Twitter Mess

[revo]

This entire Twitter saga with Elon Musk would be almost comedic if it wasn’t so dangerous. But his ploy to generate revenues by charging anyone who wants a blue check for $8/mo is becoming nearly criminal.

it amazes me that Musk already threw his fervent-Democratic buying base — and EV car company and reputation — under the bus by seemingly becoming a Trump loving Republican overnight, and now the world’s richest man who bought Twitter for $44bn a month ago, seemingly as a goof, is now in danger of totally sinking the company into bankruptcy, has brought a new danger.

Since he changed the blue check to a pay for play, instead of as a verification of “the truth,” anyone who wants it can buy a blue check and impersonate a real company or celebrity with a similar sounding handle, and guess what? For just $8 bucks, many are taking him up on that!

Well today, some enterprising Twits impersonated Eli Lilly & Co. and tweeted that “Insulin would now be free!” and Eli Lilly stock plunged by as much as 9% — and brought down other pharmaceutical companies as well. Even after it was discovered the Tweets were fakes, they did not recover their losses.

Elon Musk is a smart guy. But his purchase of Twitter is becoming one of the greatest business debacles in American history.

[ironfist]

How anyone takes anything on Twitter seriously right now is incredible. There's zero credibility until this whole mess gets ironed out

[revo]

How anyone takes anything on Twitter seriously right now is incredible. There's zero credibility until this whole mess gets ironed out

which is amazing! This is arguably the world’s greatest source of information, which has turned into a total quagmire under his watch — which BTW, has been less than a month.

[The Feral Slasher]

For the last week it seems like half of the posts were related to Elon Musk and how he screwed it up, lost money, didn't know what he was doing, etc. Just crazy. The number of impostors/parody accounts has just been insane. "George Bush" lamenting how he likes to kill Iraqis, someone spoofing Eli Lily and claiming they will offer free insulin....which allegedly led to a huge drop in their stock price. Chiquita company claiming they have overthrown the government of Brazil. A college kid faking an Adam Schefter account and posting crazy NFL news...just wild

https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/parody-accounts-of-twitter-blue.html

[The Feral Slasher]

https://mashable.com/article/twitter-fake-verified-posts-worse-elon-musk

[heyelander]

and brought down other pharmaceutical companies as well. Even after it was discovered the Tweets were fakes, they did not recover their losses.

If this asshole tanks my year-end bonus...

[Kevin Seitzer]

If this asshole tanks my year-end bonus...

He thinks you don't deserve it anyway, since you're not living at the office working 20-hour days.

[revo]

Yesterday, he posted on Twitter that the app was slow in foreign countries, and one of his engineers responded that it wasn't, and he fired him publicly on the spot.

[Sour Masher]

Man, it just keeps getting worse and worse for Musk. It is hard to imagine a worse take over of a company than Musk has orchestrated. From the very beginning, this has such a total debacle. The initial bid, the cold feet and litigation were bad, but it got so much worse when he actually took ownership. He has long been touted as an uber genius, but anyone with half a brain would have known that given the controversy and FUD around his acquisition, his first move should have been assuring the workforce, taking time to assess who did what, and be very careful not to scare everyone who makes Twitter function to the point that they quit. Instead, he immediately fired half the workforce, before even understanding who, if any of them, should have been fired. He then gave stern ultimatums for others to leave, and, predictably, they have, in such numbers that it now seems likely the whole system will come crashing down soon if he doesn't figure out how to get them back or make new competent hires ASAP.

It's like he brought a new house and decided to burn most of it to the ground. At the moment, I imagine no one else would pay even 1/3 of what he did to acquire the company--it is amazing how quickly he has devalued his acquistion. He has dug himself a deep hole and if he doesn't figure out a better path forward soon, this may go down as one of the worst business decisions in history, and a HUGE opportunity for Twitter alterantives.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Twitter last year had $273 million in operating income. I've read that Musk owes $1 billion per year in debt service on his Twitter acquisition. That's not a combination that any kind of good management was going to make work. And bad management that drives their over $5 billion per year in advertising revenue into the ground certainly isn't going to help.

[Sour Masher]

Twitter last year had $273 million in operating income. I've read that Musk owes $1 billion per year in debt service on his Twitter acquisition. That's not a combination that any kind of good management was going to make work. And bad management that drives their over $5 billion per year in advertising revenue into the ground certainly isn't going to help.

I figured it was inevitable he would find a middle ground that would appease advertisers, and he has-he is reinstating all but the most vile/dangerous (e.g. Alex Jones), but he is demonitizing those promoting hate speech, so you have to seek those voices out, they won't be pushed or paid (he is calling it, "free speech, but not free reach"). I think that will appease advertisers who don't have to worry about being associated with controversial/hateful figures directly. His early wobbliness on exactly how to do that, and the pushback on payment models, figuring all that out,I don't think any of that was as much of a disaster as how aggressively anti-labor he was from Day 1 with those that made and sustained the platform.

He was overly eager to downsize and seems to have misjudged how many would stick around for his edicts to work 70+ hours a week and his erratic communications, undercutting any sense of security or vision for the company. It may have worked at Tesla for a time, but that was partly because he was able to sell the vision that the company was making the world a better place. He didn't seem to bother to try to sell that to Twitter employees. He skipped the attempt to build a sense of community and family working for the greater good and went right to firing people like Trump on speed. Even employees who liked/admired him must have felt/feel FUD.

[revo]

It’s amazing to me that he threw his entire Tesla-buying base under the bus — largely made up of climate conscious Dems — by publicly proclaiming to vote Republican, and then decimated Twitter, all within one month. For the world’s richest man, he sure looks like the world’s dumbest man.

[madducks]

It’s amazing to me that he threw his entire Tesla-buying base under the bus — largely made up of climate conscious Dems — by publicly proclaiming to vote Republican, and then decimated Twitter, all within one month. For the world’s richest man, he sure looks like the world’s dumbest man.

Maybe Trump is giving him business advice.

[Steve 2.0]

Maybe Trump is giving him business advice.

Buy Trump steaks and vodka?

[madducks]

I enjoy watching a wealthy jackass piss away his fortune.