[HN Gopher] Twitter Deal Temporarily on Hold
___________________________________________________________________
Twitter Deal Temporarily on Hold
Author : palebluedot
Score : 581 points
Date : 2022-05-13 09:57 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| RustyConsul wrote:
| It's interesting that people are using this moment to fault Elon,
| when it's one of his finest moments. Making an 'offer' on what
| you believe to be good faith. Hidden in your pocket, you know the
| other party is acting in bad faith. (Twitter says 5% of the DAU
| is bots) Elon calls them out on that ridiculously low number,
| says the deal is on hold until this fraud is verified.
|
| Obviously the bots on twitter account for more than 5%, and will
| be at the detriment of the biggest KPI that twitter touts. He's
| given them a taste of what will happen if they walk away from the
| deal by 'putting it on hold' and watching the stock lose 10% in
| precisely the same day as a general market recovery.
|
| He now has the ability to renegotiate below his 'best and final
| offer'.
| teachrdan wrote:
| > it's one of his finest moments
|
| What if he dedicated this energy to reducing homelessness or
| slowing climate change? Showing up a tech company for having a
| lot of fake accounts seems more like a dick measuring contest
| than a fine moment for anyone.
| pb7 wrote:
| It's not his job to reduce homelessness or slow climate
| change. Dedicate your energy to getting your elected
| representatives to do their jobs. They have orders of
| magnitude more money and power.
| jmeister wrote:
| And Twitter is helping get around elite failures that are
| causing those problems to persist:
| https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/actually-twitter-is-
| re...
| teachrdan wrote:
| There seem to be a lot of people on HN, as anywhere, who
| lionize Elon Musk and praise seemingly everything he does
| -- like the post I replied to, which characterized his
| business with Twitter as among his "finest moments."
|
| I'd personally suggest that his work to electrify the car
| market is very important. His moves to buy Twitter --
| sincere or not -- seem like utter bullshit. Especially
| compared to the things he could do to significantly improve
| lives for millions if not billions of people. And all at a
| lower cost than buying a social media company.
| outworlder wrote:
| Ah yes. Great securities fraud moment indeed.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Seems like a risky move but this whole thing is high risk so,
| it's not out of the question.
| Vladimof wrote:
| Only one top level comment visible on the first page ...
| hristov wrote:
| I hate to point to my old posts and say I told you so but ...
| actually now that I am doing it, I am not hating it that much.
| Anyways, Elon did not have the money to buy Twitter, he had to
| sell a bunch of Tesla stock to do so, he tried to sell some stock
| and then the price of Tesla stock collapsed and there you have
| it. Just as I said.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31109355#31111059
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I mean he was literally buying twitter? How did he not have the
| money for it? Now that new information has come to light the
| deal is on hold. Maybe he came to his senses and realized
| twitter isn't worth what he's paying for it and that it will
| probably become a wasteland if he succeeds in making it
| "absolute free, short of violent threats, speech" friendly.
| outworlder wrote:
| > the deal is on hold.
|
| The deal cannot be put on hold. It's either moving forward or
| it isn't.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Pure speculation: Musk still wants Twitter and doesn't care about
| the money that lawsuits or a breakup might cost. What he cares
| about is _looking foolish_ for buying Twitter at a premium to it
| 's stock price right before tech stock prices tumble even
| further.
|
| In short, it's not about money, not about new information (% spam
| accounts), not about cold feet, it's about what he thinks would
| be seen as an embarrassingly bad business decision.
| yakubin wrote:
| _> Twitter Incestimated [...]_
|
| That's an unfortunate bot error from Reuters. For a moment I
| thought I was mistaken about what "Inc." should expand to.
| jmyeet wrote:
| There's a lot of talk about how Elon is weaseling out of this.
| That may be true but you should know something about
| acquisitions. Typically there is a termination or breakup fee
| that one side has to pay for walking away or if the deal falls
| through. AT&T paid billions for the failed takeover of T-Mobile
| [1], for example.
|
| The Musk Twitter deal has a $1 billion termination fee [2] on
| both sides. Now it's unclear on what conditions would trigger
| this exactly. In Twitter's case, it at least includes accepting
| another offer. On Musk's end, it includes if financing falls
| through.
|
| So here's the $1 billion question: what happens if (as Musk might
| argue) Twitter made material misrepresentations about their
| business, specifically to do with how many users they actually
| have? This might be an out for Musk or it might not.
|
| Personally I've long thought there are a huge number of fake
| Twitter accounts and Twitter is actively disincentivized from
| ever finding out if that's true or not. Put another way: they
| like their big numbers for active accounts, DAU and MAU.
|
| But if Twitter is found to be materially misrepresenting those
| numbers, they have way more serious problems than if the Musk
| deal falls through. They've then opened themselves up to
| litigation by the SEC and investors that they materially misled
| investors.
|
| Things could actually get really ugly for Twitter here regardless
| of what happens with the Musk deal.
|
| If you think about it, this could be a relatively cheap way of
| mortally wounding Twitter. Make a buyout offer, get access to the
| books, prove they're lying about DAU/MAU, walk away with no
| termination fee paid, watch the executive team get sued into
| oblivion and the company tanks.
|
| [1]: https://money.cnn.com/2011/11/24/technology/att_t-
| mobile_bre...
|
| [2]: https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/26/elon-musks-twitter-deal-
| in...
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > If you think about it, this could be a relatively cheap way
| of mortally wounding Twitter. Make a buyout offer, get access
| to the books, prove they're lying about DAU/MAU, walk away with
| no termination fee paid, watch the executive team get sued into
| oblivion and the company tanks
|
| That's true, but what does Elon gain from destroying Twitter?
|
| I'd argue that Twitter actually was (and still is) a big part
| in building his cult of personality. Sure, it has its problems,
| but I honestly believe that he thinks he can improve Twitter.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| 1 _billion_ to just to say "nah I actually don't want to do
| this". 1 _billion_ for, after all is said and done, nothing to
| actually materially change. Does that sound supremely fucked up
| to anyone else? All that fucking money...and it just goes to
| whomever bank is financing this because nothing happened?
|
| What a massively fucked world we live in.
| dabinat wrote:
| I interpreted this comment as not saying a $1 billion penalty
| is necessarily inappropriate for this particular deal, but
| it's a waste of money in general to pay $1B to achieve
| nothing when that money could have been put to better use or
| donated to charity.
| interestica wrote:
| I mean a lot has happened because of it. It's been a top news
| story across fields. It's affected Tesla stock. It's affected
| public perception of Musk. It has caused deeper analysis of
| the financial viability of Twitter. It has allowed new
| parties to get closer looks at Twitter's books. It may have
| left to the ousting of several Twitter execs. It has
| normalized a return of Trump to the medium.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Absolutely not. Imagine I want to buy your house for, let's
| say, 200k$ and sign the contract. So need to quickly find a
| replacement, move out, clear the legal stuff and probably
| miss work. Then, at the last moment, I back out. Don't you
| think 5k$ would be appropriate for all the now useless work
| and money spent on your side?
|
| It's the same number with Twitter, just scaled up to the
| actual offer.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _But if Twitter is found to be misrepresenting those numbers,
| they have way more serious problems than if the Musk deal falls
| through. They 've then opened themselves up to litigation by
| the SEC and investors that they materially misled investors._
|
| Well, yeah, this goes for every single public company
| (including Tesla).
| samwillis wrote:
| > this could be a relatively cheap way of mortally wounding
| Twitter
|
| Interesting idea, albeit very high risk, however what's the
| motivation? Say he's right, sure he walks away with $1B minus
| his legal fees. But if he looses, he own Twitter... but wanted
| to "mortally wound" it.
|
| Not sure he needs to do something high risk like this for the
| potential of $1B, and based on how much he uses Twitter I'm not
| sure he wants to take it down.
| jmyeet wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not even suggesting this is what Musk is
| doing. It's just an interesting thought I had about what
| someone could do.
|
| But as for motivation for someone doing this, people have
| egos and when they have this much money, it essentially costs
| them nothing to exact revenge for no other reason than a
| bruised ego. Musk in parituclar is notoriously thin-skinned.
|
| Remember when those boys in Thailand were being rescued from
| a cave following a flooding? Musk offered a submarine. One of
| the rescuers said something dismissive about it. Musk
| responded by calling him a "pedo guy" and then won the
| defemation suit by lying and saying it was South African
| slang, not an unfounded allegation the guy was a pedophile
| [1].
|
| [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50695593
| yanbianhobo wrote:
| Where does the article support your claim that he was
| lying?
| outworlder wrote:
| That article doesn't.
|
| However,
|
| https://theoutline.com/post/7951/elon-musk-pedo-guy-
| south-af...
|
| https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-pedo-guy-
| really-...
|
| https://slate.com/technology/2019/12/elon-musk-trial-
| pedo-gu...
|
| https://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/news/elon-musks-pedo-
| guy...
|
| Worth noting that, even if it was common 'slang', the
| meaning hasn't changed one bit from what we attribute to
| those words today.
| fijiaarone wrote:
| Not every cunning idea has to be thought up in advance, and
| not every aspect of it needs to be devised by one person.
|
| Perhaps some of Musk's advisors dreamed up this strategy on
| realizing the dangers of "plan A" or even after the decision
| to back out was made.
| nicce wrote:
| I am curious how they prove either of the arguments about fake
| accounts precisely. What is the definition of fake account and
| how to prove them? If they can prove some self-evident cases,
| it could be just the tip of the iceberg.
| mikkergp wrote:
| It seems like there are 4 categories of Twitter users:
|
| 1. Blue checks
|
| 2. People who are "obviously" people (PII listed)
|
| 3. "Anonymous people". I see a lot of theses, people with the
| name "iluvcrypt0" and an emoji of a Pokemon.
|
| 4. "Obvious" bots.
|
| From looking at thread responses on twitter I think group 3
| is probably the biggest, On the Luna thread someone posted to
| a link of posts that were implying they lost all their money
| due to Luna crashing, and it was a lot of group 3 posters.
| but of course each of these categories has a certain
| percentage likelihood that they are a bot. Im sure there are
| a few blue checks that slipped through and there are probably
| a few "obvious bots" who manually post.
|
| The question is really the makeup of group 3. How many people
| who seem like anonymous users are actually bots, and can they
| prove that (when of course Twitter is incentivized to err
| low)
|
| Also, either way, group 3 doesnt seem like they are
| contributing to the marketplace of ideas, they seem more like
| trolls/shit posters.
| moduspol wrote:
| I think there's another category:
|
| 5. Users with plausible names and a profile photo of a
| person that are bots
|
| I don't remember the study but when there were studies
| coming out of believed Russian-controlled accounts
| supposedly amplifying misinformation, all the examples I
| saw were in category 5.
|
| And this category is the most deceptive. Nobody cares what
| a Twitter egg says. People care about supposedly grassroots
| outrage / support / etc. from supposedly legitimate people.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Yeah, I wasn't sure whether to include this as a false
| positive in category 2 or it's own category but yes your
| point stands.
| remram wrote:
| I think there are many more categories. I am on Twitter
| with a pseudonym, and while it is not bot-looking, it is
| obviously not a real name. At first glance I may or may
| not be a bot run by somebody else. I can be Googled
| easily and you will find some PII there, such as my
| employer, but it would take some checking that you can't
| scale.
|
| I am definitely between 2 and 3 in the above
| classification, and so are many of my contacts I would
| say.
|
| [edit: can't* scale]
| fijiaarone wrote:
| What about people who were banned and called Russian bots
| for their political opinions -- Do they count as real
| people or bots?
| mikkergp wrote:
| > What about _people_
|
| I think you answered your own question, if you're using
| the word "people" then they're not bots.
|
| Category 2 if they used PII, category 3 if they didn't.
| interestica wrote:
| An account that is shared between bots and humans is
| likely. More of a "bot augmentation". Eg a script that
| runs during certain hours or to handle high volume during
| certain periods.
|
| Then it's almost a question of "how botty" the account in
| question is.
| olsonjeffery wrote:
| If this is true, where's the proof of a conspiracy? This
| is similar to the thing about phones listening to
| conversations and then some app shows a relevant ad:
| where's the conspiracy?
|
| What you outline above implies something like an
| affiliate/recruiting program to find accounts to "co-
| house" your bot within. Especially with the implication
| that they operate on behalf of USian political parties.
| mbesto wrote:
| Also, if they already know there is X amount of bots, why
| don't they just...ummm...delete those accounts already?
| polygamous_bat wrote:
| There's no reason to go through every single account to
| find the true number of bots. At the scale of Twitter they
| could just randomly sample a set of accounts, run detailed
| analysis on them, and statistically extrapolate onto the
| entire userbase with confidence bounds.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I remember a few weeks ago when the deal was first announced. A
| bunch of folks reported that conservative accounts were gaining
| followers while liberal accounts were loosing followers. The
| analysis back then is this could not have simply been organic
| because of when the followers picked up and dropped off,
| basically looked like a script doing the work.
|
| This led to the theory that Twitter might have way more fake
| accounts then it's leading us on to believe. There was some
| speculation that the "Less than 5% figure" would come to bite
| them in due diligence so they were panicking and dumping bot
| accounts. Now this...
|
| I'm not saying these two events are related, but there does
| seem to be something fishy going on. My gut says it will come
| out in the next few days that Twitter has something like %10-15
| of their accounts being bots rather than the initial "Less than
| 5%" figure.
| gruez wrote:
| >The analysis back then is this could not have simply been
| organic because of when the followers picked up and dropped
| off, basically looked like a script doing the work.
|
| Is there a link to this analysis?
| pyinstallwoes wrote:
| Imagine if the old law of 1% applied here. That is on the
| internet, 99% of all content is generated by 1% of the users.
|
| Now if we include "users" as "content" (bots, ai, scripts),
| we have a very brooding fringe theory similar to "dead
| internet theory."
|
| In my experience... it's pretty obvious and prolific how much
| automation is in Twitter. It's basically a public cyber-war;
| you have state actors and non state-actors using military
| grade propaganda tools for 'reality framing' between military
| interests, government interests, and corporate interests.
| amsilprotag wrote:
| I don't know how well this would hold up in arbitration, but he
| has repeatedly cited the existence of bots as a reason for
| buying and fixing twitter.
|
| > If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or
| die trying!
|
| April 21 900K likes
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215066550116354
| londons_explore wrote:
| 4% of users could be very vocal and annoying bots...
| mrtksn wrote:
| Musk can take care of %4 but if its at %6 free speech is
| not salvageable?
| PKop wrote:
| For the right price maybe, for the wrong price no.
| dlp211 wrote:
| Bots probably seem like they make a bigger part of Twitter's
| population b/c they will simply tweet more than the median
| user. I imagine that the majority, and perhaps the vast
| majority of Twitter users are mostly passive users, ie: they
| mostly consume tweets and seldom actually tweet themselves. In
| other words, high D/MAU, ~5% bots, but bot tweet volume makes
| up 30+% of actual tweet volume.
| sepiasaucer wrote:
| I don't think you could easily prove Twitter is materially
| misrepresenting the number of bot/spam accounts. Presumably, it
| is just an estimate based on some combination of assumptions
| and statistical analysis. You might be able to create a
| significantly higher estimate, but that seems different than
| proving material misrepresentation.
| moduspol wrote:
| It's rampant tin-foil hat speculation, but the ordering of
| events may not be what we've seen.
|
| Yesterday the big story was that two higher-ups in Twitter
| were fired unexpectedly, one of whom was on paternity leave
| at the time. Some amount of shake-up is normal in these kind
| of conditions, but that doesn't rule out something more.
| Today Elon's pushing back, suggesting the 5% bot rate may be
| inaccurately low. It's possible the events are related, some
| misrepresentation was found while investigating the figures,
| and that's why the firings happened yesterday.
|
| If that happened, it'd be in Elon's interest to draw
| attention to it and that the deal is "on hold," as Twitter
| will be on the hook for that $1 billion breakup fee unless
| they can renegotiate terms favorable to Elon. And even if the
| deal dropped completely, now Twitter implicitly will be on
| the hook for misrepresenting to existing investors the
| percentage of bots for however long they've been doing it.
|
| I guess we'll see. The truth will probably be more boring.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| Elon found his out then when he realised this deal was insane.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| It is possible, that Musk didn't expect the twitter deal to
| become as politicised, as it did. Maybe he just got afraid of
| getting into the center of politics in the US. For example the
| state is a major customer, and they could just stop buying launch
| services from SpaceX for example, as the president might not
| agree with the politics of Mr Musk.
|
| I mean look at Bezos, he got into a fight with Trump, and the
| pentagon preferred Azure to AWS, all of a sudden. Yeah, and a
| year later that deal got cancelled too, by the next
| administration [1]. I mean Musk has a lot of business with Uncle
| Sam, he really can't play his own game, in terms of politics.
|
| I mean, i mean, they really have a lot of 'leverage' with Musk,
| to begin with. I would guess that Musk would be looking for a way
| out of the twitter deal, in order to protect his business. Also
| the economy is going into a recession, therefore his deals with
| the various governments are going to be much more important.
| Look, there is even talk of Musk building an e-tank with a German
| firm, Rheinmetall [2]
|
| [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/pentagon-terminates-
| controvers...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDe7OGpPodM
| elliekelly wrote:
| If Musk wasn't aware of the political, contractual, and
| regulatory implications of the twitter deal then he wasn't
| listening to his legal team. It seems to be one of his favorite
| business strategies.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| Interesting perspective. Actually the US government payed for
| the service:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-
| quietl...
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/spacex-ukraine-elon-
| musk-...
