Elon Musk - the world's "greatest" spiv?

[JohnMcL7]

I wouldn't be surprised if Elon keeps attacking Apple and goads them into taking some sort of action, and then Elon will talk more about making his own phone - or joking that maybe he should buy Apple (of course he can't; Apple is worth trillions).. all with the hope of hitting Apple's stock value. If enough fans are already hating on Apple, that shouldn't be hard.

Elon would likely then buy stock and seek to make peace with Apple, thus pocketing a small fortune in the process. He's got loads of form for doing this.

He's not going to gain a small fortune by doing that, he's going to lose a big chunk of money because that approach wouldn't just seriously damage Twitter but could also cause problems for Tesla as the mess he's already been making with Twitter is shaking confidence in his abilities. It would be an incredibly stupid decision to go that way and Musk fanboys are absolutely not the volume that's going to do any real damage to Apple, that said he's certainly not holding back on the stupid decisions so far.

Maybe I'm being a bit old-school here, but I don't see what the big deal is with the app anyway. I use all websites through a browser, not through an app. I'm sure most people could adjust to that if the Twitter app was removed from app stores.

While this was an issue for Parler, they actually had a far bigger issue in that they relied on Amazon Web Services, and Amazon then stopped them using from using it. There's a message here about not relying on other companies for your critical infrastructure.

Twitter is very heavily used on mobile devices as is social media in general, those users are not going to start using webpage primarily now they're just going to stop using the service which is why being removed from app stores would have such a major impact.

 

[GusB]

Twitter is very heavily used on mobile devices as is social media in general, those users are not going to start using webpage primarily now they're just going to stop using the service which is why being removed from app stores would have such a major impact.

Agreed. I've got the Twitter app on my phone but, due to storage constraints, I don't have it on my tablet. The web experience on mobile is poor.

 

[birchesgreen]

Elon was quick to comment on a graph showing something like 97% of political donations from Apple employees went to the Democrats. Strange though how he didn't notice just down the list it was 94% for Tesla employees.

 

[jon0844]

He's not going to gain a small fortune by doing that, he's going to lose a big chunk of money because that approach wouldn't just seriously damage Twitter but could also cause problems for Tesla as the mess he's already been making with Twitter is shaking confidence in his abilities. It would be an incredibly stupid decision to go that way and Musk fanboys are absolutely not the volume that's going to do any real damage to Apple, that said he's certainly not holding back on the stupid decisions so far.

He appears to be acting like a teenager right now, and doing things based purely on what he asks his fanbase on Twitter. Some of his comments and questions are somewhat unhinged, and so I don't believe he's capable of making rational decisions right now.

When he published slides from an internal meetings, showing how great everything is, plus the whole 'Twitter 2.0' stuff he's wetting his pants over, you can see (even more) that he's not a genius. He must be insufferable for the employees that actually keep his businesses going.



Edit: Ignore everything I said, as it seems Elon is now Tweeting photos of his bedside table (with guns and cans of coke) and re-tweeting white nationalist content and imagery, at the same time Trump and Kanye West are cosying up even more with white supremacists.

His Tweets overnight seem even more deranged. We all know he smokes weed, but I do wonder if he's increasingly acting under the influence and will do even more crazy things to get attention because, right now, he must be loving all the attention he's getting.

 

[takno]

Maybe I'm being a bit old-school here, but I don't see what the big deal is with the app anyway. I use all websites through a browser, not through an app. I'm sure most people could adjust to that if the Twitter app was removed from app stores.

While this was an issue for Parler, they actually had a far bigger issue in that they relied on Amazon Web Services, and Amazon then stopped them using from using it. There's a message here about not relying on other companies for your critical infrastructure.

I don't think it's especially old-school - installation of apps is dropping off fairly quickly, and most services are as good or better on the web at this point anyway. I do use an app for Twitter, but it's a third party app, and I only use it because it will actually give me the timeline of tweets from people I follow rather than whatever random nonsense Twitter feels like showing me today.

Apps are important for Twitter though - the ad rates you can achieve through apps are generally higher because it's possible to more actively track your users and access more information about them. If they lose another 20% of their ad revenue then... well, I don't think it makes much difference at this point, but it's not ideal

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe I'm being a bit old-school here, but I don't see what the big deal is with the app anyway. I use all websites through a browser, not through an app. I'm sure most people could adjust to that if the Twitter app was removed from app stores.

You are, yes. Almost everyone who uses social media on a phone uses it via an app. This would be a killer.

 

[DC1989]

Funny that the mask really has come off. All this pretending he was neither left or right and he's shown us his true colours, he's just a bog standard MAGA fundamentalist

 

[Cloud Strife]

Elon would likely then buy stock and seek to make peace with Apple, thus pocketing a small fortune in the process. He's got loads of form for doing this.

He could, but then he'd be messing with the *really* big boys. Something like that would almost certainly trigger a call from Warren Buffet (Berkshire's Apple shares make up around 20% of their total value, around 5.5% of Apple shares in total) to Musk's financiers, and it's easy to see them pulling the plug on his financing as a result.

