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

[Cloud Strife]

Twitter has suspended new subscriptions to its car-crash Twitter Blue verification system.

There's a surprise.

I am thoroughly enjoying this entire trainwreck, to be fair.

 

[brad465]

This one isn't even from a parody account:

https://twitter.com/waDNR/status/1591090938990198784

Update: The Twitter wildfire is at 44 billion acres and 0% contained.

 

[johncrossley]

Why can't he just be happy and spend the rest of his life living a life of luxury, counting his pennies?

 

[takno]

Why can't he just be happy and spend the rest of his life living a life of luxury, counting his pennies?

Because he doesn't have any pennies. He has stock he can't really sell in a lot of companies which probably aren't worth their valuations, and whose price is heavily supported by his bluster.

In any case, as with many billionaires the money is barely the point - he got enough to live like a king from PayPal. Since then he's been more focused on proving that he is a unique God-like gift to humanity.

 

[Busaholic]

Why can't he just be happy and spend the rest of his life living a life of luxury, counting his pennies?

Why can't he take a one way space flight and, in a couple of years time, we'll be saying 'do you remember Elon Musk?' Of course, what might really happen is that he faked his own departure and is eventually discovered living in a condo in Miami cf Lord Lucan.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Why can't he just be happy and spend the rest of his life living a life of luxury, counting his pennies?

Because it's all a game and money is the way of keeping score.

 

[jon0844]

People like Elon, Trump, Boris Johnson and others love the power/ego trip.

If when it all goes wrong, he'll have a nice long list of people to blame and create even more division. He's already blaming the left for scaring advertisers away, and will no doubt continue to blame socialism or something.

He loves the attention and when he creates division, he can get all like-minded people massaging his ego, and block the others (and get his fanbase to join in on the attack).

He is literally like a younger Donald Trump. I bet he's as insufferable in meetings and doesn't listen etc.

 

[Purple Train]

In any case, as with many billionaires the money is barely the point - he got enough to live like a king from PayPal. Since then he's been more focused on proving that he is a unique God-like gift to humanity.

Granted not God-like, but he is definitely a unique gift that keeps on giving to at least part of humanity. (I mean the satirists, but don't tell poor little Elon that; it might hurt his feelings, poor thing.)

 

[brad465]

What could possibly go wrong?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592177471654604800

Part of today will be turning off the “microservices” bloatware. Less than 20% are actually needed for Twitter to work!

 

[takno]

What could possibly go wrong?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592177471654604800

The infrastructure team disabled all the off switches last night, so quite possibly nothing

 

[jon0844]

2FA has gone wrong it seems.

Meanwhile, Thunderf00t had done another catchup video on Elon - although it's already out of date.

 

[brad465]

Yeah this will go down well:

Elon Musk tells Twitter staff to work long hours or leave

Elon Musk says workers at the social media firm must be "hardcore" if they want to stay, reports say.

www.bbc.co.uk

Elon Musk has told Twitter staff that they must commit to working "long hours at high intensity" or else leave the company, according to reports.
In an email to staff, the social media firm's new owner said workers should agree to the pledge if they wanted to stay, the Washington Post reported.
Those who do not sign up by Thursday will be given three months' severance pay, Mr Musk said.
The BBC has contacted Twitter for comment.
In his email to staff, also seen by The Guardian, Mr Musk said that Twitter "will need to be extremely hardcore" in order to succeed.
"This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade," he said.
Workers were told that they needed to click on a link by 17:00 EST on Thursday, if they want to be "part of the new Twitter".
He added: "Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful."
The world's richest man has already announced half of Twitter's staff are being let go, after he bought the company in a $44bn (£38.7bn) deal.
Mr Musk said he had "no choice" over the cuts as the company was losing $4m (£3.51m) a day. He has blamed "activist groups pressuring advertisers" for a "massive drop in revenue".