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| sorry, answered in the wrong thread.
| zxienin wrote:
| is this what legally valid, openly public, stock manipulation
| looks like?
| alaricus wrote:
| with the market taking a nose dive, elon musk probably doesn't
| have the money he thought he had.
| anonu wrote:
| Pretty sure the SEC is going to love this one.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Score another one for Hindenburg, who predicted something like
| this (and bet on it) less than a week before it happened:
| https://hindenburgresearch.com/twitter/
| idoh wrote:
| Elon's comment is just as likely to have been made in jest as
| serious, which is not a take I've seen in these comments. If you
| follow his Twitter account then it seems in line with his sense
| of humor.
|
| A lot of people get pretty riled up over his tweets it seems. If
| it brings you joy then follow it. If it messes with your mind,
| then maybe just unfollow it. He's rich, mercurial, sarcastic, and
| a lot of other things, but ultimately you can just disconnect
| from it and go about your life.
| lvl102 wrote:
| Elon backing out because he realized he will lose a lot of money
| on this because his TSLA shares are also plunging as a _direct_
| result of his actions.
| sschueller wrote:
| "_direct_", Tesla is way overvalued and we all know it. Where
| is the cybertruck, roadster, semi and FSD? All promised years
| ago and the only real progress seems to be on a nutured
| cybertruck.
| lvl102 wrote:
| It's direct because (1) he is selling and collateralizing his
| shares, and (2) he is also taking on a role to overhaul
| Twitter that's going to take time away from Tesla.
| jamesredd wrote:
| The whole stock market is plunging, is this also a "_direct_
| result of his actions"?
| str3wer wrote:
| tesla stocks are crashing way more than all the other stocks
| tho
| shytey wrote:
| This isn't true
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| S&P 500 down 18% from 52 Week High
|
| Vanguard total stock market down 20% from 52 week high
|
| Tesla down 40% from 52 week high
|
| Sure seems true that it has crashed more than the stock
| market in general. And guess what, on news that he might
| pull out of the twitter deal, TSLA up 6% in pre-market
| trading at the moment...
| dubcanada wrote:
| Yes that's correct, on average TSLA is down more then
| SPX. But you cannot compare a index to a single stock.
| Since you'll have stocks that are also up.
|
| Compared to the other leaders weight wise in the SP500
| (AAPL, MSFT, GOOGL, AMZN, etc) TSLA is down about the
| same.
| smrtinsert wrote:
| No, looks more like 20-25% for the others vs 40% for
| tesla.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Crazy theory: Tesla stock is crashing, Musk used hos Tesla
| stock in his financing of the Twotter acquisition (security
| against loans and what not) and cannot secure the funding
| now. Having a 1 billion "fine" to pay if the deal falls
| through, he is now looking for an easy way out, hence
| trying to find something "material" in Twitters numbers.
| dubcanada wrote:
| That is completely incorrect. TSLA is holding up quite
| well. Take a look at SHOP for example. Nov last year it was
| $1700 now it's $350. TSLA was $1200 and now it's $750. It's
| holding up really well compared to some others.
| throwmeariver1 wrote:
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Some people seem to think that Elon == "The Market". I
| wouldn't be surprised if you'd get a "Yes!" as the answer.
| FabHK wrote:
| Some other people seem to think that the market is crashing
| because crypto.
|
| What happened to good old fundamentals... earnings and
| rates? Sigh.
| eimrine wrote:
| AFAIK crypto is _following_ the regular markets. As a
| crypto fanboy I do not see a problem on the crypto
| territory.
| can16358p wrote:
| Other than Luna perhaps, which shook the trust in
| stablecoins. If crypto market didn't go down
| significantly, Luna would have still been probably up and
| stable.
|
| But one might also argue that what happened to Luna now
| might have prevented a catastrophe MUCH bigger in the
| future though.
| wnevets wrote:
| Alwaleed bin Talal and the folks from Qatar are gonna be upset
| _u wrote:
| I'm having trouble understanding his reasoning.
|
| Musk refers to an article which claims that false or spam
| accounts represent fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active
| users during the first quarter.
|
| In his Tweet, he suddenly wants to know whether spam/fake
| accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.
|
| Aren't these concepts (percentage of users and percentage of
| monetizable daily active users) something totally different?
| moduspol wrote:
| Do they even define "users"?
|
| I'm a lurker on Twitter. I follow people but don't tweet. Do I
| count as a user? My behavior is probably difficult to discern
| from a bot (using a third party app).
|
| The bots everyone is concerned about are the ones tweeting, but
| there are probably all kinds of "legitimate" bots, like the
| ones that tweet when Apple pushes a software update, or
| something goes on sale on Steam.
|
| That 5% number may be describing the "legitimate" bots, while
| what everyone cares about is the illegitimate ones.
| kragen wrote:
| Maybe this is performance art designed to demonstrate the
| menace of communication media that require you to strip out
| crucial qualifiers from your claims in order to fit into an
| artificial character size limit?
| gerikson wrote:
| You have 260 characters, and can create threads. I've read
| plenty of Twitter threads that are at least as persuasively
| argued as a similarly long blog post.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Are there numbers/estimates for % of bots in other social media
| sites?
| LZ_Khan wrote:
| If twitter could detect what accounts were spam/fake accounts..
| wouldn't they just.. ban them?
|
| The number of spam/fake accounts depends highly on the accuracy
| of your classifier. Twitter's classifier could just be: "This
| account is not fake" and there's nothing Elon could say. He can't
| even sue because for all intents and purposes Twitter is not
| lying, the classifier is just wrong.
| FYYFFF wrote:
| No, they need to show user growth. This is the problem with the
| public markets. Companies must grow, QoQ or they are a failure.
| Its at the root of so many of our issues. Some businesses
| should not grow, or need not grow. Stability is good for the
| market, but not good for today's Wall St pump and dump where
| the goal is to fleece others, not to build a viable, reliable
| business.
| daanlo wrote:
| Taking an absolutely wild guess here, but the reasoning sounds
| like a Due Diligence finding by one of the financing partners to
| me. E.g. one of the banks that would loan some of the money hired
| a commercial DD team. The 5% fake accounts was a red flag raised
| by them and the bank is making their financing subject to an
| explanation on the 5% fake account topic. Maybe the bank is also
| only pushing this ,,finding", since they want weasel out of the
| deal, but can only due this for legitimate DD findings. The
| business plan probably has 5% fake accounts as an assumption in
| it and if this is 15% the economics would change. /End of wild
| guess
| Aillustrator wrote:
| Is there a reason that when you are not logged in, the comments
| below a tweet are sorted by time rather than upvotes?
|
| This makes it pretty hard (in case of a popular tweet like this
| one impossible) to find the more important replies.
| firstSpeaker wrote:
| I bet twitter stock price is gonna take a dive!
| keiferski wrote:
| I don't understand how an acquisition offer that takes months to
| finalize doesn't account for changes in the stock price. Is that
| standard practice?
| shapefrog wrote:
| > doesn't account for changes in the stock price
|
| It does.
| keiferski wrote:
| So then the theories about Elon wanting to get out of the
| deal (because the shares have lost value) are incorrect?
| shapefrog wrote:
| Stonks only go up. Elon didnt get the memo about stonks
| going down occasionally, now making excuses to get out of
| overpaying.
|
| That or it was a classic pump and dump ...
| FabHK wrote:
| yeah, apparently. If the market collapses, or Twitter collapses
| due to bad earnings, that is not enough to walk away, according
| to Matt Levine:
|
| > Much of the negotiation in a merger agreement is over what
| might go wrong: How could the deal fall through, and what would
| happen if it does? We talked about the main issues yesterday,
| and let's go through them again.
|
| > 1. Can Musk just change his mind? The short answer is no. If
| Musk changes his mind without a good reason, Twitter can force
| him to close the deal, as long as his debt financing is
| available. That is, if all of the conditions to closing are
| satisfied, and if Musk's banks are willing to fund the $13
| billion of Twitter debt and $12.5 billion of Tesla margin loans
| that they've promised, then Twitter can force Musk to put up
| the $21 billion of cash that he has promised and close the
| deal. (Section 9.9(b).) Short of that, though -- short of
| actually forcing Musk to close the deal, which is tricky --
| Musk's liability is limited to a reverse termination fee of $1
| billion.[7] This is exactly what I laid out yesterday, except
| that I assumed the reverse termination fee would be
| $1,420,690,000, because Elon Musk loves meme numbers and
| Twitter seems willing to play along. The $1 billion breakup
| fee, while pretty standard for a deal of this size, is bizarre
| for an Elon Musk deal. Not a 420 in sight! (420 is a weed
| joke.)
|
| > 2. What if Twitter's business breaks? Musk does not have to
| close the deal if there has been a "material adverse effect" at
| Twitter. (Sections 4.9 and 7.2(b).) "Material adverse effect"
| is defined on page 5 of the agreement and it is long. Actually
| the definition doesn't say much; it just says, tautologically,
| that a "Material Adverse Effect" is "any change, event, effect
| or circumstance which, individually or in the aggregate, has
| resulted in or would reasonably be expected to result in a
| material adverse effect on the business, financial condition or
| results of operations" of Twitter. All the action is in the
| exceptions to the MAE. As I suggested yesterday, there are lots
| of them, and it is somewhat difficult to think of an event that
| would cause a material adverse effect on Twitter's business but
| not be covered by an exception to the MAE. If Twitter does
| badly due to all sorts of general conditions (changes in law,
| general economic and financial conditions, pandemics, etc.),
| that does not count as an MAE. If Twitter fails "to meet
| internal, analysts' or other earnings estimates or financial
| projections or forecasts for any period," that doesn't count as
| an MAE; just having bad earnings isn't enough. And, as usual,
| bad effects that result from "the negotiation, execution,
| announcement, performance, consummation or existence of this
| Agreement or the transactions contemplated by this Agreement"
| do not count as an MAE, though here they felt it necessary to
| spell out "including (A) by reason of the identity of Elon
| Musk, Parent or any of their Affiliates or their respective
| financing sources, or any communication by Parent or any of its
| Affiliates or their respective financing sources, including
| regarding their plans or intentions with respect to the conduct
| of the business of the Company." If Elon Musk breaks Twitter by
| tweeting his plans for it, he still has to buy it.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-27/bill-h...
| danaris wrote:
| But, as various people are pointing out, if Musk has to pay
| the $1B penalty, that's hardly going to hurt him...and if
| Twitter's stock price drops by, say, 30%, that gives Musk a
| clear opening to save over 10x that penalty on a future
| offer.
|
| Now, there's still a reasonable question as to whether the
| board would be willing to consider a second offer if he does
| something like that with the first one, but it's certainly
| not a guarantee that they'd turn up their noses.
| keiferski wrote:
| Strange. Makes the whole thing seem more like a theatrical
| bid for attention than a serious acquisition offer.
| donarb wrote:
| $50.00 + "$4.20" is a theatrical bid.
| greenglass wrote:
| Surprised that people know so much about Musk and claim they
| don't like him. I can see nerding out on your hero or whatever,
| but to be motivated to research his personal upbringing out of
| disdain for the man strikes me as a bit unhinged. As someone who
| is 60/40 pro musk it's bizarre the emotions he triggers in
| certain types of people. If we could somehow harness that
| energy...
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Musk really brings out some of the worst in this community. I
| suppose many have subconscious jealousy, because there's the
| delusions of grandeur types that "just know inside" that
| eventually they will be huge founder/CEO's of something, and
| yet no matter what it is, it will never live up to what Elon
| has done having success after success of the biggest kinds,
| fucking starting electric vehicles tackling climate change (!!)
| and the world's premier rocket (!!) company.
|
| Not only that, but he really has the adulation of normies. I
| mean, this is supposed to be a community of builders, "definite
| optimism", that we can work hard and will good things into the
| universe. And yet, I have the most "degenerate" type people on
| Instagram posting clips of Elon speaking how we need to not get
| caught up on the doom mongering, it's not going to help us move
| humanity forward and actually do the things we need to do. Yet
| here, it's mostly negativity, "we're doomed and everything is
| shit".
|
| I also frequent a forum about sport X. It's a young man's game
| and most spend tons of hours practicing it. So who frequents
| this forum? Generally, all the people who have aged out of it,
| unable to play all the time like they used to, and they are
| just shitting all over anything any professional does. I mean
| they are vicious on the slightest technical things, and yet
| they're all much worse, sitting on a forum criticizing it,
| instead of doing it. This thread reminded me of that so much.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| > If we could somehow harness that energy...
|
| I think Musk already figured this out: he's overworking his
| employees and overselling to his customers. He's a marketing
| genius, better than Steve Jobs
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Did you ever wonder that employees _wanted_ to work for Steve
| Jobs and Elon Musk?
|
| From my experience, and personal contacts that have both
| joined and left SpaceX, this is the case.
|
| These comments never made any sense. A job at Tesla is not
| akin to Slavery. But most people act like it is. Why?
| tombert wrote:
| I don't think it's weird. I know a lot about the life of Ted
| Bundy and John Wayne Gacy and Bernie Madoff, but that doesn't
| mean that I like them. Not trying to compare Musk to a serial
| killer or a Ponzi schemer, but my point is that I think most of
| his critics will acknowledge that he's an _interesting_ person,
| even if they think he 's a douchebag.
| greenglass wrote:
| I think he is interesting. The details of his father's
| financial transactions feels a little bit obsessive but yeah,
| obviously if you are the sort to spend time studying Ted
| Bundy, I guess Elon's father isn't totally off brand. Who am
| I to judge. I find a lot of things interesting myself, though
| less often people, more often ideas. To each their own!
| Traster wrote:
| Well this certainly makes what Parag did make sense. The market
| conditions have essentially dictated that Musk is now massively
| overpaying for twitter, and he's doing it from a weak position
| with the value of Tesla dropping. It would be insane for him to
| close at this price, and the other people who bought in to
| finance it will also be very hard to keep on board. So Musk needs
| to walk away at this price. The question is whether he can either
| find an out that doesn't involve paying the break up fee, or
| bully Twitter's board to accept a lower price. Given how Parag is
| behaving I think that's unlikely.
|
| It's important to remember though, if Musk walks away and then
| comes back with another offer it's going to be extremely hard to
| convince of a new deal, since Musk no longer has any credibility.
|
| The other thing to consider is that no one else wanted to buy
| Twitter for $45Bn. But let's say Musk walks away and Twitter
| drops back to where it should be at around $25 per share. Now you
| could easily see someone coming in and picking it up for $35-40
| per share.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| To further expand on Parag: he might've fired his political
| enemies who expressed support for Elon.
|
| Or at least that's my theory. What was yours?
| Traster wrote:
| My theory is that he is actually just acting like the deal
| won't close. The plans they put in place after the activist
| shareholder have largely failed and now the market conditions
| are way worse. So he's going to bring in some new people and
| make a big pivot to some other revenue streams. I don't know
| what that is yet, but I think that'll emerge over the next
| 6-12 months.
| boringg wrote:
| I think that's why he's hunting for the less than 5 % spam
| accounts. If that isn't accurate I bet you it allows them out
| of the breakup fee.
|
| Also probably difficult for Musk to go in at a lower price if
| the deal falls apart. Best and most likely only route forward
| for twitter ownership by Musk is probably board agreeing to a
| lower price but prices are sticky in peoples mind so might be
| tough times ahead.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| >If that isn't accurate I bet you it allows them out of the
| breakup fee.
|
| Not really. There's nothing in the deal contingent on this
| and Twitter has no fiscal or regulatory responsibility to
| report which accounts are fully human or not human. Having
| APIs and allowing bots shows that Twitter is open about
| having bot accounts.
| romellem wrote:
| This is correct. [This article][1] ([archive link][2]) goes
| through some of the contract law stuff, and they speak to
| this:
|
| * The merger agreement contains a provision that allows
| Musk to walk away if Twitter's securities filings are wrong
| -- and this 5% number is in its securities filings -- but
| _only_ if the inaccuracy would have a "Material Adverse
| Effect" (MAE) on the company.
|
| An MAE is apparently a high standard and courts [almost
| never find an MAE][2]
|
| [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/
| elon-m...
|
| [2]: https://archive.ph/NFWVp
|
| [3]: https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2018/10/delaware-
| chance...
| mikkergp wrote:
| The article does also go on to say however that Musk will
| probably do whatever he wants without concern for the
| law, and without substantive repercussions. He can walk
| away from the deal just because he wants to, because he
| will be more aggressive in court than Twitter, and it
| wouldn't be advantageous of Twitter to go after him.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| True, but Levine talks about that wrgt going against the
| SEC. Twitter is a billion dollar corporation with a
| signed IOU from Musk and a duty to go after it.
|
| It's not the same as what Musk has pulled in the past,
| but will still be interesting to see how it plays out
| regardless.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Yeah this is the main question in my head Im curious to see how
| it plays out. Assuming Musk comes back at a lower price that
| may be shrewd negotiating, but once he buys they're out right?
| Taking a 20% haircut on your investment seems like something a
| lot of people may not swallow, especially if they think the
| market will turn around and trust Parag. Heck, there stock was
| like at 65 a year ago.
| fatih-erikli wrote:
| "Spam/fake accounts do represent less than 5% of users" This
| claim raises lots of open questions. If they are able to
| determine the fake users, why they did not just delete these
| users? Don't they have such an spam detection and prevention
| process?
|
| Also I think it is a lot more than %5. Also, again, I think it is
| still OK only if the half percent of the users represent the real
| (not-spam) users. The spam users are increasing and becoming much
| harder to determine when the user base grows. Even if you're
| running a simple blog and you notice lots of spams in your
| comments when you get some traffic. %5 is just not a realistic
| value.
|
| Also lets not forget about "the paid" users. There is such a
| thing behind the scenes and they are not spam/fake.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| 5% of _monetizable_ users - a crucial distinction, since it
| completely ignores bots which might represent 80% of the
| accounts while not being monetizable
| jmalicki wrote:
| If you can do a statistical sample of a very small number of
| users, say 0.1%, and do very expensive detailed investigation
| of them that determines 5% are fake, you can easily extrapolate
| that 5% to the entire userbase with small confidence bounds,
| but have no idea which of the rest of the users are fake.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| You can in principle conduct user interviews to determine the
| likely percentage, without having a clear way to ide tify every
| individual account. Similar in principle to how you conduct
| pre-election polls.
| seydor wrote:
| This is more sane than if it went through. If he really wants a
| microblog he can build it for $1b or buy substack.
|
| I guess we'll find out more at 6/9
| gregoriol wrote:
| The guy has mastered the art of stock price manipulation
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Has he really? a) it's really obvious that he's doing it -- I
| cannot believe he hasn't fallen foul of regulators yet b) he
| hasn't gained anything from this particular deal yet, as far as
| I can tell
| xuki wrote:
| He used that excuse to sell 9B of Tesla stocks. It's pretty
| hard to justify selling that much as a CEO of the company.
| grumple wrote:
| Wow. Now that you say it, that seems really obvious. He
| managed to do an unscheduled sale of stock at the peak of
| the market.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| Unfortunately, he didn't expect Tsla to go down so much.
| So now, on paper at least, he has lost more on this deal
| than he gained. Call it a little bit of Karma.
| fullshark wrote:
| Michael Burry I think has been speculating this from the
| start. Probably others.
|
| Edit: Well not exactly but this is what he said: https://
| twitter.com/BurryArchive/status/1460124776597495808?...
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| $9B sounds big... until you realize it's a tiny % of his
| holding.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| It doesn't matter how tiny. 9 billion in stock market
| trade by management will move the market both from the
| amount of sell orders and from the market reaction.
| arrakis2021 wrote:
| This could be why senior execs were let go yesterday. Heavily
| inflated numbers putting the deal at risk of a significantly
| lower price.
| [deleted]
| gigatexal wrote:
| Anyone else laughing maniacally? I am. This is so great. Tesla is
| tanking. Twitter is, too (and so is the market in general but if
| the Twitter deal were a sure thing it'd be trading at near 54.20
| but it's not...). I think the market is finally figuring out that
| Musk is a smart guy with no filter and says anything he wants to
| because he was given a platform because Tesla's stock has 10x'd.
| livinglist wrote:
| Hopefully those Tesla/Elon Musk fanboys finally realize that
| Elon musk is just another capitalist with some sugar coat lol
| scollet wrote:
| Twitter is about to become a marketing platform.
| memish wrote:
| Here's what prompted this. Yesterday Elon saw a bunch of obvious
| bots[1] and asked "If Twitter can tell the difference between
| real and fake users, why does it allow these in our comments?"
|
| That's a good question. Anyone have a good answer?
|
| 1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1524909413462573058
| yumraj wrote:
| So you're saying that Elon Musk made an offer to buy Twitter
| without knowing about the above _issue_
|
| I'll say that makes him look like an amateur ..
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| I'm more interested in the slightly less snarky question of
| what led Elon to believe the number was <5%
| daenz wrote:
| How is he expected to know whether Twitter knows if their
| bot% number is accurate? You're suggesting he should know
| more than Twitter does about their internal data. And it's
| the internal data that is being disputed.
| bsder wrote:
| Tech is down and Elon now wants out. Musk knew the numbers and
| didn't care before everything started crashing.
|
| Bend over, Elon. Pony up the gigabuck and go home.
| memish wrote:
| "Still committed to acquisition"
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1525080945274998785
|
| He probably wants to save $10bn on the price and stick it to
| the board that originally tried to block the deal with a
| poison pill.
| yupper32 wrote:
| It's not really a good question, and I suspect he knows that.
| Twitter can simply:
|
| 1. Sample x twitter accounts
|
| 2. Have humans review the accounts manually to determine if
| they are bots. This isn't perfect but can be good enough.
|
| 3. Extrapolate.
|
| You'll come up with a reasonable percentage with this method to
| share with shareholders, but you can't use this method at scale
| to actually fix the issue.