The only question is: why on earth is he doing this?

At least Twitter will only continue to shrink, despite Elon posting slides to suggest otherwise.

Those slides are pointing at desperation on his part.

 

[brad465]

He could, but then he'd be messing with the *really* big boys. Something like that would almost certainly trigger a call from Warren Buffet (Berkshire's Apple shares make up around 20% of their total value, around 5.5% of Apple shares in total) to Musk's financiers, and it's easy to see them pulling the plug on his financing as a result.

The only question is: why on earth is he doing this?

Bloomberg recently reported his wealth to have dropped by $100bn this year, so my thinking is either he's trying to cover this up from wider public view, and/or he is trying tactics to recoup wealth, and/or he's thinking "I'm not going down alone".

 

[MikeWM]

Well, it hasn't fallen over yet despite all the people predicting it, and I can't say I've noticed any negative difference in terms of performance.

Accounts are being restored that shouldn't ever have been banned. The 'Covid misinformation policy' is no longer being enforced.

And Musk is heavily implying he is soon going to reach information about how Twitter have been previously leaned on by the authorities to ban people trying to go against the narrative (which we already know part of, with the case of Alex Berenson), including what happened when the Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed before the 2020 election. Which seems like knowledge that should be public, so hopefully he will follow through.

As far as I'm concerned, so far so good. Would I want to work for Musk - no, of course not, I'm intrinsically lazy But as a Twitter *user*, is this preferable to what we got with the previous management - so far, definitely yes.

 

[jon0844]

Hasn't fallen over, no, but loads of issues have been impacting users.

I lost all my Tweets for a while, and people are losing and re-gaining followers. Donald Trump at one point managed to gain millions of followers more in a few seconds, then lost them (at the time when a lot of people pointed out that they weren't following him).

There are issues with image hosting, managing your profile, logging back in with 2FA and probably loads more problems - not least lagging, and the timeline showing things in the wrong order and repeating Tweets.

Then, from a financial point of view, there's the lack of advertisers and the ads now are the type of ads you see way down the page on a local newspaper site with the 'you won't believe this hack to turn lights on and off, and every home has them'.

And do you seriously believe Hunter Biden travelled across America to drop a laptop off with a blind man who then somehow got in touch with Rudy Giuliani or Tucker Carlson (can't remember who) - who then somehow managed to be totally unable to produce any evidence, claiming it got lost in the post or something ridiculous?

 

[MikeWM]

I can't say I've seen any of those issues bar the transitory Trump follower jumping numbers, and I spend rather too much of my life nowadays on Twitter (albeit reading, I only post very rarely). Admittedly I don't use 2FA except when it is forced on me. I have a very welcome inate ability to ignore ads so I haven't noticed that problem either. And as far as I'm concerned that's Musk's problem to solve, not mine.

As for the Biden laptop, I believe it is generally considered now to be authentic, even by the 'mainstream' media. Eg. see this story from last week - yes, its the Mail, but it does set out the current state of the story rather well:

CBS FINALLY admits Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop IS REAL

DailyMail.com authenticated the laptop in March 2021, and was the first - and only - news organization to publicly verify its contents using expert analysis.

www.dailymail.co.uk

CBS has finally admitted Hunter Biden's laptop is real – 20 months after DailyMail.com authenticated its contents with top experts.
...
The network was among a wide range of left-leaning outlets such as the New York Times and MSNBC who doubted the authenticity as the Biden administration insisted it was Russian disinformation.

But on Monday, two weeks after the midterms, CBS This Morning changed their tune.

The network ran a segment with with former Secret Service member and computer forensics expert Mark Lanterman saying he and his son Sean had independently verified the laptop and said there was no evidence of external tampering.
...
The scandal was widely dismissed by multiple outlets, social media companies made sure stories were censored and whistleblowers claim FBI agents went out of their way to obstruct investigations.

(emphasis mine)

 

[jon0844]

If it is real (and I'm still skeptical, given it's the Daily Mail), then the next question is - he's not in Government, so how does it make any difference anyway?

Unlike the Trump family members who had their fingers in all sorts of pies.

 

[MikeWM]

If it is real (and I'm still skeptical, given it's the Daily Mail), then the next question is - he's not in Government, so how does it make any difference anyway?

Unlike the Trump family members who had their fingers in all sorts of pies.

It obviously matters if media companies and social media companies were 'leaned on' or 'persuaded' to not run the story and prevent others from posting about it. That takes us back to what Musk may reveal.

(As I said above, look at the way the Biden administration leaned on Twitter to ban Alex Berenson from the platform, even though Twitter said he hadn't broken any Twitter rules - and that's public knowledge because Berenson took pre-Musk Twitter to court over it, and won).

 

[DC1989]

I can't tell if musk trying to publicly bully companies to give him money or he'll tell everyone that their unpatriotic is a genius move or completely idiotic.

We'll see soon enough I guess

 

[jon0844]

The laptop story was talked about loads at the time. The story didn't sound credible at the time and still doesn't now.

