Elon Musk on why he bought Twitter
twitter.com
twitter.com
> Fundamentally, Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise. [...]
So if I cut out the typical, empty "to make the world a better place" talk, the only useful information I can derive from this is that we can expect even more tracking, ads, and algorithmic crap littering our timelines?
Let us also not ignore that he is forced to buy it, due to his shenanigans.
This doesn't sound at all like it was a robot who write it.
Twitter under Musk is going to be saddled with $13Bn in debt, on top of that their last quarter they reported losing a $270m. So in aggregate it seems pretty likely that Twitter is going to be bleeding monstrous amounts of money very quickly, and it's quite likely Musk is going to have to start throwing good money after bad just to keep it afloat. It's not just that it's going to be losing money, it's that if they can't service this debt his creditors can step in and take Twitter, which would be absolutely hilarious.
After a failed attempt to back out of one of the worst deals of all time.. All the "free speech" is out the window now as he promises it won't become an unmoderated "hellscape" in an attempt to keep the rats(advertisers) from fleeing the sinking ship.
So then, what's the point in even owning it? Day one he has already lost more money than he would have accepted had he played around with it before selling it off.
> Advertisers are concerned about the billionaire’s plans to soften content moderation and what they say are potential conflicts of interest in auto advertising, given that he is chief executive of Tesla Inc., say people familiar with the situation.
> Mr. Musk said this spring that as owner of Twitter he would reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account, which the platform suspended indefinitely after linking Mr. Trump’s comments to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. That would be a red line for some brands, said Kieley Taylor, global head of partnerships at GroupM, a leading ad-buying agency that represents blue-chip brands.
> About a dozen of GroupM’s clients, which own an array of well-known consumer brands, have told the agency to pause all their ads on Twitter if Mr. Trump’s account is reinstated, Ms. Taylor said. Others are in wait-and-see mode. Ms. Taylor said she expects to hear from many more clients if Mr. Trump’s account returns.
> “That doesn’t mean that we won’t be entertaining lots of emails and phone calls as soon as a transaction goes through,” Ms. Taylor said. “I anticipate we’ll be busy.”