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| Don't believe it. Twitter made this filing May 2, and it took
| Musk 11 days to respond?
| togaen wrote:
| Looks like someone got in over his head and is looking for an
| excuse to back out of the deal.
| FabHK wrote:
| The inimitable Matt Levine in his Bloomberg _Money Stuff_ column,
| two days ago:
|
| > As I have said before:
|
| "Uniquely among public-company CEOs, Elon Musk has in the past
| pretended he was going to take a public company private with
| pretend financing! I am not saying that he's joking now; I am
| just saying he's the only person who has ever made this
| particular joke in the past."
|
| > Perhaps he has decided that the joke would be even funnier if
| he signed a merger agreement, lined up billions of dollars of
| financing from banks and equity partners, committed to a $1
| billion breakup fee and a specific-performance right in the
| merger agreement, got through antitrust review and a shareholder
| vote, showed up at the closing and said "nope, just kidding!" I
| mean, that would be very funny.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-11/terra-...
| hooande wrote:
| I started reading this column to follow this saga, and I have
| been delighted so far. He has a way of explaining very complex
| financial topics in a way that's easy to understand. And his
| writing about the twitter deal is full of wit and personality.
|
| It's a great tragedy that his column is off today. Cannot wait
| to see what he has to say on Monday
| abawany wrote:
| He sometimes makes an exception to his day off if the events
| merit it, in his opinion. There might yet be a column today.
| bolasanibk wrote:
| He Did.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-
| m...
| FabHK wrote:
| > Programming note: Money Stuff was supposed to be off
| today, but then my boss, Elon Musk, called me in to work
| anyway.
|
| :-)
| aliswe wrote:
| It wasn't a joke though, the Saudi Investment Fund made the
| promise to back it up, which was allegedly witnessed by the
| Tesla CFO as well.
| shapefrog wrote:
| _Musk had one 30-minute conversation about potentially taking
| Tesla private with the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund
| ("Saudi PIF") on July 31, 2018. No price was discussed, no
| structure for the transaction was proposed, no amount of
| funding was agreed._
|
| That is the full extent of the _promise to back it up_.
|
| If it wasnt a joke or stock price manipulation to stop loans
| against the stock from triggering, then Musk is retarded. Its
| pretty obvious he isnt retarded so it must be one of the
| other options.
| 55555 wrote:
| > No price was discussed.
|
| To be fair, the stock price is public info. It is generally
| understood that to take a company public you need a
| slightly higher offer and support of shareholders and/or
| board (Elon). So I could see how you could both be on
| roughly the same page re: price without talking about
| specific numbers.
| shapefrog wrote:
| If he thought they were on the same page then he is a
| retard.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Its pretty obvious he isnt retarded
|
| What makes that obvious?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| LOL... I called this on here a while back while all the Elon
| worshipers told me how Elon was a great man that would fix
| Twitter and bring about world peace.
| Inu wrote:
| Have you read the article?
| rvz wrote:
| I really hope you have read the guidelines: [0]
|
| > Please don't comment on whether someone read an article.
| "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be
| shortened to "The article mentions that."
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Inu wrote:
| Okay, sorry, it's just that it's not nearly as unambigious
| as they claim. It could be an exit move, it could also be
| Musk trying to renegotiate the price. Also, he just
| tweeted: "Still committed to acquisition."
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1525080945274998785
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| The statements are contradicting. You don't announce that
| a deal is on hold unless you're questioning whether
| you're committed. That is like telling your fiance the
| wedding is on hold. I'm hopeful just the tweet saying the
| deal was on hold will be considered a violation of the
| agreement as it will clearly affect the stock price.
| mirceal wrote:
| This is classic Musk playing 5D chess
| RichardHeart wrote:
| Hackernews is the best. Hates crypto check. Hates Elon check.
| Hates longevity check.
| paulgb wrote:
| HN prefers nuance to personality cults. When Elon does
| something good, he tends to get praise here; when he's in
| chaotic neutral mode he gets the eye-rolls he deserves.
| the_doctah wrote:
| Anyone trying to stem the tide of censorship on social media
| platforms would be chaotic good in my book.
| vmurthy wrote:
| HN has its fair share of cynics. Just like in a stock market
| you need bulls and bears , you need people to peek behind the
| stories and tell whether there is substance or full of shit.
| It's up to us (the other readers) to be influenced or learn or
| tune out, isn't it? You don't buy a stock or sell one because
| someone yelled something, do you?
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Many people predicted a couple of weeks ago he would wiggle
| out...
| usrn wrote:
| I still have my puts.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| The whole thing was a pump and dump. He sold billions in shares
| weeks ago.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-sells-billions-of-dol...
| zydex wrote:
| In order to fund the Twitter deal. They were Tesla not
| Twitter shares.
| [deleted]
| outworlder wrote:
| Yeap. Sell high, TSLA tank, buy low.
|
| Pump and dump by definition.
| vmception wrote:
| The implied volatility of those twitter option remained at 99%
|
| 66% across expirations
|
| People were betting
| bigbillheck wrote:
| The odds have always been good for the 'Musk talks big, doesn't
| follow through' outcome.
| rasz wrote:
| Its never to late for due diligence
|
| https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252512620/British-court-...
|
| https://www.cio.com/article/304397/the-hp-autonomy-lawsuit-t...
|
| In best case scenario might end up like this with Twitter CEO
| (which one) facing securities fraud charges.
| fredgrott wrote:
| most of the sane one's here called his including me.
|
| Tis is a way for Elon to back out by saving face since he did not
| notify Twitter upon the 9% threshold which would oopne himself to
| lawsuits from investors.
| ckastner wrote:
| I strongly feel that the spammers thing is smoke and mirrors.
|
| The deal at $54.20 was maybe OK for him a month ago (it was great
| for Twitter because nobody else was interested at that price).
| Since then, Twitter reported disappointing numbers for the past
| quarter, and the entire market took a nose dive, with tech hit
| especially hard.
|
| TWTR stock price was in the mid-30s before Musk's offer. Without
| the offer, and with the disappointing numbers, and with the
| recent market development, one could reasonably assume that the
| stock would be below 30 today.
|
| Musk should just pay the break fee of $1bn, and renegotiate for
| $42.69 or whatever meme number he fancies. Why pay $42bn total
| for something when you can get it for $30bn.
| nicce wrote:
| You always need to pay much more on payouts than the current
| stock price. There is no chance he could buy it for $30bn.
| Unless history and future predictions suggests that there is no
| chance for stock to grow in foreseeable future.
| brentm wrote:
| Without this deal TWTR could easily be $15-$20 right now.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The break fee is not an option, it's a penalty. Twitter can sue
| him to force the deal to go through unless it's off for a
| specific reason.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Musk is worth 2-3x Twitter. I'm guessing he can afford better
| lawyers to win this case. He also has much more at stake.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Better lawyers isn't a fool proof trump card you can use to
| just get out of anything. This isn't like Trump stiffing
| contractors on a job site where he has all the money and
| the contractors are (relatively speaking) penniless.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Feels like you'd have to offer substantially more premium, or
| more breakup fee, or (probably) both, if you've intentionally
| broken your last deal and then you turn around and propose
| another.
|
| Now that's premium starting from a lower base, but...
|
| Also, it does feel a little "manipulation"-y to tank the price
| on news of you yourself trashing your deal, then taking
| advantage of that to make the same deal but cheaper?
|
| Of course any analysis is assuming Elon actually means it and
| didn't just tweet this as a joke or on a whim.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> Also, it does feel a little "manipulation"-y to tank the
| price on news of you yourself trashing your deal, then taking
| advantage of that to make the same deal but cheaper?_
|
| Elon Musk's past behavior has shown him to be extremely
| comfortable with this tactic.
| thedufer wrote:
| > Musk should just pay the break fee of $1bn, and renegotiate
| for $42.69 or whatever meme number he fancies. Why pay $42bn
| total for something when you can get it for $30bn.
|
| That's not really how the break fee works. There's a specific
| performance clause that allows Twitter to force Musk to go
| through with the deal as long as he has the money (which,
| shockingly, seems to have come through). They'd only give up on
| that and take the break fee if the deal was truly over and they
| were prepared to say no to a lower offer.
| ckastner wrote:
| I admittedly haven't checked the full agreement, but if that
| is the case, then the angle over the less than 5%
| spammers/bots makes even more sense, if that number was
| indeed part of the agreement.
| bryananderson wrote:
| 1) That number was not part of the agreement 2) What _is_
| part of the agreement is that Musk waived his right to due
| diligence 3) That number _is_ part of Twitter's usual
| investor disclosure, but with a caveat that it may be
| wrong; besides, Musk may only break the deal if any
| incorrect disclosure constitutes a "Material Adverse Event"
| which in Delaware law means he must prove it affects the
| value of the company by at least 40%, which this obviously
| does not
| Flankk wrote:
| I looked it up and the news seems to be reporting what you
| said, but it is not true. Section 9.9 of the agreement is
| contingent on a bunch of conditions being met, after which
| the deal is forced through if it is also funded. For some
| reason the media misreported it out of context. The break fee
| is paid by either Twitter or Elon, depending on who cancels
| the deal.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Interesting. Is this deal public somewhere? Does it include
| any clauses relating to Twitter misrepresenting of their
| userbase?
| hooande wrote:
| Yes, it is public though I don't have a link. To the best
| of my knowledge, Twitter is accountable to the SEC if they
| materially misrepresented any numbers about their business.
| I don't think the deal has any specific language about
| that.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Musk didn't really think this through before he acted.
|
| A great way to spend a billion!
| dylan604 wrote:
| Does it stipulate that the billion has to be in cash? What if
| he trades rides to the ISS for the board members? If it
| doesn't have to be in cash, then it could cost Musk less than
| the number of the contract.??
| not2b wrote:
| Not sure if you're serious, but no, he can't pull crap like
| that and neither can anyone else who signs a contract
| specifying a penalty in dollars. Rides to the ISS aren't
| dollars.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Of course I'm not serious. If the board accepted payout
| equivalents for themselves and not the remaining stock
| holders, they would not be upholding their fiduciary
| duties. Oh, and then you know, accepting of bribes and
| what not.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| That's some out of the box thinking there. Have you
| considered working for Musk as his M&A strategist? Just
| tweet at him until he hires or blocks you.
| rchaud wrote:
| I'm sure he could pump some shitcoin with a tweet and
| defray that expense with his winnings.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Musk should just pay the break fee of $1bn, and renegotiate
| for $42.69 or whatever meme number he fancies. Why pay $42bn
| total for something when you can get it for $30bn._
|
| Perhaps because the board and shareholders will be far more
| inclined to reject an offer from Musk after he feigned buying
| it one time and backed out?
| ckastner wrote:
| > _Perhaps because the board and shareholders will be far
| more inclined to reject an offer from Musk after he feigned
| buying it one time and backed out?_
|
| He didn't feign anything. On the contrary, he's proved that
| he was dead serious about it.
|
| All he'd be doing would be renegotiating the price, which is
| something that any reasonable person would do when the
| circumstances change so drastically (assuming, of course,
| that a renegotiation would be possible).
|
| Don't think for a second that Twitter would walk away from
| Musks's offer if someone were to offer $60 a share.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| He specifically said this is his final offer and he does not
| want to do back and forth to negotiate the deal. Then why would
| he do it now? It would look like he is not keeping his
| word/promise by not respecting his "final offer". He should
| just admit that he paid too much for the deal and just pay up
| and move on.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Yeah and he's said for half a decade now full self driving
| was coming next year. Never believe a Musk timeline.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I am not a lawyer, let alone a securities lawyer, but from what
| I have seen over the years, I suspect that if he just backed
| out but did not renegotiate, or did not do so with a plausibly-
| acceptable offer, he would likely be sued by Twitter
| stockholders claiming his actions had done harm to Twitter's
| valuation - a claim which can at least be made even though the
| market is falling broadly. If that puts pressure on him to
| renegotiate, that pressure would seem to strengthen the Twitter
| board's hand in seeking a considerable premium over whatever
| the then-current valuation of Twitter will be.
|
| It is not clear to me that the personal cost to Musk would be
| less than what he initially expected it to be, measured in
| units of Tesla stock, though I agree it could be less than if
| he completes the current deal.
|
| As for the spammers thing, Musk waived an extensive due-
| diligence investigation, and now he is complaining about issues
| that should have been covered by that investigation.
| pyinstallwoes wrote:
| It's probably with this highly evident fact:
| https://bird.trom.tf/elonmusk/status/1524909413462573058#m
| dragontamer wrote:
| When Musk started selling his TSLA shares to buy Twitter, TSLA
| fell by like $200 or like 20%.
|
| It was becoming obvious that to buy Twitter, TSLA value would
| have to decline severely. IIRC, Musk only got around to selling
| $8 Billion pretax before quitting.
|
| Musk thought he could afford Twitter. He sells some TSLA and
| the market collapses, and he suddenly decides against it.
|
| Everything else is smoke and mirrors. Musk doesn't have the
| cash for the deal anymore (maybe he never had the cash for the
| deal). I guess Musk is looking at the $1 Billion ejection
| clause now and trying to weasel around it.
|
| But at this rate, it looks like Musk owes Twitter $1 billion
| cash for this broke deal.
| shmatt wrote:
| This is the pretty good point to all the "richest person"
| "net worth XX Billion" lists and calculations.
|
| Most if not all of these people can't liquidate even close to
| their "net worth"
| munificent wrote:
| That's true but wealth at that level is essentially
| relative anyway.
|
| There's little you can do as a billionaire that you
| couldn't do as a hundred-millionaire when it comes to
| simply buying things for liquid cash. You can buy all the
| houses, boats, private islands, etc. that you want.
|
| The only meaningful difference in wealth at that scale is
| buying fundamentally scarce things: _specific_ real estate
| and private islands, favors from politicians, private time
| with other powerful people. For all of those, you are
| competing with other wealthy people to win them, so it 's
| relative wealth that matters.
| tempestn wrote:
| I agree with your point in general, but I think you'd
| need to scale the two example numbers each up by an order
| of magnitude. A hundred-millionaire is definitely rich,
| but can't buy all the houses, boats, private islands,
| etc. that they want. A single property or a yacht can
| easily cost well into the tens of millions. Plus if
| you're living in a $10M+ home, your annual expenses are
| presumably significant, so you'd want to keep a fair
| amount to live off of.
|
| It's probably ridiculous to most to think of hundred-
| millionaires being financially constrained, but I do
| think there's a material difference in the buying power
| of $100M and $1B without getting into unique goods.
| Spivak wrote:
| Which is why it's not at all unexpected that the Twitter
| board after some hand-wringing jumped on the deal because
| even at a "loss" someone who offers to turn your illiquid
| assets into cash without tanking the value of those assets
| is literally the dream exit.
| jimmydorry wrote:
| Except the Twitter board had almost no shares between
| them (Jack being the only exception). I recall reading
| that none of them even tweet, but that's neither here nor
| there.
| solveit wrote:
| That said, it's clearly a good deal for their
| shareholders for this very reason, and the board should
| act in the interests of their shareholders.
| ckozlowski wrote:
| Makes one wonder if they simply called his bluff.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Most if not all of these people can't liquidate even
| close to their "net worth"
|
| I think that's broadly true, though some of the older ones
| might be able to. Bill Gates, for example, has diversified
| his wealth out of Microsoft (and he doesn't control the
| company these days, anyway). I don't think the market would
| punish Berk or AutoNation, for example, nearly as hard as
| they've punished Tesla for Elon cutting his ownership
| stake.
| grumple wrote:
| It's not punishment. Stock price * shares != actual value
| of the company. As more shares go onto market, demand
| naturally decreases as supply satiates existing demand,
| thus causing the price to decrease. I'm sure this is
| covered in some basic economics course that I never took.
| tempestn wrote:
| And yet we treat the market cap as the actual value of
| the company. Also, sometimes the actual value can be more
| --for instance if a buyer comes along who wants all of
| your company, to take it private.
|
| It would be interesting if there were some way to
| calculate something like the "cash net worth" of
| individuals. Work out what they could actually reasonably
| expect to get if they liquidated all their assets.
| Obviously it would be a pretty rough estimate, but you'd
| definitely see some reshuffling of the richest people
| lists.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Call it what you will, I don't think it's just the
| economics of putting more shares on the market. When the
| CEO dumps ownership, he is signaling a lack of
| confidence.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| What did Bill Gates signal when he diverted his Microsoft
| stock into the Bill Gates Foundation back when he was
| forced to step down as CEO after the antitrust lawsuit?
|
| Not all sales are equal. Here you have a guy who
| essentially arrived at the end of the road and brought
| Microsoft where only Standard Oil arrived before.
|
| Both had extinguished all their natural competitiors and
| had to be essentially stopped by the US Federal Govt.
|
| Stark contrast with the CEO of a luxury automaker who
| inflated a financial bubble to enrich himself who is now
| selling to buy a social media platform.
| hooande wrote:
| The evidence against this is that tsla stock has gone up
| since musk said the deal was "on hold". This may be
| because the market expects him to not have to increase
| supply by selling more shares, but he's already trying to
| arrange outside funding to limit what he has to sell.
|
| It could be that confidence in musk and his brand is
| having more of an impact on share price than supply and
| demand. He's behaving erratically and is clearly
| distracted from running tesla by this twitter fiasco. I'm
| not sure what weighs more on the minds of institutional
| investors.
| corrral wrote:
| If you can get several tens of millions of dollars, liquid,
| on fairly short notice, there's almost nothing you can't
| buy on a whim. You may as well have infinite money. It
| doesn't matter that you can't liquidate another 90-99% of
| your net worth easily. You borrow $60m for that second
| yacht, then pay it off as soon as the tax situation looks
| favorable for realizing some gains. No big deal. Live like
| (er, better than) a king, pay taxes like a pauper. It's the
| American way.
|
| Larger sums are only really useful for making big-splash
| investments. Like this. As far as personal spending goes,
| it's no obstacle, so it _doesn 't matter_ that they can't
| easily turn their entire net worth into a literal billions-
| of-dollars balance in a checking account.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > there's almost nothing you can't buy on a whim
|
| Twitter, you can't buy Twitter on a whim.
| corrral wrote:
| Right, big-splash, chest-thumping investments are about
| the only thing that might be a problem. Not ordinary
| purchases. But that's not so much buying something, in
| the ordinary sense, as shifting investment strategy.
| LigmaYC wrote:
| nonameiguess wrote:
| At least one reason it matters is the gigantic numbers
| poison public discussion of wealth. People commonly claim
| things like Musk can single-handedly end world hunger
| because he has enough net worth to buy everyone food for
| the next 20 years. That isn't true if there is no way for
| him to liquidate enough of that worth without destroying
| the worth in the process. What these people actually can
| do is give away equity shares to the poor, but you can't
| buy food with equity shares. Or, in Bezos case, since he
| owns Whole Foods, I guess he can just give away food.
| mediaman wrote:
| The $1b is not a simple breakup fee. He can't just say, "I've
| changed my mind, here's $1b, the deal is off." It's not a $1b
| option to walk away.
|
| The merger contract provides the option to pay $1b to walk
| away under only limited circumstances: either the acquisition
| is blocked by a government, or Musk fails to get financing
| for the deal. The latter can't really be easily faked: if he
| said 'sorry, I thought I had the money, but I checked my
| couch cushions and it turns out I don't,' and paid the $1b to
| walk away, Twitter would sue and this assertion that his
| financing broke down would be tested by the courts.
|
| In fact, out of those limited allowances to pay the $1b and
| walk away, Musk is bound by the contract to 'specific
| performance'. That is, he's bound to actually do it. Pay the
| $54.20.
|
| A good M&A analysis of the situation is below.
|
| https://yetanothervalueblog.substack.com/p/quick-twtr-
| though...
| dragontamer wrote:
| Yeah, I didn't realize this since I guess I've only paid
| attention to the surface-level facts.
|
| But digging deeper, the "people in the know" are now
| pointing out that this $1 Billion escape clause is actually
| very restrictive and unlikely to be invoked. Musk might be
| forced into buying Twitter at the previously negotiated
| $54.20 price.
|
| But there's also the question: will Twitter's board really
| go to court to force Musk to buy it at $54.20? There's also
| the question of politics here. Even if Twitter's board is
| in the legal-right to do so, forcing Musk to become the new
| owner is bad politics.
|
| ------
|
| There's also the possibility of the Twitter Board's
| incompetence. Maybe they don't realize the advantageous
| position they're in and give up before testing Musk in
| court?
| krisoft wrote:
| > There's also the possibility of the Twitter Board's
| incompetence. Maybe they don't realize the advantageous
| position they're in and give up before testing Musk in
| court?
|
| Yeah. Wealthy individuals advised by the best experts
| can't figure out what is good for them. Only if they
| would have someone in their orbit who knows how to read
| hacker news comments. </sarcasm>
| LNSY wrote:
| You have a hilarious amount of confidence about the
| competency of America's oligarchs. Elon is a financial
| scammer, his money all comes from government subsidies.
|
| He ain't as smart as you think he is.
| CPLX wrote:
| > But there's also the question: will Twitter's board
| really go to court to force Musk to buy it at $54.20?
| There's also the question of politics here. Even if
| Twitter's board is in the legal-right to do so, forcing
| Musk to become the new owner is bad politics.
|
| Is there some kind of politics more important for
| corporate decision making than claiming the $20bn or so
| you're entitled to by contract?
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Is there some kind of politics more important for
| corporate decision making than claiming the $20bn or so
| you're entitled to by contract?
|
| Corporate politics are politics like any other. They're
| very complicated.
|
| https://www.engadget.com/musk-twitter-lawsuit-florida-
| pensio...
| te_chris wrote:
| I really don't understand this comment. You think the
| Twitter legal team are so dumb to not have negotiated an
| agreement in their own favour?