A host of top Twitter executives have also stepped down following his purchase of the firm.
Last week, the entrepreneur told Twitter staff that remote working would end and "difficult times" lay ahead, according to reports.
In an email to staff, the owner of the social media firm said workers would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours a week, Bloomberg reported.
Mr Musk added that there was "no way to sugar coat the message" that the slowing global economy was going to hit Twitter's advertising revenues.
But tech investor Sarah Kunst said the real reason Twitter is facing difficulties is because Mr Musk's takeover has saddled the company with debt.
His behaviour since the takeover has also led some advertisers to pause their spending, she said.
"He's now trying to inflict that pain and uncertainty on the employees," she said.
She added that there was a question mark over how enforceable Mr Musk's email about hours to staff really was.
"Can you just send an email to staff who already work for you, and just unilaterally change their working contract? That remains to be seen."
Dan Ives, a senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, warned it was further evidence that Twitter's culture had "dramatically changed" with Mr Musk at the helm.
"Elon Musk is not going to be doing candlelight dinners and playing ping pong in Twitter's cafeteria and this is a shock to the system," he said.
"But he also needs to play nice in the sandbox because if key Twitter engineers and developers leave, this will be a major void in the Twitter ecosystem," he warned. "There's a careful balance ahead for him, in this tightrope act."

 

[Purple Train]

Yeah this will go down well:

Elon Musk tells Twitter staff to work long hours or leave

Elon Musk says workers at the social media firm must be "hardcore" if they want to stay, reports say.

www.bbc.co.uk

But the common people like working hard for the super-rich! They do it all the time! If they didn't they'd quit their jobs and magically become rich entrepreneurs!

But poor little Elon. The nasty left are driving people and advertisers away from his precious Twitter; we must cut him some slack. It's not as if it was his idea to introduce the paid-for blue-ticks; it was a scam by the nasty left to damage him, of course...

I wouldn't be surprised if he starts spouting that last bit. His detachment from the cold world of reality is astonishing.

 

[jon0844]

Even if he sacks everyone and runs the company by himself he can't hope to save enough to cover the interest payments.

Not even $8 a user can do that, and obviously getting everyone to pay is never going to happen anyway.

Interestingly, Elon moaned about the bots and fake accounts but in the last two weeks I now get record numbers of fake accounts following me, alternating between crypto/NFTs and 'females' with stolen photos.

Sacking most of his workforce has just made things far worse. Oh the plus side, Mastodon is getting very popular as people all hedge their bets.

 

[johncrossley]

Will customer facing organisations, such as TOCs, leave Twitter?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Will customer facing organisations, such as TOCs, leave Twitter?

It'll be a big loss if they do - I can't see them going for Mastodon, even if it'd perhaps be quite handy if there was a dedicated railway Mastodon server for all the TOC customer service users. Mastodon is just a *bit* too geeky for corporates to be getting in on it.

 

[jon0844]

It'll be a big loss if they do - I can't see them going for Mastodon, even if it'd perhaps be quite handy if there was a dedicated railway Mastodon server for all the TOC customer service users. Mastodon is just a *bit* too geeky for corporates to be getting in on it.

Yes, it needs a lot of work to make it more mainstream. I can't see any reason why this can't happen if they are getting the user numbers up.

Of course, that means more demand on resources, so they also need to figure out a way to generate revenue. They can't take too long either, as a lot of people joining 'just in case' will just sit dormant on a platform if it isn't intuitive.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, it needs a lot of work to make it more mainstream. I can't see any reason why this can't happen if they are getting the user numbers up.

Problem with Mastodon is that there isn't a "they". It's a piece of open source software, not a service. It's a bit like Linux (but more specialist).

What could happen is that someone sets up a commercial server, forks the code and turns it into more of a Twitter replacement, but that's a high risk gamble - other attempts like Google+ (and if anyone could do it, Google could) fell flat on their face.

There's also the chance that Elon gets bored, gives up and flogs it to e.g. Meta (Facebook) who would have the resources to fix the mess he's made of it. Or might Microsoft be interested in a go? The only real social media they have is the business tool Yammer.

 

[jon0844]

Problem with Mastodon is that there isn't a "they". It's a piece of open source software, not a service. It's a bit like Linux (but more specialist).

What could happen is that someone sets up a commercial server, forks the code and turns it into more of a Twitter replacement, but that's a high risk gamble - other attempts like Google+ (and if anyone could do it, Google could) fell flat on their face.

There's also the chance that Elon gets bored, gives up and flogs it to e.g. Meta (Facebook) who would have the resources to fix the mess he's made of it. Or might Microsoft be interested in a go? The only real social media they have is the business tool Yammer.

True, but I do hope the app will tidy things up (it isn't terrible right now) so it performs more like Twitter. People coming over will want something that looks and acts very similar - and it does in many ways.

