, since they never claimed they could solve world hunger permanently for $6B. Musk’s challenge was rhetorical because the bar was impossibly high. He was really just trying to make the point that he does not have the money to truly end world hunger.

      The U.N.'s plan for that $6B would “feed 42 million people for one year, and avert the risk of famine”. That’s nothing to sneeze at, obviously, but it’s not a permanent solution.

      Friendly reminder, for context, that the U.S. military budget is $842B. For one year.

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        10 months ago

        As much as I dislike Musk, I think your argument is a bit of a straw man. He responded to something or someone saying it was possible for $6bn. They stopped responding after Musk said “open books for accounting” or something. The UN shouldn’t have responded at all since it wasn’t feasible

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          10 months ago

          I still think it’s interesting information, and feeding 42 million people for a year is a better deal than funneling that money to people like musk or the DoD.

  • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    For that to be true, it would have needed to be worth $44B in the first place, which it absolutely was not. But there is no doubt that his mismanagement has tanked the value of the investment. He’s a narcissist so never see it that way, but the whole rest of the world knows that.

    • Kage520@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      As a business? Probably not worth that valuation. As a propaganda machine to be able to influence a decent percentage of the population? I think it was.

      • ozymandias117@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Only because larger media outlets use it as “news”

        Twitter has always been one of the smaller “social media” giants

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        10 months ago

        AFAIK he had to be sued into buying it once he tried to weasel out of the deal. So it wasn’t for lack of trying definitely 😂😂😂

        • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          There was a clause in the contract that said if he backed out he would have to pay $1 billion. Who knew that would actually have saved him way more to exercise that clause.

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      10 months ago

      This is the quote:

      “I don’t see any scenario where they’re responsible for less than 10% of the value destruction, so around $4 billion.”

      In my head, he is comparing the minimum size of ADLs value reduction to be 10% or 4 billion. 10% of 44 billion is 4,4 billion. In this comment he is not saying anything about the current value except that 10% of 44 is around 4.

      How else can you read it?

      • RekcuffuckeR@feddit.de
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        10 months ago

        He’s saying that 10% of the value reduction is 4 billion so the total value reduction is 40 billion (of the 44 billion he bought it for).

        But you’re right, he probably meant it like you read it and just failed to express himself properly.

        • PaleRider@feddit.uk
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          10 months ago

          Are you saying that real life “Tony Stark genius, billionaire” is a bit thick and incapable of expressing his thoughts coherently?

          I’m shocked I tell you. Shocked…

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        10 months ago

        You can read it as “being responsible for 10% of the [total] value destruction, equal to $4B”.

        So if they’re responsible for 10% of the total value loss, and that’s equivalent to $4B, then 100% of the total value lost would be $40B.

        Otherwise you would say “they’re responsible for destroying 10% of the value”.

        • Trashcan@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Right. So it’s a Schroedinger’s quote…😑

          But thanks for pointing out what was obvious for others

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    10 months ago

    Imagine having so much wealth that he can walk away from his utter failure at Xitter and remain completely unaffected. For him, this is like some side-hustle vanity project a bored trophy wife runs.

    • Globulart@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Losing 40b is a pretty big deal even for Musk to be fair. It’d be more like a bored housewife remortgaging the house to pay for their vanity project.

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        10 months ago

        I mean not really, he knows he’ll always have a roof over his head, food on his table, doctors when he’s ill, it is a rather big deal but that doesn’t really affect his daily life in any significant way.

        He’ll still be able to afford anything he may ever want, what he really lost is financial power and social respect.

        In short I think it’s more like a bored housewife getting thrown out from the homeowners association.

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          10 months ago

          He’ll still be able to afford anything he may ever want, what he really lost is financial power and social respect.

          That’s like the worst for a person like Musk.

  • scarabic@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    No tears shed here. The people who built Twitter got a nice payout when they absolutely robbed Elon Musk in that deal. Anyone who chose to stay on the Elon train after his first weeks at the helm gets no sympathy from me.

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      10 months ago

      Anyone who chose to stay on the Elon train after his first weeks at the helm gets no sympathy from me.

      Except for the green card holders whose residency in the US was literally held hostage by Elon.

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        10 months ago

        Pretty sure they were held hostage by the US government policy of getting deported if they lose their job.

        Xitter was just a vessel on which that was presented.

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        10 months ago

        A lot of people say this, but there seems to be almost zero effort being put into resolving many of the systemic issues with the US visa system.

        As a British person in tech, I’d love to work in the US for a year or two, but I have zero intention of dealing with the shitshow that is visa slavery in big tech, and how the visa system is lop-sided to deal with 2-3 countries and a handful of companies over others. In the UK, it’s much simpler to offer visas to Americans, and even mid-sized companies can sponsor visas.

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      10 months ago

      Facts.

      Elon tried so hard to back down from that deal. I’m not sure why it took actually signing that deal to realize he had been hosed.

      If I was an executive at twitter, I would have absolutely done everything possible to get Elon to pay that $44 billion.

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        10 months ago

        Elon: Fuck you Twitter!

        Twitter: Fuck yourself, Elon!

        Elon: Oh yeah? Maybe I’ll just BUY you.

        Twitter: Ha! No you can’t….

        Elon: No? Watch this!

        Twitter: Gotcha, dipshit.

        Elon: What? Wait no!

        Twitter: Ahem… judge?

        Judge: They got you, dipshit.

        Elon: (unbans Trump) Nyah-Nyah!

        Twitter: Ahahahaha (all the way to the bank)

        Elon: Everyone see this? This is the ADL’s fault!

    • odelik@lemmy.today
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      10 months ago

      The only people there that get sympathy from me are the people trapped there on work visas if they want to legally remain in the USA.

      The rest are either shit workers that can’t make the cut elsewhere, or bought into the Elon hype and are a lost cause.

      • Madex@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Never met a nice billionaire hell I’ve met some millionaires and 90% of them are assholes.

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        10 months ago

        The internet love to rib on billionaires, but there are some who are genuine. Like Charles Feeney, who made billions from running Duty Free during the golden age of air travel. He secretly donated much of his wealth and his worth was only revealed during a legal battle when had to disclose his finances. Right now, Charles’ net worth is said to be now in millions since he donated much of his wealth. If I remember correctly, I think he always lived in a rented apartment too. But I think the type of billionaire like Charles Feeney qis far and wide among the group.

        • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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          10 months ago

          Sounds like he realized being a billionaire is intrinsically unethical and elected to be a millionaire

          • crackajack@reddthat.com
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            10 months ago

            To be honest, I think saying that being a billionaire is unethical is farfetched. If someone made that much money running a business ethically (assuming that’s what Feeney did), then I don’t see why anyone should feel guilty for becoming wealthy. And the guy is old, in his 80s now I think, so he knows that there is no point hoarding all the wealth he accumulated if he knows that his time will come soon.