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| I don't mean to be snarky but we're talking about the
| same company that shut down Vine and let TikTok happen.
| Their decision making has been baffling.
| rchaud wrote:
| And Tesla has recalled nearly half a million cars mfg
| between 2017-20[0]. That's a solid percentage of all the
| cars they've manufactured during that time. I shudder to
| ask what you think of its leadership.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/30/tesla-
| recalls-475000-model-3...
| spiderice wrote:
| What? How is Tesla's car quality relevant to this
| conversation? You're really stretching here.
| vore wrote:
| You're making a category error. The legal team is not the
| product team.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > I really don't understand this comment. You think the
| Twitter legal team are so dumb to not have negotiated an
| agreement in their own favour?
|
| Oh, the agreement is absolutely in Twitter's favor if
| Musk pulls out of the deal.
|
| But that doesn't mean *suing Musk* to complete the deal
| is actually their best move. As usual, the best move is
| probably some kind of plea-agreement (or starting to sue
| to get into the position of a plea-bargain), where the
| details are figured out.
|
| ---------
|
| There's really no "political benefit" to forcing Elon
| Musk to become the new owner of Twitter. There's a lot of
| room for creativity here. Maybe Twitter manages to
| extract a $2 billion concession or $5 billion concession
| from Musk (rather than the limited $1 Billion in the
| deal, since that only applies to very restrictive terms)
|
| Or maybe Twitter just bans Elon Musk from their platform
| for wanton trolling and collects the $1 Billion. Who
| knows?
|
| Just because Twitter's Board is legally allowed to do X,
| doesn't mean that they will do X. They will use X to
| threaten Musk into doing Y (and Y is what they really
| want). I'm not sitting in Twitter's Board of Directors
| right now, I don't know what their "Plan Y" is. But I
| have reason to believe that X (ie: forcing Musk to buy
| Twitter at $54.20) isn't in their best interest.
| sulam wrote:
| How about the obvious fact that Twitter is not currently
| worth $54.20/share? It's probably worth half of that if
| it weren't for the offer, given this week's climate.
| Surely it's at least partly their responsibility to
| negotiate the best financial outcome for the
| shareholders.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > How about the obvious fact that Twitter is not
| currently worth $54.20/share?
|
| Shame on Musk for writing $54.20 into the contract then.
|
| Just because the value of something changed after you
| wrote the contract doesn't mean that you can break the
| contract unilaterally. Musk could have gotten around this
| with an all-stock deal (ex: I'll give the Twitter board
| 100,000 shares of TSLA or whatever), or other ways to
| write the contract without setting a particular dollar
| amount.
|
| But Musk wrote $54.20 and signed it.
|
| And the contract even says the Twitter Board can force
| Elon Musk to buy Twitter and finish the deal at $54.20.
| So they made it crystal clear to Musk (and his lawyers)
| that the $54.20 price points stays, no matter how
| Twitter's price changes over the next weeks.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| But 54.20 ends in 420, which means weed. Musk loves to
| memelord.
|
| I think offering a direct swap for his TSLA shares at
| 20:1 would have been a smart move. It would have cost him
| like 5% of TSLA, which is a lot but still would have left
| him with the same % that Bezos has of AMZN
| liaukovv wrote:
| If they did that they would get sued by their own
| investors.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| Not if the board negotiates a lump sum settlement for
| breaking the contract instead. That's free money for
| Twitter shareholders.
|
| I don't think people are aware that the Twitter Board
| knew they were calling his bluff and are going to make
| him pay one way or another.
| mediaman wrote:
| That is indeed the big question. The court case would go
| on for a long time, and in the meantime they'd be in this
| weird limbo and the business would suffer.
|
| What we're really seeing here is: can a very rich person
| completely flout a contract, ignore legal obligations he
| signed, and abuse the legal system to the point that
| contracts are basically unenforceable against him? Sure,
| he has no case, and there is no real conventional legal
| way to wiggle out of this, but that's not really the
| question, is it?
|
| As Matt Levine said in his column today, a merger arb
| told him that "if you're reading the contract, you've
| already lost."
|
| In all likelihood, it seems the most probable outcome is
| a modest adjustment of purchase price to further "secure
| the deal" (whatever that means). But Musk is a bit crazy,
| so while that's the most likely outcome, it's hard to say
| it with much confidence.
| tikiman163 wrote:
| One particularly tricky nuance of contract law is that
| their must be someone with legal standing who wants the
| contract to be enforced. If Musk doesn't think he can put
| the funds together without damaging businesses he cares
| about more than owning Twitter, then he can pretty much
| just invoke the $B walk away if he wants to. The Twitter
| CEO and board were pretty clear they did not think Musk's
| acquisition was in the best interests of the Company, but
| they were legally obligated to consider an accept a fair
| offer of acquisition because it would be in the best
| interests of the share holders.
|
| Suddenly getting $1B without having to accept Musk as the
| new owner is beneficial to the share holders, and
| crucially tying up the company in a years long lawsuit to
| force Musk to acquire Twitter would be expensive, and
| until the contract is either completed or dissolved
| Twitter's fund raising options are greatly limited. Suing
| Musk for wanting out would not be a sound financial move
| and could even result in Twitter becoming insolvent.
| Their stock price could crash, their funds to continue
| the lawsuit exhausted, and most likely under those
| circumstances Musk would win and immediately turn around
| and buy Twitter for a far lower price.
|
| With that said, the only real question here is what will
| Musk do under the circumstances? Funding the acquisition
| could cause his other businesses to suffer or even fail.
| SpaceX is particularly vulnerable, and it wouldn't take
| much to end the Borring Company if Musk's finances are in
| a dangerous position. If he just walks away he's out $1B,
| assuming they'll allow it. That can't be a super
| attractive option. Most likely he's going to exhaust
| every avenue in an attempt to raise the cash without
| putting his other businesses at risk. But there's a clock
| on that, and he could end up owing Twitter a shit load if
| he stalls for too long.
| arcticfox wrote:
| >One particularly tricky nuance of contract law is that
| their must be someone with legal standing who wants the
| contract to be enforced
|
| > but they were legally obligated to consider an accept a
| fair offer of acquisition because it would be in the best
| interests of the share holders.
|
| Musk buying the company at 30% over market value seems
| like it would absolutely be in the best interest of the
| shareholders as well
|
| > Suing Musk for wanting out would not be a sound
| financial move and could even result in Twitter becoming
| insolvent
|
| Why not? This seems like an easy case and a huge win for
| shareholders. I feel like shareholders could sue Twitter
| into insolvency if they _didn 't_ pursue Musk for massive
| reparations if he flouted the contract
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > There's also the possibility of the Twitter Board's
| incompetence
|
| This has been repeated at nauseaum .
|
| Just because you don't know their names and aren't
| shitposting on social media they are not incompetent.
|
| They managed to screw Musk over, they basically looked at
| macroeconomics, regrouped after the initial no and sold
| Twitter to Musk at the very top of a 13 year old bubble
| in the making.
|
| If you look at Musk carrer each and every time he sold
| onto bigger fools. Compaq, Ebay and of course all the
| equity raises of his overvalued businesses.
|
| Twitter board managed to screw him over and demonstrate
| that only idiots don't change their minds, all in one
| swoop.
|
| They have the upper hand now.
|
| If everything goes as it should this would be like Trump
| election loss. Meaning a defeat that makes it so that you
| don't hear from a guy for a long time. A severe wound and
| an existential threat to the ego.
|
| We can only hope.
| etrevino wrote:
| The poster suggested the _possibility_ that they 're
| incompetent to create a counterfactual, not that they
| are.
| rchaud wrote:
| Oddly however, the other counterfactual of Musk being
| incompetent did not come up. This is after all, a person
| that paid the SEC $40m and has to have a company lawyer
| review what he tweets about Tesla.
| Stupulous wrote:
| It would not have made sense to discuss Musk's competence
| in context because Musk doesn't have autonomy over how
| Twitter chooses to respond to this.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| He has autonomy into buying the absolute top of the 13
| year bubble. Locking the purchase price at t minus 4/6
| months. In 4/6 months when the acquisition is completed
| the S&P could be at 3210 and he'd have paid 54.20/share.
|
| Or even sub 3000 if inflation becomes deeply entrenched
| in the economy.
| rhizome wrote:
| Musk's competence has to do with "this" being a thing at
| all. He started it!
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > digging deeper, the "people in the know" are now
| pointing out that this $1 Billion escape clause is
| actually very restrictive and unlikely to be invoked.
| Musk might be forced into buying Twitter at the
| previously negotiated $54.20 price.
|
| Matt Levine had a pretty different take, pointing out
| that if Elon Musk suddenly appears to be unwilling to buy
| Twitter, his financing might see that and - suddenly, but
| perfectly legitimately - evaporate, which would be a
| valid reason for Musk to walk away.
|
| It really is true that lending someone a lot of money to
| make an investment they aren't interested in is a much
| worse financial move than lending the same money to the
| same person to make an investment they are interested in.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Keep in mind there's the very real possibility of twitter
| just negotiating for a $2 billion (random number between $1
| billion and $44 billion) break up fee to use a different
| reason
| tikiman163 wrote:
| Twitter would have to be run by people that don't want the
| $1B payout and for Elon to just fuck off. News flash, they
| current executives and even the founder do not want Musk to
| acquire Twitter. Everyone with the legal responsibility to
| sue Musk for taking that way out have no interest in doing
| so. The $1B walk away clause requires musk to pay because
| being in a position to be acquired negatively impacts their
| ability to raises funds. They're even under a hiring
| freeze, and the reason is probably due to a combination of
| uncertainty around the deal and partly because they can't
| due things like sell additional stock or bonds, and their
| ability to acquire new lines of credit are greatly reduced
| until the acquisition contract either completes or is
| dissolved.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Presumably a class action lawsuit of TSLA shareholders
| might force him to buy their shares at 54.20. Which,
| hilariously, might then get diluted by the poison pill.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > Everyone with the legal responsibility to sue Musk for
| taking that way out have no interest in doing so
|
| They wouldn't be suing him to make the courts force him
| to buy them.
|
| They would be suing him for damages - loss to Twitter's
| reputation and stock market value as a result of Musk's
| shenanigans.
|
| Which would be....very tough to prove, but I wouldn't say
| they DON'T have a case.
|
| They'd probably have a duty to try.
| hooande wrote:
| This is incorrect. The contract says that they can indeed
| to legally force him to go through with the deal and
| price that he agreed to. If it turns out to be more than
| twice the current valuation of twitter, they should do
| this. But they probably won't
| pc86 wrote:
| Why would Musk have to pay if the government blocks the
| deal? It's not like it's an out - he's legally prohibited
| at that point.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Because he signed the agreement.
|
| The lawyers came up with the terms and contingencies.
| Once signed, you're expected to hold up your end of the
| deal. I'm sure the lawyers have experience with court-
| cases / whatnot and have the precise court-cases which
| led to this style of agreement... but that doesn't matter
| anymore.
|
| Musk agreed to it, so it must be upheld in that manner.
| strangattractor wrote:
| ATT had to pay T-Mobile when their deal fell through due
| to the government. Look at this way Twitter just made a
| whole bunch of business decisions based somewhat/mostly
| on Musk's takeover. If he pulls out, Twitter will be hurt
| financially. Or suppose it was a hostile takeover by a
| competitor - they could fein a takeover - hurt their
| competitor - then walk away.
| birken wrote:
| Because if he didn't think the government would approve
| the deal, he shouldn't have made the offer in the first
| place. By making the offer he is creating a massive
| amount of distraction and uncertainty for the company-to-
| be-acquired, and if in the end the deal is voided because
| the government blocks it, then the company-to-be-acquired
| need to be compensated for all the wasted time and effort
| that went into a failed deal.
|
| This is very common in large acquisitions and mergers.
| Remember, Must didn't have to include the $1B walk-away
| fee. But if he didn't, then the board may have been much
| less likely to accept the offer.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Because the contract says that
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| mediaman's comment (and the article they linked) says
| that the government blocking the deal is one of the
| limited circumstances in which Musk _wouldn't_ have to
| pay.
| [deleted]
| mediaman wrote:
| I may have been unclear. He wouldn't have to buy Twitter
| if the government prevented it, but he would be required
| to pay $1b. Outside of those circumstances, he is
| contractually forced to buy Twitter.
|
| The government issue and the money issue are basically
| the two scenarios in which Musk would be unable (not just
| unwilling) to complete the transaction. So that's where
| he has to pay the fee. Otherwise, he can't change his
| mind.
| caycep wrote:
| i mean...that's one way to get the next round of VC funding
| (or equivalents...)!
| noelsusman wrote:
| I would be more inclined to believe this if every other
| similar company wasn't also taking a 20%+ hit right now.
| coding123 wrote:
| Well if his only goal was to get Trump back on the platform,
| perhaps it's better he loses 1bn and fail instead of 42b and
| Trump back on? - and even if he loses the billion, Trump
| might still get back on.
| not2b wrote:
| I strongly doubt that this was his goal.
| RustyConsul wrote:
| Every step of the way some armchair comes up and concludes
| that Elon is broke and this deal won't go through.
|
| Why wouldn't he put up more Tesla as collateral? How do you
| know he can't get more financing? How much BTC, Doge and eth
| does he have? No one knows how rich this man is, people need
| to stop acting like they do.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Why wouldn't he put up more Tesla as collateral?
|
| Because he didn't. If Elon Musk had easy access to Tesla-
| as-collateral, he would have put more of it up as
| collateral.
|
| > How do you know he can't get more financing?
|
| Because he's cutting himself out of the deal. That suggests
| he has run out of options to get money.
|
| Besides, surprise +50 BPS from the Fed just made it
| incredibly more difficult to get financing from the banks,
| and -20% to TSLA's stock price in the past couple of weeks
| compounds upon this fact, and makes it more difficult to
| use TSLA-shares as collateral.
|
| > How much BTC, Doge and eth does he have?
|
| Whatever amount he has, it is worth about 25% less than two
| weeks ago.
|
| --------
|
| EDIT: I mean, maybe Musk has the money and is just trolling
| all of us? Which sounds on-brand for him frankly. I don't
| know why he'd want to do that, but he's not exactly a
| "stable" figure.
| LigmaYC wrote:
| jollybean wrote:
| It would be utterly, glibly and completely insane for Musk,
| or anyone, to buy Twitter outright with their own money.
|
| Musk should be in for several billion, surely, but the rest
| of the money should have come fro Private Equity / Buyout
| partners.
|
| I assumed that this was the case, not just him putting up
| Tesla stock as collateral.
| loceng wrote:
| It will be hard to know how much TSLA's current value is due
| to this vs. how much is the current climate of the whole
| market.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Does it matter?
|
| Under the original plan, Musk needs to sell approximately
| $20 billion more of TSLA stock before the original deal
| could be accomplished.
|
| What do you think will happen to TSLA share price if Musk
| did that?
|
| It's a hard job to find $40+ billion dollars. You gotta
| sell assets, and when you sell those assets, they fall in
| price significantly.
| hathym wrote:
| I tought Elon is much smarter thatn that, he could have
| purchased twitter with TSLA stocks in an exchange deal
| without dumping them on the market.
| alpha_squared wrote:
| That would mean Tesla would acquire Twitter, not Musk
| personally. I have a hard time believing that wouldn't have
| hurt the Tesla stock.
| [deleted]
| heartbreak wrote:
| To further compound the problem, a significant chunk of
| Musk's financing for the deal relies on leveraging (some of)
| his TSLA for a $12b or so loan. The loan mechanics require
| TSLA to maintain $740 or higher. When the deal was announced,
| it was $1,026. It has closed below $740 for the past two days
| currently at $728.
| delaaxe wrote:
| He has enough partner investors that he doesn't need the
| margin loan
| Animats wrote:
| Yeah, this looks like a way out of the deal.
|
| TSLA has a problem with its stock. It's way overpriced for
| the size of the company. For Tesla, the company, to grow
| into its stock price, it has to make more cars than Toyota,
| GM, Ford, Volkswagen, and the rest of the top 12 car
| companies put together. Toyota alone makes 5x as many cars
| as Tesla.
|
| Which means TSLA is a meme stock. And the bottom is falling
| out of meme stocks.
| encoderer wrote:
| > For Tesla, the company, to grow into its stock price,
| it has to make more cars than Toyota, GM, Ford,
| Volkswagen, and the rest of the top 12 car companies put
| together.
|
| You're right that Tesla is valued on future performance
| but this part is just factually wrong. They will need
| ultimately to make more _profits_ than those companies
| combined, but the number of cars is not that important.
| Apple has a ~25% share of the phone market but makes most
| of the profit.
| TheDarkestSoul wrote:
| These sorts of discussions start to seem nitpicky when
| you're talking about the sheer magnitude by which they're
| overvalued. Whether they have to make more _profits_ or
| _cars_ than every other car company combined doesn't
| really matter because it's so ridiculous.
| encoderer wrote:
| Truly, it's not. Many industries have single companies
| making the majority of profits. It's really not uncommon.
| dlisboa wrote:
| > They will need ultimately to make more profits than
| those companies combined, but the number of cars is not
| that important
|
| That climbs pretty linearly with car sales. There's only
| so much margin you can make with a vehicle in any market.
| Apple manages to have higher profit at lower sales
| because selling a phone for $1000 that cost $200 is
| possible since millions of people can afford $1000.
|
| Selling a $100k car that cost $20k is a much bigger
| margin than maybe Toyota has, but there are very few
| people who can afford $100k cars. Eventually you need
| volume. Apple itself has huge volume, they are outsold by
| around 20-30% against Samsung, not by 5000%.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes, automakers can push the "more car per car" thing.
| Luxury cars don't really cost that much more to make than
| low-end cars, and the profit margins are much better. But
| the market for high-price cars is limited, and there are
| too many companies in it already. The volume is in the
| low-priced cars.
| encoderer wrote:
| No. Tesla literally has sold for _years_ the right to a
| software only $10k upgrade. Who cares if that's crazy or
| not they've done it.
|
| And they have vertically integrated, after automakers
| spent decades spinning out. Much more value capture.
|
| And they have secured better rights to raw materials
| (lithium).
| dahfizz wrote:
| TSLA does make way more EVs than anyone else. They are
| valued on their potential as the clear leader going
| forward.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Can you say "margin call". His tune has changed - he
| realizes he cannot do it with Tesla stock. Bringing in
| other investors now. They will want a return on their
| investment other than "freedom of speech" if you believe
| the BS he used for a reason in the first place. There are
| some things even the riches man on the planet cannot
| have.
| epgui wrote:
| No, that is outdated information. He's been working on
| financing without leveraging his shares with one of the
| banks.
| dragontamer wrote:
| And that is outdated information, as we clearly see that
| Musk is now thinking of pulling out of the deal entirely.
|
| When Elon Musk's networth is almost entirely tied up in
| TSLA shares, when the price of those shares declines by
| 20%+, it changes plans. Banks are less likely to take
| Elon Musk's collateral (almost certainly TSLA shares),
| Musk himself loses a chunk of networth and loses an
| ability to raise dollars, etc. etc.
| heartbreak wrote:
| Yesterday when he started running into trouble with the
| margin loan, the headline was that he was in talks to
| secure different financing. That doesn't make my info
| outdated.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Yeah, I don't remember all the details.
|
| IIRC, Musk makes Twitter a 100% cash offer. Twitter
| accepts, but writes the deal such that if either side pulls
| out of the deal, then a $1 billion penalty will be applied.
|
| Musk goes to the banks and secures a $20 billion-ish loan,
| putting TSLA as collateral.
|
| Musk starts to sell TSLA for the other $20 billion of cash.
| Stock tanks as a result, only ~$8 billion sold on public
| filing documents.
|
| Musk runs around looking for another $12 billion for the
| last week or so.
|
| And now we have today where it looks like he is failing his
| side of the deal. If Musk lost the $20 billion-ish from the
| banks due to TSLA being too low, it makes sense for him to
| give up.
|
| ------
|
| All that is going on right now is Musk trying to blame
| Twitter for the failed deal, so that he avoids the $1
| billion penalty written into the contract.
| kodah wrote:
| I am curious if his inability to raise money for the
| acquisition is a strong signal of the sliding value of
| social media. Facebook and Twitter seem to be on a streak
| of trying to pivot, Reddit is in private equity. Musk is
| fairly well-connected, so if he's unable to get other
| rich people to invest, their speculative value (at the
| height of their value) may be vanishing.
| jollybean wrote:
| It's a signal of a) market situation b) faith in musk c)
| valuation of the deal d) other terms.
