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Comment by yalogin | Hacker News Reader

Not really, as a counter argument, there is every reason to believe that Musk will make a mockery of twitter and run it into the ground. A social media platform with a lot of responsibility is not for someone as egotistical as Musk. If Zuckerberg is bad, Musk could be catastrophic.

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Elon has run several companies immensely more successful than Twitter. He also planned to address some glaring issues on the platform. There is almost no question he would have been better than current management, which is destroying their platform.

The companies he run do very different things. I dont think there is any garuntee his success will transfer domains.

But it would certainly be interesting to watch.

> Elon has run several companies immensely more successful than Twitter.

Like all things, it depends how you count. The problem I see vis a vis Twitter is it's private company and a public utility at the same time.

I don't think it's run like a public utility. Twitter takes stances that might seem 'centrist' in politically blue areas, but seem biased in red areas.

Personally, I think Musk would run it more fairly.

Yes it doesn't fall for the false centre ground.

Twitter is very clearly not a public utility by any means

Yes, you can read a dictionary. That being said, many people consider Twitter to be a public square. so, de jure vs de facto.

The shareholders no longer care what happens to Twitter once they are shareholders no longer. (Except insofar as they are Twitter users.)

That need not be what the board wants and long term shareholders want. This pressure to accept an offer is for institutional (hedge funds) and short term investors. This thought process is similar to when the company decides to invest in the business at the expense of stock buy backs for example, the way Bezos ran Amazon for a long time.

Tell that to all the employee with shares or options.

I'll let you in on a secret: every person who runs a company is egotistical. It's not possible to run a company otherwise. You've got to have confidence in yourself and your ideas.

Of course, some hide it more assiduously than others. I don't mind Musk boasting. He earned it. It's more refreshing than the fake modesty of others.

A CEO friend of mind once called me up all worried because someone called him arrogant. I told him of course you're arrogant. He was shocked. I laughed, and told him to look at his accomplishments - who but an arrogant person would ever have even attempted those things!

Egotistical is quite different to confident. Narcissistic and egotistical people often have a fragile self-image. Prone to destructive rage[1] with the slightest insult.

[1] like calling someone a paedophile without any evidence.

"Mockery" i.e. not censor people who say things you don't like.

It’s a completely ridiculous narrative to think that musk is interested in anyones free speech but his own. We should all be more aware of when the narratives billionaires pitch about themselves become perceived to be objective reality.

If Elon was really only concerned by his own free speech he could easily using the small change in his pocket to create elonmusksays.com, have 10 people run it, and his daily quips and insights would be there for all to see and presumably quoted anywhere and everywhere.

Elon always has bigger plans and ability to execute on them then people seem to acknowledge.

While I don't dispute that Elon is first in Elon's mind, I (perhaps in ignorance) have no reason to believe that he wouldn't take a principled stance and apply the standard he wants for himself to all. That's certainly what he's claimed.

I don't find the assertion that billionaires inherently lack integrity a compelling argument. In the spirit of honest inquiry, do you know of any reason specific to Elon that I should not take him at his word?

It’s important to note I didn’t say anything about his integrity.

There’s a pretty significant area of scholarly research in business and entrepreneurship that criticizes “mythicization” of successful individuals.

What those scholars argue, basically, is that media as well as business researchers take the words of successful people as inherently true and important. The result in, say research on entrepreneurs, is that what successful entrepreneurs think is meaningful is reported as de facto true and important. The critique is not of them saying it - it’s of others accepting it as valid based on the heuristic that successful people must be right. It’s a critique of the resulting research for not being objectively defensible, but instead just reinforcing societal norms as reality.

In my comment, my criticism isn’t of musk it’s of others. Believe me, musk, you, me, everyone tells stories about our selves and our beliefs from our own perspectives. It’s how other evaluate and use those stories as objective rather than subjective that can be problematic.

C.f,, the other comment replies I got

Because it takes a particular kind of person to become that rich and wealthy. When the whole Epstein scandle unraveled, it was eye-opening to me that all these people intent on being wealthy, powerful and influential, were also morally dubious. Elon has clearly sought wealth and power throughout his life. Twitter is the most influential social network on the planet - maybe he thinks that he could transition from the richest person in the world, to the most powerful.

Why is it completely ridiculous?

elon is very popular. how would he run it into the ground

“Musk will make a mockery of twitter”

how do you make a mockery of something whose only purpose is to manufacture consent for war profiteering?

Wow, what utter hyperbole. Can you cite any evidence?

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