Elon Musk to advertisers who are trying to 'blackmail' him: 'Go f–- yourself'
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Video: https://twitter.com/jd_durkin/status/1729991850079990080
Unrelated - he reveals he throttles NYTimes in this interview - what about freedom of speech?
and still throttles to Substack and others. https://themarkup.org/investigations/2023/09/15/twitter-is-s...
I think Musk has lost his mind, not because he speaks frankly but because of what he says (and boosts / promotes).
I’m sure there are loads more business leaders and other high ranking people who entertain what many (including myself) would find to be awful social and political views but we don’t know it because they go through publicists and PR people. Musk just hangs his ass out there.
I mean accusing advertisers who stop advertising of blackmailing him and saying he'll let Twitter/X go bust to show them what for is a bit bonkers.
The userbase will exist (growing or otherwise) so long as the platform does. They don't care whether its profitable or not. If he wants to turn X into another wechat/wepay for US or a Line competitor for Japan, then ad revenue is a low priority.
Won't be long at this rate if he can't find another way to cover that debt service. He even acknowledges this.
An "even greater discount"? He offered something around 30-35% above market value shortly before social media stock prices crashed. There was no discount the first time around, he made an unnecessarily high offer with terrible timing. Even absent his mismanagement, it would have been a long and difficult road to turn Twitter into a company actually worth anything approaching $44bn.
As far as "buying a second time," he could potentially buy out his other investors at a discount if they're willing to sell to get away from the dumpster fire, but that doesn't magically free him from the (11 figure) chunk of the price tag he paid himself the first time around.
Seems like a certain lack of emotional development. I don't want Musk to be a polished corporate drone but the most interesting people express themselves in a more controlled manner. Something I haven't mastered but I try not to disconnect my brain and cut loose. It never ends wells.
For Steve Jobs' reputation, he seemed to have learned, at least publicly:
Jobs was smart enough to stay away from the spotlight and social media. Musk, on the other hand, is extremely addicted to it.
There is something else going on, however. He is known to partake in uppers and downers like Ketamine. Extreme wealth, insecurity, obsession with public opition, and drugs are a really nasty cocktail.
Elon is simply making abundantly clear that he doesn't care what advertisers feel. If they want to stay, they can stay, and if they don't they can leave. And he's fine with that. That is a reasonable message to communicate.
He looks, sounds, and acts unwell. But even that doesn't really excuse his behavior, just explains it possibly.
He is fine, his values simply don't align with most peoples'. He is acting quite consistently with his stance on how he wants to run X (eg profit is not the primary goal.)
I personally disagree. To my mind, it's perfectly reasonable for advertisers to say e.g. "if a screenshot with some nazi shit blows up and causes a scandal, I really don't want our ad visible" and prevent that from happening by not advertising on Twitter. My disagreement means nothing, though, since I'm neither a user, an advertiser or Elon.
I think that is a perfectly respectable thing to say if you don't want to change your platform to suit advertisers.
The situation is overwhelmingly, blindingly obvious.
So calls for Violence is ok ?
Only Extreme Violence decided by whom one wonders will get a Suspension ?
Elon error: 404 - Lost the Plot
I don’t see how what advertisers are doing could be construed as blackmail or any other form of extortion. At least to me, this looks like a simple protest - certainly not anything illegal or nefarious.
Maybe there’s more to it that I’m not aware of. If so, he didn’t make a compelling case here.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/more-mon...
Cursing at your customers also doesn't help with that.
I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I don't care where those comments are coming from. He's a 50-something year old man, he can grow the fuck up and take responsibility for what he says.
All he saying in this interview is that he simply does not care if his remarks are the reason advertisers want to leave, in essence drawing a boundary between the discourse on Twitter and advertiser presence. He is making a clear statement that Twitter will not change its policies to appease advertisers, even if it means running at a loss.
I think it that is a perfectly reasonable thing to say, even if you don't agree with Musk's politics or X's policies.
Since Musk has FU money, and a dominant segment of normal population supports Musk's view point that advertisers 'blackmail'. Whether one agrees with Musk or not, at least we know how elites set what to say, what to say, what is permitted, what is forbidden, what one obligatorily has to say.
And a lot of American corporations are captured by the professional activist blackmailers. That is definitely the right attitude if you can afford it.
At a certain point, Twitter kicked out a bunch of the white supremacist types. He invited them back on and then boosted their messages on several occasions.
I bet if advertising was successful on the platform, a lot of advertisers would have very quietly resumed after things blew over, because most corporations care more about making money than making statements.
But I don't think he's helping and perhaps advertising wasn't working out that well there anyway.
If the CEO of Yelp tried this, everyone would rightly call it extortion... which is something they have had to counter: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/is-yelp...
When the carnival barker stands in the center ring and claims those not in attendance are political or unbelievers, it ceases to be fun and no longer resembles a carnival.