|
| It's completely nuts for 'one guy' to spend $40B on
| something, too much possibility for self delusion.
|
| Musk should have had Private Equity lined up before the
| offer as part of a consortium. They would have called out
| his bullshit.
|
| It's really, really telling that he did not.
|
| Imagine Musk having to sit a table with 'mere bankers'
| telling him he doesn't know what he is talking about.
|
| It's easy to be full of bluster when you're sitting on
| top of zillions in inflated valuation.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > They would have called out his bullshit.
|
| Had you posted under any other topic relating to Musk
| before today, you would have had replies here claiming
| "Musk is highly intelligent and helped create at least 3,
| multi-billion dollar companies, with 2 more in the
| pipeline (neuralink and boring). How dare you question
| his genius".
|
| Since there aren't, I'm using this comment as a reminder
| against confirmation bias.
| threeseed wrote:
| > strong signal of the sliding value of social media
|
| It's not sensible to make ANY assertions with the market
| as it is today.
| dragontamer wrote:
| The value of internet forums and discussions is roughly
| the value of the advertisements hosted on those
| platforms.
|
| The value of ads drops during a recession, and things are
| looking more-and-more bearish this year.
| belter wrote:
| This is the agreement:
|
| PDF: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/e61
| e437...
|
| I don't see mention of the number of Twitter users and
| investigation on fake accounts. I guess that falls under the
| misrepresentation of accounting section. It looks like a
| fairly standard acquisition/merger contract.
|
| The mention of the 1 Billion penalty is however pretty easy
| to find.
| anonu wrote:
| It seems like he only needed to put up $4bn of his own money.
| The rest of the financing was leveraged with loans. And some
| investors would also keep their shares (like the Saudis)
|
| I'm pretty sure "funding secured" in this case.
| jjcon wrote:
| >TSLA fell by like $200 or like 20%
|
| Everything is down this year - TSLA isn't down as much as
| Ford in 2022... I'm not sure twitter had tons to do with TSLA
| stock being down.
| abofh wrote:
| Twitter would pocket a billion dollars - ~5x its net cash flow
| for last year - why on earth would it sell for _less_ when it
| can invest that cash in just about anything? He'd be buying the
| company years of runway to build... whatever it wants - at that
| point I'd invest in twitter as soon as Musk's check cleared.
|
| This isn't a renegotiation, this is him paying points on his
| mortgage for a lower rate - but where the points paid go
| towards the previous owners either way.
| amptorn wrote:
| The offered price to buy Twitter is ~220 times its net annual
| cash flow? Something about that does not compute.
| [deleted]
| JeremyNT wrote:
| > Musk should just pay the break fee of $1bn, and renegotiate
| for $42.69 or whatever meme number he fancies. Why pay $42bn
| total for something when you can get it for $30bn.
|
| I just assumed this is his plan here? He manipulates the market
| with his shenanigans and trash talking, lowers the price of
| Twitter by a massive amount, then buys it for a bargain.
| fullshark wrote:
| He breaks, says his independent investigation says 5-30% of
| Twitter is bots. Price tanks even further than natural market
| would dictate. Buy at a much lower price.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I'm dying to know how they're defining "bots" for this
| purpose and whether it's specifically defined in the
| agreement. I suspect a (perhaps feigned) argument over the
| scope of the definition will be the deal's undoing.
| rightbyte wrote:
| There is no way the bot share is so low among active users?
| When I look at replies to some celeb tweet there are so
| many obvious bots.
| swores wrote:
| And yet you've probably never seen my tweets, because I'm
| generally not replying to celebs' tweets. Bots (owners)
| are trying harder than most people to maximise their
| visibility before getting banned, so it's expected that
| you would notice a higher proportion than they actually
| represent. That's not to say I have any reason to think
| the bot share isn't higher, just I don't think it's
| possible for any single person to judge anywhere near
| accurately considering the huge scale of Twitter and that
| therefore any one of us users is only seeing a tiny, tiny
| fraction of the accounts/tweets being posted.
| abnry wrote:
| Conditional probabilities. Celeb replies is the most
| likely place you'll find bots.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Maybe consider where you're looking is more likely to
| attract bot replies? It's like an NFT discord you're more
| likely to see spam for eventual rugs because they're
| hunting people already proven to be likely to invest in
| stupid NFTs. Step off celebrity twitter and there's a lot
| less bot activity because it's less profitable to spam
| there.
| JYellensFuckboy wrote:
| Is this legal? It seems like such a devious exploit.
|
| 1. Announce buyout (priced at a premium, of course) is "on
| hold"
|
| 2. Stock drops due to bad news
|
| 3. Re-negotiate for lower buyout after manipulating the stock
| to a lower price
| 542458 wrote:
| No, that's not legal. Trying to back out of this deal because
| market fluctuations caused the company to be worth less than
| he wanted would be very, very much against his contract.
|
| He can only back out is Twitter's securities filings are so
| wrong that profit projections are more than 40% off (MAE
| standard) or he was unable to secure financing. Spambots
| being a bit higher than projected is not enough to break the
| contract, especially given that Musk waived due diligence and
| that the Twitter filings have always said that the bot number
| is an estimate. Elon Musk's lawyers are probably more than a
| bit panicked right now.
| cozzyd wrote:
| Being one of Musk's lawyers sounds like possibly one of the
| most stressful jobs in the world!
| warcher wrote:
| Man it sounds like guaranteed lifetime employment.
|
| If everything is on fire, all day, every day, then
| nothing is on fire.
| aksss wrote:
| Coupled with decreased life expectancy due to
| hypertension, risk of stroke/aneurysm.
| not2b wrote:
| Doubt it. They have a client who makes things difficult,
| but that's nothing compared to the stress of being in a
| job where a wrong decision costs lives.
| rchaud wrote:
| So Tesla's lawyers probably aren't doing great either.
| sharken wrote:
| Sounds like it. There seems to be two paths due to the due
| diligence not being done by Musk.
|
| 1. Accept the 1bn backout and accept that Musk will look
| like a fool.
|
| 2. Sell enough Tesla stock to finance the deal, while
| risking a total meltdown of the Tesla stock price.
|
| The lawyers are most likely trying to devise a third
| option, but it's very hard to see how that can play out.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| Damage to Twitter is terminal even if Musk walks
|
| The board and execs consented to a takeover by an ideological
| adversary...the company culture is smashed and will never
| return
|
| If he walks, the stock craters and employees know the board is
| no longer invested in the future...if the deal goes through,
| employees will have to March to Elon's beat or be fired. Either
| way...bye Twitter
| nickthegreek wrote:
| plus they just fired 2 high level employees yesterday.
| rchaud wrote:
| This sounds like some kind of ancient samurai lore wrapped in
| traditions of sacrifice and nobility.....instead of a
| business deal happening in the United States of America.
|
| "Consented to takeover by an ideological adversary" -- why,
| because Trump is banned? Is Musk going to try to bluff
| Facebook with an offer too?
|
| What if the deal fails? How will Musk ever live down the
| dishonor?
| gizzlon wrote:
| Did Hindenburg call it a few days ago? :
|
| > _As a result of these developments, we believe that if Elon
| Musk's bid for Twitter disappeared tomorrow, Twitter's equity
| would fall by 50% from current levels. Consequently, we see a
| significant risk that the deal gets repriced lower._
|
| https://hindenburgresearch.com/twitter/
| Saint_Genet wrote:
| I mena, he's obviously rich as hell, but the imaginary la la
| land of his reported net work isn't real. When it comes to
| actually forking over real money he can't afford to buy twitter
| Tycho wrote:
| This takeover attempt carries a similar world historical
| significance to the Girardian interpretation of the Crucifixion.
|
| Jesus exposed the underlying collective violence, the scapegoat
| mechanism, that holds society together. Exposing the hidden
| mechanism weakens it, its psychological efficacy. And so of
| course the powers that be reacted, trying to silence Jesus and
| suppress his movement. But in doing so they only proved Jesus's
| point, turning him into the ultimate example of the scapegoat and
| ensuring his message would echo through the ages.
|
| In the Information age, Musk is exposing the informational
| violence, censorship and propaganda, that power relies upon. And
| so of course the powers that be conspire to thwart his takeover
| attempt of the world's most important social network, pulling the
| levers of law and regulation and politics to stop this simple
| business transaction, while running defamatory stories about him
| in the press. But in doing so they only reveal the true extent of
| their lies and deceit, ensuring Musk's message reverberates
| through the public consciousness. The moment of revelation is
| inescapable.
| pram wrote:
| Musk is Christ is the hottest take I've seen in this thread so
| far, thanks!
| rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote:
| Is this a joke?
| schmeckleberg wrote:
| I think it's art and, as the youths are wont to say, I am
| here for it!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| throwaway4good wrote:
| The whole world knows that there is more spam than 5% (depending
| on how you measure it).
|
| This is just a way of getting out of the deal and/or negotiating
| a better price; in particular now that general market valuations
| have changed.
| xlpqt wrote:
| I guess Twitter can ban Musk now for not going through with the
| deal. If that happens, where will he get all the attention?
| shapefrog wrote:
| _you have to delete your twitter account_
|
| The deal break clause should have been this...
| Dwolb wrote:
| Has anyone here done this calculation before?
|
| How hard is it to reliably spot fake accounts across millions of
| users for SEC-level reporting fidelity?
| dools wrote:
| The craziest thing in this world is that there are more
| conspiracy theories about Bill Gates being a super villain than
| Elon Musk.
|
| Talk about the opposite sketches!
| headsoup wrote:
| If you look into What Bill Gates' attention is focused on
| (massive landholder, wants the world fed synthetic beef, hopes
| the next pandemic will be centrally managed and controlled,
| ownership stakes in media, connected to Epstein), regardless of
| intent these things have 'scarier' _implications_ than Musk 's
| electric vehicles, rockets and Twitter ownership.
| danaris wrote:
| Indeed; Musk just _looks_ like a cartoon villain.
|
| Gates walks the walk.
| dools wrote:
| Gates' attention is focused on solving problems for people in
| emerging economies.
|
| What you've quoted are the types of batshit crazy conspiracy
| theories I'm referring to.
| bool3max wrote:
| What did he quote? He only stated facts.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Which of those are conspiracy theories? Hasn't Gates
| publicly spoken about all of those things?
| dools wrote:
| The notion that anything Gates has spoken about has scary
| implications. For example "massive landholder", so?
|
| Wants the world to be fed synthetic beef. So?
|
| Wants a centrally managed pandemic. So?
|
| Connection to Epstein. Orly?
|
| The answers to my questions above (ie. so what) are the
| batshit crazy conspiracy theories.
| mikkergp wrote:
| It seems like there's a growing distrust of seriousness lately.
| Caring isn't cool or whatever.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The wording of the contract had lots of text describing the
| various ways in which either party could become liable for
| backing out of the deal.
|
| If I was to ever make a deal involving Elon Musk the first thing
| I'd make sure is to have paragraphs making it clear that Elon
| doesn't open his mouth about it until the deal is either
| completed or cancelled.
| StillBored wrote:
| I can't imagine any state, where this "deal" was anything other
| than a "I'm a bigger man than you" kind of thing. Probably fueled
| by some mind altering substances. All fine and dandy as long as
| its like a billionaire throwing a $100 bill at a bum, but when it
| turns out that it could sink his ship, or at least put him in
| serious financial trouble and threaten things he actually cares
| about, then he needs to find a way to get out of it.
|
| I've been sorta a musk fan because he was willing to risk
| everything to pull off things that no one else was willing to
| take a risk on. OTOH, its patently obvious that he isn't some
| kind of genius, more like a gambler who managed a winning streak
| and somehow thinks its because they have a lucky charm. Maybe his
| biggest strength is that he is such a fine bullshitter he can
| detect it in others a mile away.
| memish wrote:
| Why do people think they have a better idea of his abilities
| and contributions than those who know him personally?
|
| John Carmack: "Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply
| involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He
| doesn't write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable
| of doing so."
|
| Here's Kevin Watson, who developed the avionics for Falcon 9
| and Dragon and previously managed the Advanced Computer Systems
| and Technologies Group within the Autonomous Systems Division
| at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory:
|
| "Elon is brilliant. He's involved in just about everything. He
| understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn
| very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction.
|
| He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of
| physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of
| the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I
| have seen him do in his head is crazy.
|
| He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether
| we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time
| and solve all these equations in real time. It's amazing to
| watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the
| years."
|
| Garrett Reisman, engineer and former NASA astronaut:
|
| "What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his
| knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people
| but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's
| able to have conversations with our top engineers about the
| software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll
| turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about
| some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and
| he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across
| the different technologies that go into rockets cars and
| everything else he does."
| teachrdan wrote:
| > Why do people think they have a better idea of his
| abilities than those who work with him?
|
| It appears your argument is, "Elon is a great engineer,
| therefore he can't be messing around with his Twitter
| acquisition deal."
|
| Your mistake is assuming that a great thinker cannot be
| mistaken, even outside his domain. A counterexample is the
| scientist who pioneered PCR. Kary Mullis won a Nobel Prize
| for his efforts! And yet he also believes in astrology and
| that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.
|
| There's no reason to think that Elon Musk (who appears in no
| danger of winning a Nobel Prize) does not have his own goofy
| thoughts and actions, one of which appears to be making an
| insincere bid to buy Twitter just to make himself look big
| while weakening them. Time will tell whether that's the case.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis#Views_on_HIV/AIDS_.
| ..
| nailer wrote:
| > It appears your argument is, "Elon is a great engineer,
| therefore he can't be messing around with his Twitter
| acquisition deal."
|
| No. His argument was a response to:
|
| >>> "OTOH, its patently obvious that he isn't some kind of
| genius, more like a gambler who managed a winning streak
| and somehow thinks its because they have a lucky charm."
|
| And was a very robust response at that.
| CPLX wrote:
| What's even more remarkable is that there's basically no
| tradition of rich and powerful people in business slapping
| each other on the back and praising each other in public,
| giving each other awards, going to the same parties, and
| doing favors for each other. Which makes these notable people
| praising the richest man in the world really stand out as
| obviously authentic.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| it's super simple, they're jealous.
| azemetre wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better to ask people who have quit Elon's
| ventures rather than people that rely on him for employment
| or those that rely on his services? Seems heavily biased.
| spiffytech wrote:
| Is John Carmack reliant on Elon? He works for Facebook on
| Oculus, and I'm not turning up any search results of either
| him or Armadillo Aerospace doing business with Elon (and
| Armadillo has been in "hibernation" since 2013).
| azemetre wrote:
| Ah I didn't see Carmack in the commit when it was posted.
| belter wrote:
| If you are curious to see if he knows what he is talking
| about or not, you can hear it directly from him instead of
| from employees:
|
| "Elon Musk: SpaceX, Mars, Tesla Autopilot, Self-Driving,
| Robotics, and AI | Lex Fridman": https://youtu.be/DxREm3s1scA
|
| My take after hearing the interview? Alex Fridman knows what
| is talking about, Elon Musk no.
| StillBored wrote:
| I'm not sure any of those prove he is a genius (SD>>4 say).
| Why does every successful person have to be a super
| intelligent person? None of the quotes, the interviews I've
| heard, etc put beyond what I would expect of a reasonably
| intelligent engineer. Engineering/Science/Math attract
| "geeks" sometimes with frightening Jeopardy levels of breadth
| in general science/engineering/etc fields.
|
| And given all the batsh*t crazy, conjecture, etc one hears
| from him, i'm inclined to believe its less unstable genius,
| more lucky nerd. That doesn't mean he isn't smart/driven/etc,
| it just means he isn't this big brain who can predict the
| future and knows the secret formula to living on mars. In
| some ways the successes are logical steps. AKA, the tesla
| manufacturing problems, translate to knowing how to avoid
| similar issues when building rockets. Most of what has been
| accomplished looks like well applied engineering, which is
| more about sweat than genius. So from the outside it looks
| more like a mix of gambling + luck + solid management skills
| + ability to avoid technical dead ends. Does that make him a
| genius, or just someone with tenacity? Given the failures and
| close calls, I'm included to believe its less genius, more
| tenacity and just enough luck. Both tesla and space-X have
| been one bad day away from not existing. The fact that they
| are still around is luck as much as skill.
| nouveaux wrote:
| There's a lot of things you can say about Elon like crazy,
| blinded by money and power, hubris, etc. Lucky? If you
| start one billion dollar company, sure. The man built up
| Paypal, Space X and Tesla. The jury is still out on Boring
| Company but it's still drilling in Las Vegas.
|
| I'm sure he got lucky with Paypal but you can't luck out
| this many times. The guy clearly knows how to build billion
| dollar businesses.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Maybe his biggest strength is that he is such a fine
| bullshitter he can detect it in others a mile away.
|
| Bullshitters who succeed have a strong tendency to start
| smelling their own farts and drinking their own koolaid
| mikkergp wrote:
| Did Twitter stock price just drop 20%?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| ITT: conspiracy theories and personal insults
| SantalBlush wrote:
| Elon Musk called a guy a pedophile. He deserves to be insulted.
| tptacek wrote:
| As Matt Levine points out in today's Money Stuff: no, it's not.
| There's no such thing as "temporarily on hold". Musk is
| _obligated_ to buy Twitter. He can 't just pay a break-up fee;
| Twitter can compel him to complete the deal. Musk's only "out" is
| that a Delaware court finds a "Material Adverse Effect"
| occurrence. They (1) never do, (2) there's a rule of thumb for
| the magnitude of an effect to qualify as "Material" (something
| like 40% off revenue), and (3) the bot-user thing he's talking
| about was specifically disclaimed by Twitter in their filings,
| and likely _can 't_ be the basis of an MAE claim.
|
| None of this is to say the deal will go through; Musk can just
| ignore the law, as is his wont.
| floatinglotus wrote:
| The guy is a clown. Don't trust what he says.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Majestic121 wrote:
| Where are those people saying Elon is a sophisticated investor
| ?
|
| All I see in the thread is that it is most likely either a
| negotiation tactic to lower the price, or a way to get out of
| the deal without paying 1B.
|
| Don't fall into the reverse cult, from your comment it seems
| that you have an axe to grind against Elon, and it seems to
| follow the general narrative towards him that went from savior
| of humanity a few years ago to total villain now.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Who deserves this much attention? Elon or the countless people
| with mental illnesses living on the street?
| [deleted]
| koolba wrote:
| Which direction of this is meant to be the "better"?
|
| Is it too high and it's not worth what they say?
|
| Or is it too low and there's not much room for improvement
| through better tools to remove them?
| petesergeant wrote:
| I'd like Bezos to buy it and then stay out of it (editorially)
| like he did WashPo
| smrtinsert wrote:
| Bezos is clearly the smarter oligarch. He just wanted to buy an
| outlet on the cheap (several hundred million or so?) just to
| soften the bad press but generally stay out of it.
| BigJ1211 wrote:
| I really dislike using the phrasing oligarch, when you can
| compare it to actual oligarchs. People like putin and his
| close 'friends' who use and force economic downturns so they
| can buy up national companies and markets so they own most of
| it.
|
| Musk/Bezos can't ring up Biden and develop a scheme with him
| (or orchestrated by him) to seize more of the market and
| dictate politics. They have to use more subtle means.
|
| This doesn't mean that they have no sway, or that they're not
| far more powerful than the average citizen. They just aren't
| buddies with a dictator that enriches himself and them.
| LeicaLatte wrote:
| All tweets in STAR answer format only
| cdot2 wrote:
| I hope everyone gets that this is a joke
| hef19898 wrote:
| I'm still waiting for proof that Bezo's is inluencing WP's
| editors.
| hnhg wrote:
| It seems to be a position of faith either way. It depends
| on your world outlook (aka priors).
| [deleted]
| dzdt wrote:
| Musk is already locked into the deal. If it is possible for him
| to back out he will have at least one billion dollars in breakup
| fees. [1]
|
| This could be a setup to give him an reason to cause a breakup of
| the deal (he can't just walk away!) but there are real money
| consequences.