I have no idea if it will work out, or will flop like other services. All attempts in the mobile industry to build a rival OS to Android (albeit based on Android AOSP but then heavily customised, along with independent stores, apps etc - such as Samsung trying many times with bada OS and Tizen) have flopped, because Android has the addition of Google Mobile Services. Take that away and you're lost.

Companies may have to stick with Twitter no matter what as they're so heavily invested and all their marketing material points users to it. At most you could try and run two services simultaneously and mirror all posts, but that adds in a cost and has all sorts of potential pitfalls.

 

[AlterEgo]

Mastodon is a good place to admit to murder or treason because nobody will ever hear you. Truly weird site which will only work for serious nerds and is in no way a replacement for Twitter, where even the smallest voice, has, until recently, stood some chance of being heard. It’s been strange seeing people decamp to Mastodon.

 

[gingerheid]

Will customer facing organisations, such as TOCs, leave Twitter?

I imagine Facebook is cobbling together a new corporate offering right this minute.

 

[GusB]

Mastodon is a good place to admit to murder or treason because nobody will ever hear you. Truly weird site which will only work for serious nerds and is in no way a replacement for Twitter, where even the smallest voice, has, until recently, stood some chance of being heard. It’s been strange seeing people decamp to Mastodon.

It's not really a site, though - it's a collection of different sites that are supposed to mash together to form the whole. That's where the problem lies, I think.

When Google announced end of Google+ some years ago (much to my regret), there was much talk of people moving to Diaspora, which was also a "federated" system. It didn't work for me because a) it was another learning experience and b) not enough people moved over to make it worth spending any time there. My regular G+ contacts were on Twitter anyway, so it wasn't a huge jump.

I quite like the idea of a federated system, but there's a lack of certainty about it and probably a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out) if you can't subscribe to the same server as your friends.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Meta (Facebook)

Or might Microsoft be interested in a go? The only real social media they have is the business tool Yammer.

Oh please no - I don't want it turning into any kind of incomprehensible mess like Yammer / Facebook are.

What I suspect will happen would be one of two things.

Either the banks from whom Musk borrowed most of the funds to buy Twitter will foreclose on him and kick him out, or Musk will use the Chapter 11 process to simply stuff all the creditors.

 

[brad465]

Several reports on Twitter that suggest trouble for the site, on the basis of a reported 75% of staff left after the first cuts not opting to follow the demands of Musk's working hardcore email, and also reports that no offices will be accessible on Friday.

 

[jon0844]

Offices apparently closed until 21st as Elon presumably doesn't know who is who, and who is leaving, staying or may sabotage the company (plot twist; it's Elon).

What an absolute joke - and I feel strangely odd for reading about developments on Twitter, which could potentially stop working at any moment until he goes.

 

[brad465]

Offices apparently closed until 21st as Elon presumably doesn't know who is who, and who is leaving, staying or may sabotage the company (plot twist; it's Elon).

What an absolute joke - and I feel strangely odd for reading about developments on Twitter, which could potentially stop working at any moment until he goes.

He turned up at HQ just before taking over carrying a sink, so in a way he did give us a warning as to what he'd do to the company

 

[jon0844]

Yes, he's sunk the company in record time.

I can't see any future where he's in control and I am glad that most employees have said 'thanks Elon; give me my three month's of pay please'.

There will of course quite likely be lawsuits coming though; especially in foreign locations where labour laws are stricter than in the USA. Elon spoke early on in a way that made it sound like a global business was only bound by US law.

 

[birchesgreen]

What a surprise the "work into the ground" thing doesn't seem to be working for Twitter staff as it does for SpaceX and Tesla staff. I guess facilitating the transmission of memes and Dad jokes around the world isn't quite as compelling a reason to sacrifice your work-life balance as putting mankind on Mars or weaning the automotive world off hydrocarbons.

 

[adc82140]

I wouldn't be sorry to see it go. A platform where ignorami can spout their views on an equal footing with respected experts in whatever field was never going to end well.

The way Musk is handling this makes Trump's outfit seem like a bastion of professonalism

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wouldn't be sorry to see it go. A platform where ignorami can spout their views on an equal footing with respected experts in whatever field was never going to end well.

The way Musk is handling this makes Trump's outfit seem like a bastion of professonalism

Hopefully someone is looking at how it's been used to great effect for customer services, though, and is considering developing a platform for that using its best features solely for that purpose. Going back to the only way to get anything out of the railway being to send a paper letter and wait three months would be seriously retrograde.