Perhaps the blind laptop repair story was made up to cover for the fact the data was obtained illegally somehow.

I have no idea what information Elon is going to bring, but he does seem to be loving the conspiracy theories and keeps asking people to tell him more...

 

[OuterDistant]

I can't help but think if I ever met Elon Musk in real life, I'd turn into Joe Pesci in Casino.

You know I get calls from back home every *** day, they think you went bat ***?!

 

[jon0844]

Warning; NSFW (for language)

A very entertaining, and IMO educational, video that shows these 'tech bros' aren't geniuses, or our friends, and worshipping them is counter intuitive.

Tech CEOs aren't geniuses, and here's the proof.

 

[birchesgreen]

So a day or so after Elon claimed Apple were going to ban the Twitter app (no evidence of course but his right wing fans raved and raged about it) now he says he has spoken to Tim Cook and there is no plan to ban the app (his right wing fans now proclaiming him the uber business man genius).

The man is so needy.

 

[jon0844]

I expect Elon will be accusing the President of something next, which will truly get his base going.

Elon could very well get people killed if he's not careful. Far too many people follow him religiously, just like Trump - and Elon isn't even in Government.

 

[birchesgreen]

It is a definite cult, some of his fans claimed Apple caved because of the Elon phone, not that it exists.

The actual religion being formed around Trump is fascinating though.

 

[jon0844]

Seems Twitter is continuing to re-hire people 'accidentally' let go (accidentally meaning Elon's ego got the better of him) and existing employees are being asked to ask colleagues who were let go to come back. HR has even changed its payroll system to have a flag to show someone who was accidentally fired.

And apparently employees are still saying it's total chaos. No signs of Elon getting bored yet and returning to Tesla or SpaceX, although as I've said before - I bet their employees are quite happy about that.

Twitter is apparently not operational in all markets at the moment, but - hey - Elon Tweeted that he fixed something to make a service run a bit quicker, no doubt having his fans applaud his genius.

 

[AlterEgo]

So a day or so after Elon claimed Apple were going to ban the Twitter app (no evidence of course but his right wing fans raved and raged about it) now he says he has spoken to Tim Cook and there is no plan to ban the app (his right wing fans now proclaiming him the uber business man genius).

The man is so needy.

It is pathetic isn’t it? I’ve got bored of his antics now.

 

[jon0844]

It is pathetic isn’t it? I’ve got bored of his antics now.

He's only just beginning. It might be easy to get bored, but he's dangerous right now - and as he continues to lap up the worshipping from his base, he'll push the boundaries even further.

At the end of the day, Twitter is going to suffer more outages, more losses in usage (some big names are now establishing themselves on other platforms and building a base so they might be confident enough to leave Twitter permanently), more losses in advertising - and all of that is going to hit him hard when he has interest payments to make.

So, what will he do? Admit he messed up or look for more people to blame?

The EU is now after him and could potentially limit access there, or issue fines, so that might well be one target. Will suit the Brexit fans down to the ground, although I suspect even the UK won't be happy with the way things are going. Elon doesn't seem to think of his businesses outside of the USA bubble.

 

[Cloud Strife]

So a day or so after Elon claimed Apple were going to ban the Twitter app (no evidence of course but his right wing fans raved and raged about it) now he says he has spoken to Tim Cook and there is no plan to ban the app (his right wing fans now proclaiming him the uber business man genius).

I suspect the truth is rather that his bankers had a word and told him to back off from any ideas of fighting with Apple.

 

[jon0844]

I suspect the truth is rather that his bankers had a word and told him to back off from any ideas of fighting with Apple.

Ultimately, they are the ones who will try and sort Elon out - but people struggled to stop Elon getting into trouble before when he was Tweeting stuff about shares and investments etc.

Wasn't he told he had to get his Tweets approved at one time?

I guess the difference is that people he worked with could just up and leave, or be fired, but the people who loaned Elon money won't be going anywhere.

 

[GS250]

I expect Elon will be accusing the President of something next, which will truly get his base going.

Elon could very well get people killed if he's not careful. Far too many people follow him religiously, just like Trump - and Elon isn't even in Government.

I think what you mean is that Elon wants to be the president!!!!

 

[jon0844]

I think what you mean is that Elon wants to be the president!!!!

He can't though, and that's really gotta bug him.

 

[GS250]

He can't though, and that's really gotta bug him.

You never know...given that the democrats are all about diversity and inclusion, this could mean the 'rules' are changed to allow the best person for the job to apply as opposed to locking it down on nationality lines.

 

[brad465]

You never know...given that the democrats are all about diversity and inclusion, this could mean the 'rules' are changed to allow the best person for the job to apply as opposed to locking it down on nationality lines.

If the Democrats see Musk as a threat, they will not change the rules until at least 2024. Then if a Republican is elected President who would change the rules in favour of Musk, it could be argued they won't do it until at least almost 2032, because even though they might like Musk, they won't want him stealing their chance in 2028, and by then Musk could have sunk to a nobody; especially as his wealth has tanked around $100bn this year (although he's still the world's richest man).