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-02/twitte...
| kibwen wrote:
| Whether or not Elon Musk is worth $42 billion or $41 billion is
| completely immaterial to his quality of life. This is why
| gonzo-extreme wealth inequality ruins the power of markets:
| once the marginal value of a dollar falls to zero for any given
| actor, they can keep a market irrational indefinitely with no
| penalty.
|
| If you're the sort of person who wants to believe in the power
| of markets, then you need to make sure that every participant
| has actual skin in the game, which means stopping people from
| accumulating so much wealth that they render the market
| permanently irrational, and the irony is that fomenting runaway
| wealth inequality is a natural tendency of markets.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| >This is why gonzo-extreme wealth inequality ruins the power
| of markets: once the marginal value of a dollar falls to zero
| for any given actor, they can keep a market irrational
| indefinitely with no penalty.
|
| This is an excellent point. Our assumptions of rationality
| don't hold up as well with this amount of money. One billion
| dollars means something totally different to him than it
| means to the average person.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| There's no one in finance on HN and it shows. Elon can pay the
| $1Bn breakup fee and renegotiate the deal at a lower price, given
| the current market conditions. This is completely reasonable and
| rational, and Hindenburg called it days ago; but the top comment
| right now is arguing that Elon is "unhinged".
| patrec wrote:
| Are there plausible links between this announcement and the
| recent Twitter firings?
| netfortius wrote:
| Shorting Twitter, out of the public eye, on the other hand, is
| perfectly Musk-like approach (see previous Tesla stock
| manipulation). Simple and efficient
| yumraj wrote:
| Looks like a repeat of the "Am considering taking Tesla private
| at $420. Funding secured."
| roamerz wrote:
| Elon is a smart guy and while this may seem knee jerkish to some
| and attributable to mental characteristics by others I'm pretty
| certain it will work out for him. Why? Look at his past
| accomplishments. This guy is a visionary and isn't afraid to take
| risks to get'r done. Disclaimer: Not even close to smart enough
| to judge this guy.
| frob wrote:
| > Disclaimer: Not even close to smart enough to judge this guy.
|
| So off went the Emperor in procession under his splendid
| canopy. Everyone in the streets and the windows said, "Oh, how
| fine are the Emperor's new clothes! Don't they fit him to
| perfection? And see his long train!" Nobody would confess that
| he couldn't see anything, for that would prove him either unfit
| for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn
| before was ever such a complete success.
|
| "But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said.
|
| "Did you ever hear such innocent prattle?" said its father. And
| one person whispered to another what the child had said, "He
| hasn't anything on. A child says he hasn't anything on."
|
| "But he hasn't got anything on!" the whole town cried out at
| last.
|
| The Emperor shivered, for he suspected they were right. But he
| thought, "This procession has got to go on." So he walked more
| proudly than ever, as his noblemen held high the train that
| wasn't there at all.
| marban wrote:
| "Puer aeternus is Latin for 'eternal boy', used in mythology to
| designate a child-god who is forever young"
| pdevr wrote:
| >>Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting
| calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than
| 5% of users
|
| He is asking for proof that spam and fake accounts are less than
| 5% of total users. He obviously believes the number is much
| higher[1]. This does not seem to be a deal killer - he is just
| calling their bluff[2]. Maybe they are right. Maybe not. We will
| see. Interesting times!
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215066550116354
|
| [2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-estimates-spam-
| fa...
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _He is asking for proof that spam and fake accounts are less
| than 5% of total users._
|
| Considering he said this was a big reason for his purchase,
| you'd think the world's smartest man would have had his team do
| this due diligence?
|
| Instead, he mad an offer on a whim and put the deal together in
| a couple days. Brilliant.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| he knows it's higher than 5%, everyone does
| [deleted]
| user_7832 wrote:
| > the world's smartest man
|
| Did you mean the richest? Or do you actually think he's the
| smartest?
| ethanbond wrote:
| I think it's sarcasm
| user_7832 wrote:
| Aah thanks, I'm not the best at getting sarcasm lol
| mpweiher wrote:
| > would have had his team do this due diligence?
|
| What makes you think he didn't? So his team has a number,
| their team has a number.
|
| The numbers diverge wildly.
| nailer wrote:
| > Instead, he mad an offer on a whim and put the deal
| together in a couple days. Brilliant.
|
| Do you think smart people don't make decisions quickly?
|
| That is interesting.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Considering he said this was a big reason for his purchase
|
| I guess that would be a function of how much Twitter had told
| everyone their percentage was. Improving Twitter's 5% bot
| problem is different than improving it with 30% bots.
|
| But, since we consider him the smartest man, he might
| actually be playing a game. He knew they would lie, or were
| for years, and put a clause in the contract about it and they
| fell into a trap.
|
| Not sure who gets to pay the contract breakup $1B fee? It may
| be Twitter. That would be embarrassing. But then, they
| shouldn't have been telling lies, if it turns out to be the
| case.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| I don't think I am alone when I say I can't remotely fathom
| what the F Musk wants out of this whole "buy twitter"
| ordeal.
|
| Do people really think this was all a game to snag a $1B
| fee, publicly cause havoc and possibly precipitate the
| sinking of Twitter? Is that really what the world's richest
| man wants to drop everything to work on?
|
| Seems like A LOT to go through for someone who has several
| very absorbing day jobs: Tesla + SpaceX + the micronauts
| rocket-tube thing + neuralink + ???
|
| Is this mania?
| daenz wrote:
| People also said Trump didn't really want to be
| president, so it wasn't going to happen. Don't
| underestimate what people say they're going to do. It's
| usually better to take them at their word unless you have
| evidence otherwise.
| shapefrog wrote:
| > and put a clause in the contract about it and they fell
| into a trap.
|
| What a genius ... oh shit, there isnt a secret bot trap in
| the contract.
|
| https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/00011931
| 2...
| rdtsc wrote:
| Let me guess, just searched for the word "bot" and didn't
| find it. Well, I guess they are off the hook then...
| adt2bt wrote:
| Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. GP
| made a decent effort to try to find this clause,
| couldn't, and you're effectively claiming they're full of
| it because it's gotta be in there.
|
| A more hacker-newsy way to approach this would be to
| either find the clause yourself (and earn your upvotes
| the hard way), or perhaps admit your baseless speculation
| was, indeed, baseless.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
|
| Of course. But what's so extraordinary that a contract
| would have a clause about misrepresentation or providing
| false information in a purchase deal like this.
|
| > A more hacker-newsy way to approach this would be to
| either find the clause yourself (and earn your upvotes
| the hard way).
|
| Thanks, been here for 10+ years I am ok not harvesting
| upvotes. Maybe some other time. But ok, it's Friday,
| let's do a bit more search than just Ctrl+F "bot".
|
| Twitter's 10-Q https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar
| /data/1418091/0001...
|
| > We have performed an internal review of a sample of
| accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam
| accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented
| fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter
|
| (From page 5)
|
| EX-2.1 AGREEMENT AND PLAN OF MERGER https://www.sec.gov/A
| rchives/edgar/data/0001418091/000119312...
|
| > [...] none of the Company SEC Documents at the time it
| was filed [...] contained any untrue statement of a
| material fact or omitted to state any material fact
| required to be stated therein or necessary to make the
| statements therein, in light of the circumstances under
| which they were made, or are to be made, not misleading.
|
| (Section 4.6.a)
|
| > The consolidated financial statements (including all
| related notes) of the Company included in the Company SEC
| Documents fairly present in all material respects the
| consolidated financial position of the Company [...]
|
| (Section 4.6.b)
|
| > None of the information supplied or to be supplied by
| or on behalf of the Company or any of its Subsidiaries
| expressly for inclusion or incorporation by reference in
| the proxy statement relating to the matters to be
| submitted to the Company's stockholders [...] [shall]
| contain any untrue statement of material fact or omit to
| state any material fact required to be stated therein ...
|
| (Section 4.7)
|
| > GP made a decent effort to try to find this clause
|
| If Ctrl+F "bot" counts for a "decent effort", I don't
| know, I guess...
| redredrobot wrote:
| You can't just quote a part of a contract and
| specifically cut out the legal caveats that exists to
| avoid the risk of being considered material
| misrepresentation. The correct quote is:
|
| > We have performed an internal review of a sample of
| accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam
| accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented
| fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false
| or spam accounts for a period represents the average of
| false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly
| analysis period during the quarter.
|
| > In making this determination, we applied significant
| judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may
| not accurately represent the actual number of such
| accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts
| could be higher than we have estimated
| rdtsc wrote:
| It may hinge on them saying they "applied significant
| judgment" vs due diligence showing they knew they had
| much higher numbers. There is a difference to "we did our
| best to calculate it but we could have made a mistake" vs
| "we calculated, got a high number but purposefully put in
| a low number".
| redredrobot wrote:
| Elon didn't do any non-public due diligence of Twitter
| hooande wrote:
| You're just wrong. This is what happens when you try to
| play lawyer on the internet.
|
| You can crtl-f for "Specific Performance" and "Material
| Adverse Effect" in this thread for explanations of
| exactly how and why you're wrong
| jdmichal wrote:
| It's rather silly to assume the clause would be written
| that narrowly. I replied above with what would likely be
| a relevant clause, which covers _any and all information_
| supplied by Twitter.
| jdmichal wrote:
| Of course they didn't write it that specifically. That
| would be extraordinarily silly. One writes the clause to
| be as general as possible, while also covering the
| primary concern. Witness, page 25:
|
| > Section 4.7 Information Supplied. None of the
| information supplied or to be supplied by or on behalf of
| the Company or any of its Subsidiaries expressly for
| inclusion or incorporation by reference in the proxy
| statement relating to the matters to be submitted to the
| Company's stockholders at the Company Stockholders'
| Meeting (such proxy statement and any amendments or
| supplements thereto, the "Proxy Statement") shall, at the
| time the Proxy Statement is first mailed to the Company's
| stockholders and at the time of the Company Stockholders'
| Meeting to be held in connection with the Merger, contain
| any untrue statement of material fact or omit to state
| any material fact required to be stated therein or
| necessary to make the statements therein, in light of the
| circumstances under which they were made, not misleading
| at such applicable time, except that no representation or
| warranty is made by the Company with respect to
| statements made therein based on information supplied, or
| required to be supplied, by Parent or its Representatives
| in writing expressly for inclusion therein. The Proxy
| Statement will comply as to form in all material respects
| with the provisions of the Securities Act and the
| Exchange Act, and the rules and regulations promulgated
| thereunder.
| HillRat wrote:
| The SEC filing clause (4.6(a)) is probably more germane
| than the proxy materials when it comes to bot
| calculations, and page 5 of the last Twitter 10-K covers
| their methodology. One can argue with their calculation
| method, but they're clear about how they're doing it and,
| as long as nothing comes to light documenting that they
| internally believe their bot rates to be higher than what
| their filing shows, they're in material compliance with
| the contract. There's no due-dil out for Musk in this,
| only a material misrepresentation penalty that Twitter is
| highly, highly unlikely to fall afoul of.
| jdmichal wrote:
| Oh I 100% agree with you on the chances that this means
| anything. There would have to be some evidence that they
| just made up a number, or invented a methodology that
| they knew would drastically undercount, or some-such.
| Just running a different methodology that returns a
| bigger number is not sufficient to break these clauses.
| tedunangst wrote:
| What percentage spam accounts would qualify as untrue
| statement of material fact?
| jdmichal wrote:
| Any percentage that was not calculated using a
| methodology? As HillRat said:
|
| * As long as they used _a_ methodology,
|
| * and that methodology spat out 5%,
|
| * and there's no material information to indicate that
| anyone thought the methodology was inaccurate or
| otherwise wrong,
|
| Then there's probably nothing actionable there.
| bogantech wrote:
| > Considering he said this was a big reason for his purchase,
| you'd think the world's smartest man would have had his team
| do this due diligence?
|
| How would he get access to that data beforehand?
| ctvo wrote:
| ... the company would provide it to their legal team under
| NDA since it's material to the deal. Ya know, as part of
| due diligence. There's a whole lucrative branch of
| corporate law (mergers and acquisitions) for this.
| fullshark wrote:
| Isn't this what's happening right now?
| coremoff wrote:
| it's what he should have done before signing the deal he
| signed
| shapefrog wrote:
| No Elon waved due diligence and bought it _as is_.
| XorNot wrote:
| Unless the contract had a clause requiring this to be
| demonstrated if requested. In which case it's a good way to
| get out of it at to he last moment: activate the clause and
| put Twitter in trouble if they disprove their own statements.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| Noob question, but wouldn't it be fraud if the number is
| higher than they're saying?
| onion2k wrote:
| _This does not seem to be a deal killer - he is just calling
| their bluff_
|
| What does he gain by calling their bluff?
| rendall wrote:
| Maybe negotiating tactic?
| RF_Savage wrote:
| Parhaps a lower price?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Getting out of the deal after the recent stock slump? Without
| the $1B penalty fee?
| basisword wrote:
| Reduction in price.
| raverbashing wrote:
| I'm always amazed when that kind of question pops up. Because
| it shows how knowledge of basic business practices is less
| circulated.
|
| If you're selling me a house and saying it's one size but in
| practice it's another you bet I'm taking it up with you! I
| can be happy to buy it as is (depending on the case) but this
| says a lot about the seller.
| dwild wrote:
| One of his goal was to get rid of spams bots and fake
| accounts. If you go that far to buy something because you
| think you can make it better by fixing an issue, you don't
| do it because that issue only represents 5% of it...
|
| I remember when he said he was going to do that, a good
| proportions of comments were about how he will slash a most
| of his Twitter followers by doing so. Did Elon himself
| thought there were less bots than what the majority of
| people believed?
| onion2k wrote:
| Well, maybe, except there's a few problems with that;
|
| - Buying Twitter is a bit different to buying a house. The
| offer price for shares is set, and (as far as I know) Elon
| can't move it without withdrawing and reoffering, which
| incurs all sorts of fun legal issues and penalties.
|
| - If it's due diligence and Elon actually might withdraw
| from the deal then fair enough, but then it's not a bluff.
|
| - If it's a _bluff_ , and Elon still intends to buy,
| telling the world there are actually more spam/bots than
| the Twitter reported devalues the company. It doesn't seem
| like a great move as an investor.
| infogulch wrote:
| If he's buying the whole thing it doesn't matter what
| other investors think it's worth.
| bink wrote:
| But it does matter what percentage of users advertisers
| believe are bots.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| If you signed a deal to buy a house without checking the
| size it's on you.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yes, that's why most large deals allow for due diligence
| before the deal effectively closes
| d3nj4l wrote:
| If you're waiting until _after_ signing a deal to do
| basic due diligence, especially on supposedly material
| information that didn't even exist at the time you made
| your offer - Twitter reported the 5% figure in May, Elon
| made his offer in April - it is, 100%, unambiguously, on
| you.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Has Twitter ever provided that kind of info to anyone?
|
| Why wouldn't they wait until money is already on the
| table? I just don't see how they would have benefited by
| disclosing real numbers beforehand.
|
| It's far more likely no one could have done due diligence
| outside of the executives and top engineers at Twitter.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| None of that matters, because Elon can't claim to be
| mislead by a figure that didn't exist when he made his
| offer. Whatever he expected it to be has nothing to do
| with twitter saying it is 5% in May.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| It feels absurd for this to come up at this stage in a deal.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Why? What is the deal and what stage is it up to?
| Naga wrote:
| Agreed. This sort of issue has been public knowledge about
| Twitter for a long time. This sounds to me like an excuse to
| delay or get out with plausible deniability.
| mikkergp wrote:
| While this is true it would be a huge deal if Twitter lied
| about it on paper.
| taytus wrote:
| That 5% number is cited in Twitter's s1 from 2013.
| loceng wrote:
| It came out recently they have/had been misreporting
| (overly) user numbers, so this external pressure which
| they're now forced to deal arguably won't allow any
| hidden manipulation to stay hidden.
|
| So it may be a question of just how dishonest Twitter has
| been, which could/should result in shareholders suing
| them as well.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Sounds like the excuse Edward Snowden's detractors used
| that everything he revealed was already known so he wasn't
| helpful. But having actual proof instead of easily
| dismissed rumors or "conspiracy theories" is important.
| sneak wrote:
| Public knowledge? Where are the authoritative, due-
| diligence-level public statements on the topic of fake
| Twitter accounts?
| axlee wrote:
| Elon himself was ranting for months about Bots and "real
| ID" on Twitter, and he did not bother to include due
| diligence before manipulating the market with a bogus
| offer?
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Public knowledge != authoritative, due-diligence-level
| public statement
|
| But he did know it was a problem [1], so it's at least a
| bit shifty that now he pretends he suddenly says that it
| is a deal breaker. I suppose a court would have to decide
| if he has a right to back out or not without
| repercussions.
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215066550116354
| sneak wrote:
| He didn't suddenly say it's a deal breaker, or anything
| of the sort.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > We will see. Interesting times!
|
| I'm sorry, but what a worthless thing to say. I can't stand it
| when pundits say this.
| spiderice wrote:
| The irony of this comment..
| cm2187 wrote:
| Or perhaps it is linked to the firing of executives, that
| seemed to puzzle people.
| paulcole wrote:
| If this guy's such a genius why didn't he ask for proof sooner?
| He's looking for any excuse to pull the plug.
| not2b wrote:
| He's not entitled to such proof. It isn't a condition of the
| purchase agreement.
|
| His choices are: pay the original price, or pay the $1 billion
| cancellation fee. There might be a third choice: Twitter could
| offer to renegotiate, but they aren't obliged to. They could
| take the $1 billion instead.
| nailer wrote:
| > He obviously believes the number is much higher[1]
|
| That reference - "If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat
| the spam bots or die trying!" - does not assert your claim.
| [deleted]
| tmaly wrote:
| By what criteria can you determine an account is spam/fake?
|
| That seems like a difficult thing to determine.
| piva00 wrote:
| Solving to detect the signal and solving to resolve the
| problem is the same solution... Paradoxical engineering.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| You can estimate yourself from the comfort of your own home how
| many accounts are spam. Just make a list of 100 random
| accounts. Truly random, not just "followers of X" or whatever.
| Then manually look each of them and classify as spam or not.
| There's your percentage.
|
| If you want more accuracy, hire some people from say Amazon's
| Mechanical Turk and do 1000. 10k.
| outworlder wrote:
| Some data here: https://botsentinel.com/
| madrox wrote:
| I used this exact method a decade ago (thanks statistics 101)
| to estimate and got 10% with a minuscule margin of error.
| That was a decade ago though.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| OMG. I'm astonished that people still can't see through his
| lies and BS.
|
| It took me about 3 seconds to realize that after the stock
| market crashed, Elon wanted to get a better price. The 5% stuff
| is just a random excuse.
| abofh wrote:
| He doesn't want a better price, he wants to get out of a
| serious case of buyers remorse. The play has so far gone
| like:
|
| - "I'm going to buy twitter", buys a bunch of shares, has to
| report it
|
| - Board says "No", adopts poison pill
|
| - "Fine, I'll make you let me buy you" submits a contingent
| but binding offer to the board.
|
| - Board says, well, our duty is to the shareholders, you're
| offering a big premium, we accept, here's a bunch of terms to
| keep you from backing out without paying them something.
|
| - "Ha Ha!" shouts Elon, "I've proven I can buy anything now!"
|
| - Yes, yes, say the banks as they bind him and his companies
| stock to the tender offer, you can buy that, we just want
| TSLA stock, that's fine.
|
| - Stock market looks at the situation and says "wat", down-
| values TSLA because their CEO is spending his time buying...
| a social media platform?
|
| - Musk starts to see the writing on the wall and realizes if
| he can't make twitter substantially more valuable in the
| short term, he's on the hook for a large chunk of his
| personal wealth (which hurts) but also a large chunk of his
| company (which hurts the ego) and starts to suffer buyers
| remorse.
|
| - "Ha ha" says the board, you can get out any time you'd
| like, we'd just like our 10-digit check.
|
| - _looks for an escape clause_ - maybe you committed
| securities fraud Mr. Twitter? Check again for me would you?
|
| I mean, broad strokes, this has been the saga in front of us
| - rich man wants to do something silly, gets told no, gets
| more determined, and fights tooth and nail, and finally,
| regrets his decision.
|
| So now, _either_ he was short-sighted and wanted to buy a
| company he'd failed to do due diligence on and is trying to
| get out of the purchase that way, OR he has heap big buyers
| remorse, pays a billion and gets out of it that way, or he
| becomes the proud partial owner of a social media company
| with limited network effects. Who knows, but he had already
| staked up 7% or so beforehand - so 3B give or take, didn't
| back down looking into their numbers then, and only _after_
| ponying up another 35B did he think, you know, maybe this is
| a bad idea.
|
| But I just got an air popper, so please, let the show go on.
| shapefrog wrote:
| You skipped out the original dogecoin-esq pump and dump
| that got the ball rolling in the first place.
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| Here's a fun and somewhat believable conspiracy theory:
|
| What if there's internal data indicating that it's closer to,
| like, 30%?
|
| In that case, a buyout offer conditional on a DAU audit is
| certain to expose that data, and that's checkmate for TWTR.
|
| Musk can then either buy it at a massive discount, or use the
| enormous amount of free press to launch a competitor with
| mandatory device attestation.
| threeseed wrote:
| > What if there's internal data indicating that it's closer
| to, like, 30%?
|
| Pretty sure users would notice if 1/3 of all tweets are
| computer-generated.
| scotuswroteus wrote:
| They do notice. And people use the block button and call
| everyone NPCs
| outworlder wrote:
| > or use the enormous amount of free press to launch a
| competitor with mandatory device attestation.
|
| That's what I think he's actually trying to do, as part of
| his "master plan part III". Twitter is only valuable
| because of users - but they are not worth this incredible
| premium. He's seen how attempts at launching 'free speech'
| platforms have gone.
|
| He can easily build a competitor for a fraction of the
| deal's price. He can easily outspend any company. But that
| doesn't guarantee users - eyeball time is a limited
| resource. However, if he torpedoes twitter, he can get a
| bunch of users from the wreckage.
|
| And, you know, profit from some nice pump and dump in the
| meantime.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| It doesn't matter what twitter has internally, they have no
| fiscal duty to report what percentage of users are or are
| not fully human driven.
|
| It's the buyer's responsibility to undergo due diligence
| before making serious, legally-binding offers. Musk is very
| clearly scraping for excuses now that he has buyer's
| remorse.
| motohagiography wrote:
| What is the objection to this hypothesis? It's not even a
| conspiracy theory, it's that the board has misrepresented
| the DAU, and in turn, the value of the company.
|
| To adapt an adage - Musk has already established what the
| company is, now he's just negotiating the price.
| mlindner wrote:
| > I'm astonished that people still can't see through his lies
| and BS.
|
| Almost everything people believe about Musk is lies and BS.
| Do you have anything to back up what you're saying? Otherwise
| you're just adding more lies and BS on to the pile.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Also, his collateral for the buyout is Tesla stock, which
| took a 20% dip. If people believed he would truly buy at $54,
| they would let the deal go through and make bank. The fact
| that they are still selling down to $34 means that everyone
| is seeing through Elon's bullshit.
| parkingrift wrote:
| Or, alternatively, Twitter is a shit show behind the scenes
| and Musk is seeing red flags in diligence.
| avs733 wrote:
| So what is the evidence in support of that hypothesis?
|
| The pattern of behavior by Elon seems pretty strong
| support for the alternative.
|
| The only support I see for this position is the
| assumption that musk is smarter than everyone else.
| parkingrift wrote:
| In support of what hypothesis? Musk is in diligence. To
| walk away without any cause he would have to pay
| $1,000,000,000. He doesn't have to say why he's decided
| to walk away, but he has a billion reasons not to walk
| without cause.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Twitter's financials and business strategy are shit show
| in front of the scenes.
| hooande wrote:
| There isn't formal due diligence, he's already made the
| offer. He doesn't (legally) have access to any
| information that he didn't have access to weeks ago.
| parkingrift wrote:
| That isn't how acquisitions works. What Elon and Twitter
| have done is effectively sign an LOI. Now they do actual
| diligence to close the deal, or walk away and pay the
| breakup fee.
| gsibble wrote:
| Of course there is formal due diligence. He basically
| gave them a term sheet and now they've opened their
| books. That's why he can walk away and pay $1 billion if
| he doesn't like what he sees.
| outworlder wrote:
| So you are saying TWTR reported fraudulent financials?
| josho wrote:
| What due diligence occurs when buying a public company?
| We already have access to the company's financial
| filings.
| logifail wrote:
| > his collateral for the buyout is Tesla stock
|
| That may have been part of the original plan, but:
|
| "Elon Musk is in talks to raise enough equity and preferred
| financing for his proposed buyout of Twitter to eliminate
| the need for any margin loan linked to his Tesla shares,
| according to people with knowledge of the matter. "[0]
|
| [0] https://fortune.com/2022/05/12/elon-musk-avoid-tesla-
| margin-...
| sidibe wrote:
| I'm pretty sure he never intended to buy it to begin with. He
| was just using it as a convenient excuse to sell some TSLA
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| More like attempting to pump TWTR before he sold his
| holdings there.
|
| Twitter board called his bluff and now he's trying to
| weasel out of it.
| [deleted]
| caoilte wrote:
| $1billion is a lot just to sell some TSLA stock.
| sidibe wrote:
| Even if you think he'll have to pay that which from this
| tweet it seems he's going to try to dodge, he got to sell
| a lot of stock without anyone thinking he has any doubts
| on Tesla, which would cost a lot more than 1 billion
| dragontamer wrote:
| He sold at the peak, near $900.
|
| Given that the stock is near $700 right now, it's looking
| like a good deal.
| f0xJtpvHYTVQ88B wrote:
| He sold billions last year without the excuse of buying
| Twitter.
| dragontamer wrote:
| He needs an excuse to get people buying his stock, to
| support the stock price as he sells.
|
| Back then it was a Twitter poll to sell shares IIRC. Musk
| makes a big deal out of everything to lead his followers
| around
| cronix wrote:
| Yeah, he had to pay an 11 BILLION dollar tax bill to
| California and the IRS, for stock options issued in 2012.
| It was reported as the largest federal tax bill in
| history.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/12/15/e
| lon...
| sidibe wrote:
| That was to pay his taxes supposedly, so he still had an
| excuse. People might worry if he's just diversifying for
| its own sake
| f0xJtpvHYTVQ88B wrote:
| If he didn't sell the stocks then he wouldn't have to pay
| any tax on unrealized gains. According to him, he sold
| the stocks so they he would pay taxes in response to
| criticism of not paying his "fair share" in taxes.
| outworlder wrote:
| Yeah. He lied. Again.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Wrong.
|
| Musk's stock options became fully vested and matured.
| That forced a tax event on him last year.
| exodust wrote:
| > OMG. I'm astonished...
|
| Why is wanting a better price such an issue? "The 5% stuff"
| is like when information surfaces about a faulty or
| inaccurate odometer reading on the used car you're about to
| buy. If tampered with, let's negotiate a new price.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| The 5% figure was certainly known by Elon before making the
| deal
| exodust wrote:
| Known because someone said "5%" or known because someone
| proved it was 5%?
| imustbeevil wrote:
| Either. Caveat emptor. You don't get to question the
| ingredients of food in your stomach.
| WHA8m wrote:
| yes, but no.
|
| This is unethical negotiating. If you make a bid, you
| better look beforehand, what you're bidding on. If your
| bidding has an effect on someone, you better be careful
| with it.
| patrec wrote:
| > This is unethical negotiating.
|
| It's only unethical negotiating if the Twitter board
| hasn't put out inflated DAU numbers. Maybe the sudden
| firing of Kayvon Beykpour and Bruce Falck has raised some
| new suspicions about this question in Musk's mind?
|
| > If you make a bid, you better look beforehand, what
| you're bidding on.
|
| Well, looks like he did, but now questions whether what
| he was shown was actually truthful, no?
|
| > If your bidding has an effect on someone, you better be
| careful with it.
|
| So there are two times two possibilities: Musk genuinely
| has doubts about the DAU metric he hasn't had before in
| the force or he hasn't. Similarly there are two
| possibilities about the accuracy of the DAU metrics: they
| are within an excusable distance of the truth or they
| aren't. Assuming they aren't, regardless of Musk's true
| motives, why would Twitter deserve to be shielded from
| the fallout?
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| It's a red herring, and now you're arguing about fish.
|
| Musk made a serious, legally binding offer to buy with no
| contingencies for users (human, cyborg, bot, or
| otherwise). Now he wants out so he's using this bad faith
| argument to weasel out of the $1B escape clause.
|
| Twitter has zero responsibility for needing to report
| which accounts are completely human or not human. Even if
| he genuinely cared about bots, Musk still screwed up by
| not doing due diligence before the offer.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| You mean to tell me there are some unscrupulous people out
| there who want to pay less money for things rather than more?
| The horror!
| Msw242 wrote:
| Lies and BS?
|
| If you could save a few billion wouldn't you?
|
| It's a negotiation, and with the markets turning, he's got
| all the cards.
|
| The cost of reneging is only 1bn, and the company would
| probably lose half it's market cap if the deal fell through
| Hackbraten wrote:
| Not everyone is interested enough in the US stock market to
| keep an eye on it. I haven't even heard about a stock market
| crash before you mentioned it.
| axlee wrote:
| Then why would you comment in a thread about a stock sale
| if you're obviously uninterested about the market?
| Hackbraten wrote:
| I use Twitter every day so I'm curious about the future
| of the platform.
|
| And when I saw your comment implying you're astonished
| about people not getting it, I meant to offer you, in
| good faith, one anecdotal data point in order to make you
| feel a little less puzzled.
| kmos17 wrote:
| Yes he just wants an excuse to exit the deal because Tesla's
| stock is tanking.
| koolba wrote:
| IIRC, the breakup fee if the deal does not go through is $1B.
| Given the massive dive in the market, that's peanuts compared
| to the drop in the "fair" price.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Elon already signed. There is literally no such thing as
| "putting it on hold." See Matt Levine's latest column, he can't
| even back out if it turns out there _are_ more than 5% spam
| /fake accounts. [1] He's playing games because he's the richest
| man in the world and if you try to hold him accountable he will
| make your life hell. He's really shown his true colors these
| last few years, absolutely no respect for him anymore.
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-m...
| strogonoff wrote:
| I doubt the Twitter acquisition by Musk will go through,
| regardless of stated reasons.
|
| China is the second biggest market after the US for Tesla sales--
| meaning CCP wields the power to decimate Musk's wealth, which
| Tesla stock is the main source of. Musk knows Tesla's position in
| China is fragile (like that of any Western company), and the
| Chinese government knows he knows that; it seems unlikely they
| will pass on newly found leverage when it comes to influencing
| discourse on Western social media.
|
| By owning Twitter, Musk risks having to choose between his image
| as free speech maximalist and a large part of Tesla's sales. From
| the outside, he doesn't strike me as someone willing to sacrifice
| either. (He could implement some mechanism that gives CCP direct
| or indirect influence over Twitter without the public finding
| out, but that seems a bit far-fetched.)
|
| So far there seems to be no mainstream Western social platform
| that stands to lose anything by ignoring CCP's censors. We don't
| see YouTube videos, Facebook posts or tweets taken down due to
| requests from Chinese government. Revenue from China is not a
| factor for any of their mother companies. I think that's a good
| status quo to maintain.
| blantonl wrote:
| Elon Musk is the Donald Trump of market manipulators. Is there a
| formal term for this type of leadership that both exhibit? Rapid
| ready-fire-aim comments and actions? Constantly keeping everyone
| involved laser focused on what could be coming next, scared to
| death.
|
| Is this what the future of executive and political leadership
| looks like? The bull in the china shop?
|
| Both personalities will be graduate level studies of sociology
| and phycology for years to come. And the crazy thing is that this
| stuff resonates so well with so many people (read: the cult of
| Trump and Elon)
| FYYFFF wrote:
| Toxic hubris. The man is high on his own supply and he's acting
| like a spoiled child. I have no respect for this kind of stuff
| from a mature, capable person. Its trolling and it's destructive.
| marstall wrote:
| Can some explain what the spam/fake accounts are? In my little
| corner of 4 or 5 accounts with 2500 followers total, and a dozen
| or so hashtags I check frequently, I really rarely see spam or
| bot accounts ... I mean they pop up but its not a major aspect of
| twitter for me in my daily experience. And I use twitter a LOT.
|
| Are they counting my +1 accounts as fake? they're not, they each
| represent a different side of myself that's real, even if they
| don't bear my name. one for a site I created, one for a
| particular community I participate in, etc...
| ryzvonusef wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-estimates-spam-fa...
| >Twitter Inc(TWTR.N)estimated in a filing on Monday that false or
| spam accounts represented fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily
| active users during the first quarter. >The social
| media company had 229 million users who were served advertising
| in the first quarter. read more
| conradfr wrote:
| Funnily enough, Elon Musk's tweet does not mention
| "monetizable".
| WJW wrote:
| It seems evident that a bot user is almost never monetizable,
| so you'd think the amount of bots in Twitters monetizable
| user base would be very close to zero even if the total
| amount of bot users is 90% of the total user base.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Why isn't a bit monetizable? - True, you can't monetize
| that account via ads, but for one it drives conversation,
| thus interaction with other users thus allows to send those
| other users mire ads and the bot operator is willing to get
| his message out and might be willing to pay.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| They define "monetizable" to mean that the user is using
| Twitter in a way that could serve ads. (I think they mean
| this in contrast to, like, API only usage, although I've
| never seen Twitter explain this in more detail.)
| mikkergp wrote:
| These aren't objective measures though, with agreed upon
| standards and Twitter is incentivized to err on false
| positives.
| axlee wrote:
| In subscription-based video games, bots are absolutely
| monetized (and some people use it as an argument to explain
| why editors might seem slow at suspending them). In its
| current iteration, bots are not monetizable on Twitter, but
| we can imagine a world where they are.
| eimrine wrote:
| Why do you think a bot is not monetizable? What if some
| payed by Putin pro-Russian trashtalker (bot by definition)
| without Adblock installed (unlike most of decent users who
| are not happy to see some ads in the social network they
| love) - who is monetizable and who is not in this case?
| XorNot wrote:
| Because they devalue your ad business. Your views don't
| lead to enough click-throughs which don't lead to
| conversions for the buyer. Even if you imagine that the
| paid sockpuppet operator might be interested in the ads,
| their whole business is representing themselves as being
| from a country they're not so the targeting is all wrong.
| ryzvonusef wrote:
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1525080945274998785
| > Still committed to acquisition
| mrtksn wrote:
| After the market crash a day ago, there was a joke on Twitter
| about Musk cancelling the offer, burning a billion and buying
| Twitter later at a half price.
|
| Conspiracies and jokes aside, how one determines(at contractually
| acceptable certainty) what accounts are absolutely fake or bot
| account? It's not like they ticked the checkbox saying "I am a
| fake account".
|
| If the sellers and buyers are not on the same page here, wouldn't
| that drag in court for years maybe?
|
| After all, maybe Musk will actually burn a billion only to buy
| Twitter later at a half price or less and save $20B+. Twitter
| might end to be much more cheaper after a stock crash due to the
| bearish markets and that fake users scandal(?) that Musk
| exposed(?).
| matwood wrote:
| Except when the market as a whole goes down it impacts everyone
| who was bringing money to the table in this deal. I wonder if
| the financing he's gathered is getting nervous. It might be
| harder for him to raise the money again, even if the price is
| better.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Tesla stock also suffered quite a lot, AFAIK that was how
| Musk was going to finance the deal.
|
| That said, Tesla doesn't have "more than %5 fake users"
| problem that came out just as the deal was closing. I guess
| Musk is a luck man.
| seydor wrote:
| bots are not fake, they can be useful accounts. I have one that
| still works, another kept being taken down so i stopped
| reinstating it. To say that twitter is ran by schoolchildren
| would be understatement
| fijiaarone wrote:
| Here's a program that can detect bots For user
| in Twitter: Confirmation = random(number) Send
| user message("if you are not a bot reply with", confirmation)
|
| Variations can be devised but the real risk is that it also
| identifies inactive accounts.
| mrtksn wrote:
| You know how iPhones can extract verification codes from SMS?
| The botmasters will simply create a regex to extract the
| number and reply accordingly.
| PKop wrote:
| Just use a captcha image. Not foolproof, but would
| eliminate a huge swath of bots.
|
| They don't even try this. Why?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Then they will simply solve the captchas using captcha
| solvers or humans paid pennies per captcha. You do
| something else and the botmasters will respond.
|
| It's really hard to get rid of bots and fake accounts.
| Also, false positives are expensive because you end up
| annoying a real human and as a result your mistake
| doesn't disappear until you make it right.
| daenz wrote:
| The cat and mouse game of bots vs captchas has been going
| on for a long time and has become increasingly
| sophisticated. "Just use a captcha image" is a 10 year
| old solution, if not more.
| zarzavat wrote:
| How would they know to write that code if they were not
| expecting it? Just do it as a one-off on a particular day
| without any warning. And you can show it to some small
| sample % of total users then extrapolate, so that the
| average botmaster wouldn't even notice.
| grumple wrote:
| Beat botnets with this one simple trick!
| mrtksn wrote:
| I guess you can run a sting operation, it may work.
| g_sch wrote:
| Aren't you just suggesting a very simple CAPTCHA challenge?
| This is an area that has seen an arms race for over a decade
| of platforms coming up with increasingly complex "human-
| intelligence" challenges, and botmasters coming up with
| increasingly ingenious ways to bypass them (including,
| sometimes, using real human intelligence)
| shmatt wrote:
| As a private company, Musk can also set his own management fees
| / owner compensation / call it what ever
|
| 1) Pay $1B fine to Twitter
|
| 2) Buy cheaper
|
| 3) Get a $1B chairman first year bonus from Twitter
|
| He'll probably find a way to write it off on taxes as well
| closedloop129 wrote:
| The $1B are lost in (2). He will have to pay about $1B more
| if he has to pay the fee to twitter because then the company
| is worth $1B more.
|
| It's not $1B exactly because he already owns some shares so
| he doesn't have to pay extra for those.
| remram wrote:
| The fact that it goes to a company he later acquires makes
| it seem like an obvious move. Is it?
| LZ_Khan wrote:
| I could see the captcha solution someone mentioned being
| possible.
|
| Take a randomly selected group of 10,000 active users, show
| them a captcha, and look at the percentage of respondents.
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| Random captchas ("We need to re-confirm you're a human")
| sounds like a great idea, although annoying to someone just
| wanting to post a quick 20-word tweet.
|
| But it would have the useful side effect of slowing people
| down from tweeting impulsively, a practice that demeans the
| conversation and sometimes ends careers.
| daenz wrote:
| The GP post wasn't describing a method for stopping fake
| accounts, they were describing how to sample what
| percentage of accounts are fake.
| paulpauper wrote:
| this would not work well because the sample would be biased
|
| newer accounts are much more likely to be bots compared to
| older ones
|
| you would have to sample IDs by age and create a distribution
| based on ID age
|
| And then you can extrapolate how many overall are fake
| mrtksn wrote:
| This may work
| once_inc wrote:
| > how one determines(...) what accounts are absolutely fake
|
| Right now, Twitter's ability to ferret out fake accounts is
| just completely ineffective. In the communities I follow, I see
| literally hundreds of reply posts under each tweet of certain
| people, all with the same profile picture as the OP, all
| tweeting about giveaways.
|
| Twitter should be focussed on cleaning up their product, and
| one of the variables required for that is knowing what amount
| of users are being used to spam scam messages. The fact that
| they can't means twitter's development isn't prioritising it. A
| ballpark estimate of the order of magnitude of that figure
| should be possible for them if they were in any way actively
| trying to solve the problem, which they are obviously not
| doing.
| can16358p wrote:
| They can do much better if they wanted to. They don't.
|
| There are very obvious patterns that I as a single person can
| see about fake accounts.
|
| Twitter, a huge tech company with access to a lot of
| engineers and AI, can probably do much better than me.
|
| They don't because they don't want to.
| christkv wrote:
| He can back out let the market slaughter twitter and buy it for a
| massive discount right down the road.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Wouldn't be the first time Musk is manipulating stock prices
| with a tweet.
| christkv wrote:
| Considering the blood bath in tech stock I recon is actually
| more of a case of him badly timing the bid. Had he waited a
| couple of weeks more he could have picked it up for 1/2. The
| price will plunge today. My bet is 25% or more.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Just looked it up, the last days hit my last AMZN shares
| pretty hard... Bad timing indeed!
| Tehchops wrote:
| It was as if millions of twitter trolls with a distorted idea of
| free speech suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly
| silenced.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| Just an excuse. Either he actually has changed his mind, or other
| people, possibly government, made him change his mind. I can
| definitely believe that the U.S. government does not want to
| allow just anyone to wield something like Twitter to their
| liking.
| LeicaLatte wrote:
| How is this not hypocrisy? Isn't all social networking spam? Elon
| would do well to embrace the strengths of the medium rather than
| run away from it. I expected his amazebrains to understand this
| but maybe he is getting too old for modern tech.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Tweet from 3 days ago by Hindenburg Research:
|
| > NEW FROM US: We Are Short Twitter
|
| > Musk Holds All The Cards. We See a Significant Risk That The
| Twitter Deal Gets Repriced Lower
|
| Space Karen's reply:
|
| > Interesting. Don't forget to look on the bright side of life
| sometimes!
|
| https://twitter.com/HindenburgRes/status/1523677782211186690
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Space Karen! That's good
| [deleted]
| xuki wrote:
| On the bright side they can probably get out of their position
| today for 15-20% profit. Not bad for a 3 days trade.
| chewbacha wrote:
| Could it have to do with the recent stock/crypto slump? Perhaps
| he doesn't have the cash any more because his assets have rapidly
| diminished in value since he begun the take over.
|
| It's not clear to me why the calculation over bots and spam would
| threaten the deal.
| sysadm1n wrote:
| https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1525049369552048129
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| I don't get all the hate here.
|
| If Twitter lied about spambot counts that violates the deal.
| dcow wrote:
| Curious why this is immediately about Elon and his psyche? Is it
| not possible that Twitter may have/be wildly understated/ing how
| many fake accounts are present on its platform in an effort to
| stay above water and such information is coming to light during
| diligence? Wouldn't that type of discovery put any "normal" deal
| on hold? It's usually not great as a buyer when you discover the
| item you just bought or are looking to buy isn't actually worth
| what you perceived or were lead to believe it is which is why
| these deals involve diligence in the first place.
| mirceal wrote:
| It's because of his way of doing things in the past and his
| credibility. Why does he even need to announce this on Twitter
| if this isn't another one of his schemes.
|
| If this was anyone else we wouldn't bat an eyelid.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| People on HN really despise him. I think I saw someone call him
| Space Karen.
|
| This entire comment section is frothing with hate, and not much
| objectivity.
| findthewords wrote:
| Hypothesis: The deal will go through once his stock price goes
| back up - if this were to occur it would be strong circumstantial
| evidence to suspect he is timing the market.
| LightG wrote:
| What's "funny" (sad/tragic not haha) is that his cult will have
| bought into this on the 'anything he touches turns to gold' tip.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Hindenburg Research (which is notorious for unmasking frauds,
| stock promoters and market manipulators) called it on May 9th:
|
| https://twitter.com/HindenburgRes/status/1523677782211186690
|
| Musk tried to use all his 90M followers weight and his snark
| belitteling them into closing the short :
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1523693971842957312
|
| Good on them for not listening to the noise and making bank.
|
| In many years of watching sports, politics, business, culture I
| have seldom seen a more distasteful character than mr. Musk.
|
| Back in my ignorant days I couldn't stand shortsellers, I
| considered them to be haters.
|
| Oh so little did I know. They are the custodian of market sanity
| and also the saviors of the American consumer, they keep in check
| these megalomaniacal cult figures such as Musk, Holmes, Bernie
| Madoff, Adam Neumann who enrich themselves by inflating financial
| bubbles of epic proportions while providing little to no quality
| of life to the consumer
| zionic wrote:
| No one takes short-n-distort crews seriously after the
| 2016-2018 disaster.
| Traster wrote:
| I don't think he was pressuring them to close the short, I
| think he was hinting that it'd be good for him if he could
| reprice the deal.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Dumb question, do you know why he'd care about shorts? He's
| already agreed a price, does it really matter if people are
| buying and selling it way lower than that before he buys it
| all? Is it just an appearance thing?
| polygamous_bat wrote:
| Short sellers push the price down, so on the chance he does
| go through with the purchase, he is seen like a fool who
| overpaid for the stock. And we all know how much narcissists
| like looking like fools.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| emptysongglass wrote:
| > If you live in SF you know how normal people felt under
| China's Mao.
|
| This is truly the heights of false equivalence no matter what
| you actually think of Elon Musk. The Great Leap under Mao took
| the lives of between 15 and 55 million people. There is no
| comparison and I find it frankly offensive that we think it's
| OK as a society to throw these kinds of comparisons around,
| casually, in any sincerity.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Burning some money is not an "honest comparison" to killing
| tens of millions of people, no.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| kragen wrote:
| Quite aside from the fact that things like mass famine and
| nationwide mob violence can affect people's emotions sometimes,
| and Mao had those and Elon didn't, I don't recall ever seeing
| portraits of Elon Musk being emblazoned all over San Francisco,
| or kids all coming home from school with Musk's Little Red
| Book.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Elon's just getting started in politics. The presidential run
| won't happen for another couple of cycles.
|
| Also:
|
| https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=musk+poster&source=lnms&tb.
| ..
| kragen wrote:
| Then it's maybe relevant to how people who didn't drink the
| koolaid felt about Mao when they were under China's Chiang?
| But not how they felt when they were under Mao himself.
|
| I don't see any images in the search results you linked
| that seem to be photos of giant posters on San Francisco
| buildings. Possibly Google is serving me different results
| than it's serving you. Can you link to the specific ones
| you found?
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| I think the military and petroleum industries (to name just a
| few of many) are far, far worse than a few hurt feelings from
| Musk's twitter posts or alleged undeserved subsidies.
|
| But their messaging goes through layers of lawyers and PR
| agencies and is carefully curated to fool you and you don't
| even know you're being fooled.
|
| The cult of anti-Musk is actually more tiresome and unhinged
| than the cult of Musk these days, in my opinion.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > But their messaging goes through layers of lawyers and PR
| agencies and is carefully curated to fool you and you don't
| even know you're being fooled.
|
| The petroleum industry, the cement industry provides me
| quality of life. They don't need to fool me. I want those
| things.
|
| You don't need PR to sell oil. Energy density speaks for
| itself. Likewise with cement.
| soumyadeb wrote:
| The two twitter exec firings yesterday must be related to this.
| Musk must have asked for proof which the product team could not
| produce.
| Dwolb wrote:
| An alternate explanation is Parag knows this is going to get
| ugly and is sparing his exec team from going through this with
| him.
| rendall wrote:
| What is your thinking behind "must be"?
| moralestapia wrote:
| Those exits were not planned, one guy was even on parental
| leave, so it was definitely a rushed thing. That always
| stinks when an acquisition is taking place.
| soumyadeb wrote:
| One person (their VP Product) was on paternity. You don't
| fire people like that unless they did something very very
| wrong.
|
| Misrepresenting spam/bot accounts would fall under that
| bucket. If the number of spam accounts is like 20% (instead
| of 5%), not only would the deal fall through, other
| shareholders would sue twitter.
|
| Not sure this misrepresentation would count as financial
| misrepresentation (which results in jail etc under Sarbanes-
| Oxley)
| danaris wrote:
| > You don't fire people like that unless they did something
| very very wrong.
|
| That's assuming the firings are fully rational, _and_ no
| self-interest was involved.
|
| I can easily imagine a number of scenarios where Parag
| fired the guy knowing he had done nothing wrong in order to
| attempt to protect himself in some way.
| muglug wrote:
| > You don't fire people like that unless they did something
| very very wrong.
|
| If he's on paternity leave he won't have been responsible
| for a number that came out last week.
| raizer88 wrote:
| Pretty sure twitter have a dashboard with these numbers,
| and don't do it manually. So if this dashboard makes data
| up, I'm pretty sure VP of Product's head is on the table,
| since it's a really sensitive data to report wrong. And
| twitter firing him can be a way to protect the top exec
| from the SEC, blaming him for everything.
| soumyadeb wrote:
| Well, he is still responsible for the process through
| which the number was derived (assuming the process was
| put in place by him).
| dewey wrote:
| That makes no sense, especially because on of them was on
| paternity leave and is probably not involved in getting some
| numbers from the database.
| bluelu wrote:
| The guy had 5 years to get the numbers right, but didn't. (if
| that's the cause)
| darkerside wrote:
| You don't think a high level exec is on the hook to pull a
| few numbers during their paternity leave to help seal a multi
| billion dollar deal?
| soumyadeb wrote:
| Its more about the process of how that number was derived.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| I used to like Elon circa 2018 up until he started acting up
| (pedo guy, et al), but the main thing that soured my opinion of
| him lies in being -- don't know if this is the right word --
| unhinged.
|
| I just can never trust anything he says because he has a
| significant history of being indecisive and disorderly. This deal
| is a perfect demonstration of how I feel. What I can't really
| tell is if he was always like that or grew into it at one point.
|
| Also, the guy is always going to extreme lengths to seek
| attention, just like one certain US politician...Something turns
| me off from these types of people.
| hericium wrote:
| > Also, the guy is always going to extreme lengths to seek
| attention, just like one certain US politician
|
| There are other similarities - impulsiveness in business,
| Twitter obsession, strong COVID downplaying...
| tjpnz wrote:
| I just listen to the space stuff and tune everything else out.
| ctvo wrote:
| Same here. SpaceX does impressive work. The rest of Elon's
| companies? Not so much for me.
|
| He's such a polarizing figure folks can't seem to detach the
| worthwhile things he's done from all his other flaws. Elon
| isn't particularly impressive as an engineer or scientist,
| but incredibly impressive as a product and business person.
| Realize that he's a brand, and try not to fall for the
| marketing.
| alex_duf wrote:
| Same here, for me I started to lose interest for him when he
| started to sell the boring company as a solution to traffic
| jams.
|
| The solution already exists and it's called "public transport".
|
| I suspect this might be due to being surrounded by people who
| are too impressed by him to called out an idea when it's not
| sound.
|
| Then the memes, then the crypto tokens, then it just got all
| weird so I stopped listening.
| fourseventy wrote:
| What's a common form of "public transport"? Subways. What do
| subways need? Oh ya... tunnels...
| danans wrote:
| He is the kind of person one has to maintain complex opinions
| about.
|
| He didn't create the first mass market modern EV (that was
| Nissan), but he did what the rest of the auto industry could
| have but refused to do: Reverse the polarity of the
| desirability of EVs.
|
| His views on metropolitan public transit and car facilitated
| sprawl are backward, but I doubt most traditional auto
| executives think any differently (just look at the amazing
| metro system in the Detroit area! /s), they just don't voice it
| as openly.
|
| He has tons of money and power but feels little accountability
| to anyone, not even his shareholders, much less any community,
| country, or society.
|
| You might say that's great, that it frees him to think "outside
| the box". That is true, but societal obligations are not all
| bad - they ground a wealthy and powerful person in the reality
| of people who have far less power than them, and temper some of
| the blindness brought on by their narcissism.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Seems a lot of what drives Musk is a _need_ to feel that he 's
| smarter than everyone else, even (or especially) if he suspects
| it may not be true. So he takes the position that the minions
| of the world are unworthy burdens to him. This includes
| governments, other organizations and anything/anyone he
| perceives is attempting to regulate or otherwise "constrain"
| him.
|
| There's an obvious immaturity there too, wherein he responds to
| any criticism, hint that he may be wrong, or regulatory effort
| with the equivalent of a childish "you're just stupid!"
|
| His battles with the SEC are a classic example, and it would be
| on-brand if this Twitter deal was as much about thumbing the
| eye of regulators as anything else. His announcement today had
| at one point caused a 20% dip in Twitter's pre-market price and
| 5% bump for Tesla's. The entire ride has been an exercise in
| manipulation.
|
| So, I've wondered at times if a lot of this superiority act is
| really just deep insecurity, and he needs the world to
| constantly reassure him that he's as smart as he needs them to
| believe he is. When you look at the attention-seeking behavior
| you mentioned, it definitely aligns.
| boringg wrote:
| You've got it wrong - the tumbling today was because Twitter
| was artificially inflated and being held on the hopes of a
| deal. As soon as the market tanked, the price of twitter
| still held out hope on a deal. Elon isn't about to pay full
| freight in a sinking macroeconomic environment.
|
| In terms of his behavior you speak of - could be right, could
| be wrong. I don't think he needs the reinforcement at this
| point. He's already proved himself - he now just needs to
| keep executing. My concern is that he doesn't have the
| energy, focus and clarity of thought to make it happen.
|
| Also I do have legit concerns on the mental health of our
| older twitter guys (> 50 ) as I have noticed there has been a
| lot of trolling poor behavior in that crowd and a turn to the
| hard right. Maybe it's the social validation needed at a
| later age?
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| > _the tumbling today was because Twitter was artificially
| inflated and being held on the hopes of a deal_
|
| We're saying the same thing. Yes, the deal itself inflated
| the price. But, Musk announcing today that the deal was on
| hold pending proof of the fake account numbers contributed
| to the steep pull back. Musk did not have to make the
| announcement publicly, and he knew what would happen when
| he did.
|
| Now, guess what happens to the price when he comes out next
| week and says the numbers he sought were proven to his
| satisfaction.
|
| He's been playing a deal-on, deal-off game from the start
| and the stock has responded accordingly. He has a history
| of enjoying that market manipulation power, including on
| the crypto side.
|
| He's been slapped for it by the SEC for his other
| companies, and has made no secret about his disdain for
| that fact.
|
| > _He 's already proved himself_
|
| Insecurity is frequently not rooted in reality. Musk knows
| he's a smart guy, but the kind of insecurity I'm talking
| about may never be quenchable.
| boringg wrote:
| Fair point about the deal on deal off. I would have to
| say though, he probably wants the deal to go through but
| not at the current market prices. Whats the quote -
| 'all's fair in love and war'?
|
| True about security. Maybe that insecurity is the force
| that has driven him to actually achieve what he has
| accomplished. Sometimes your greatest asset can be your
| largest liability. Let's hope it stays on the asset side
| - for all of our sakes.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| True. Could very well be that insecurity has driven him.
| That's probably fairly common. For instance, imposter
| syndrome is a very real thing and I know that my fight
| against it has propelled me.
|
| The problem, of course, is that it can also create
| toxicity. And, Musk being a very powerful man can make
| that a dangerous thing. I think that's what you're
| alluding to.
|
| My biggest concern is his apparent belief that his power
| and "contributions to society" mean he should be beyond
| accountability or should be able to decide which rules
| apply to him. That's the stuff of dystopian future sci-
| fi.
|
| In fact, it concerns me when people believe they should
| be able to unilaterally decide what rules apply to
| anyone.
| boringg wrote:
| Agree - absolute power corrupts absolutely. Everyone is
| accountable and no one is above reproach. He probably is
| living on a huge power surge right now which might make
| him feel invincible (as power does) - it would be a
| classic time to make a misstep.
|
| Hope his ego comes back to earth and he can keep
| executing. Will keep watching.
| goshx wrote:
| I'm a fan of Tesla, SpaceX, etc. but I think Elon has been
| acting a little off lately. It feels like he started acting
| like any other rich guy who is more concerned about his own
| money than anything else.
|
| If Trump is reelected this year, Republicans can thank Elon.
| He's campaigning against democrats, wants Trump to be back on
| Twitter, said banning Trump was morally wrong (I guess letting
| the incitements of violence, lies about election fraud while
| committing the fraud himself, was morally acceptable to Elon).
| version_five wrote:
| The overall sentiment on HN is pretty clear from the replies
| here. And I agree with a lot of it, he seems to do and say a
| lot of things impulsively without thinking them through, that
| often tend to be dumb.
|
| The one thing I respect though (and expect most people here
| won't) is that he appears to have the "nouveau riche"
| disrespect for the establishment, and doesn't feel he needs to
| kiss anyone's ass or play by the rules in a system that is
| already rigged for rich people. The fact that he has annoyed so
| many, especially elite/establishment figures, is a good thing.
| I'd much rather see him use his wealth to piss off the
| establishment than just to grow richer safely, which he could
| easily do. So maybe his annoying behavior is at least partially
| by design, and the fact that it bothers everyone is exactly
| what he wants, which I think deserves some respect.
| basisword wrote:
| What anti-establishment stuff has he done? All of the
| negative things I see people mention about him are just
| general asshole behaviour rather than things that annoy the
| establishment.
| memish wrote:
| He's supporting free speech, while the establishment
| supports censoring the population.
|
| Censorship is the tool of the establishment. Free speech
| gives power to the people. That's as anti-establishment as
| it gets.
| philistine wrote:
| He has multiple examples of using censorship himself to
| protect his companies. He denied a reviewer access to
| their vehicle, has stifled the speech of former employees
| of his companies, and has tried to silence a dissenter
| publishing publicly available data of his plane. You've
| fallen for the hype; Elon merely dresses himself in the
| flag of a free speech absolutist. He is exactly like the
| establishment in this regard: speech for me, but not for
| thee.
| chrchang523 wrote:
| A world where Twitter is controlled by a self-interested
| Musk, while Facebook is basically aligned with the US
| political establishment, enables better dissemination of
| ideas than a world where Twitter and Facebook are both
| aligned with the establishment. Because Musk has notably
| _different_ biases than the establishment, and either
| platform is sufficient for the purpose of giving
| nationally-relevant ideas adequate distribution.
|
| (For this reason, in a world where Musk already
| controlled Twitter, I would oppose anything that
| increased his leverage w.r.t. Facebook, because yes,
| you're correct that Musk's biases are not harmless.)
| memish wrote:
| He has never advocated for removing speech from the
| public square or removing your right to hear speech. He
| didn't tell twitter to remove any account. He offered
| someone money (ie a private arrangement) to take it down
| and changed his mind. That's very different from forcibly
| revoking it and imposing censorship on the population.
|
| You've fallen for a warped definition of free speech and
| censorship that is endlessly regurgitated by NPCs.
| Jordrok wrote:
| Is he really though? You say this as if the twitter
| acquisition is over and done, and Free Speech has been
| saved by Musk doing......what exactly? So far we have so
| few details about what his plans for the platform are (or
| if he even has any) that everyone is free to project
| their own ideal outcome onto his actions. Let's wait a
| bit and see what happens before declaring him the savior
| of free speech.
| hooande wrote:
| This is exactly what people said that they liked about trump.
| Essentially he isn't polished and says stupid things, "just
| like regular people!"
|
| Is this the new trend? Whenever a wealthy person turns out to
| be stupid, a certain group of people say "he's sticking it to
| the establishment"?
| the_only_law wrote:
| > Is this the new trend?
|
| Just a recent wave of populists?
| themitigating wrote:
| Attacking the government also gets you tons of attention and
| adoration since it's such an easy target. It's like making an
| airline food joke in the 90s.
| demygale wrote:
| It all makes sense if you assume he's a dumb guy who got rich
| by accident.
| alex_young wrote:
| Isn't trying to reprice a shrewd move at this point? The market
| has taken a huge hit since he made his move and the options for
| Twitter haven't exactly improved.
| hooande wrote:
| No. A shrewd move would have been to not do a fumbling
| hostile takeover. Everyone knows that tech stocks
| traditionally take a hit when the fed raises rates. He could
| have done this in a slower and more traditional way instead
| of attempting the largest leveraged buyout in history on a
| whim.
|
| Now he has to work with a ton of contractual and legal
| issues, up to and including twitter being able to force him
| to go through with the deal, unless he can find clear
| evidence of fraud in their user numbers.
| phyalow wrote:
| I absolutely agree. He will save himself $5-15 billion
| depending on the new offer price, a total no brainer. A big
| short selling hedge fund came out 4 days ago and laid this
| exact scenario out on the table
| https://hindenburgresearch.com/twitter/
| shapefrog wrote:
| Influencer attention seeking has broken people brains. The
| troll is fed, and for some there is an infinite loop of getting
| attention from certain acts leading to more extreme acts.
|
| Its just a prank bro.
| Mezzie wrote:
| He was always like this, from what I remember. Then again, I
| was put off of him back in the 90s because it was just kind of
| embarrassing to watch someone who was (at the time) 2-3x my age
| be so desperate for validation.
|
| Elon was bullied pretty heavily, and I think he clung to the
| nerds as his social savior in response, but he still doesn't
| have the self-confidence/spine to let his ideas stand on their
| own. It's kind of sad: He basically has a parasocial
| relationship with the geek/nerd community (and probably the
| rationalists too) and he thinks it's real, but it can't be when
| Elon brings his resources to bear whenever he's losing an
| argument.
| [deleted]
| belter wrote:
| Elon Musk did this recent keynote for the FT. "Future of the
| Car: Elon Musk Keynote Interview" https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc
|
| Said he will have full FSD in the next 6 months:
| https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=3107
|
| Will be landing uncrewed Starship on Mars in 3 to 5 years:
| https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=2444
|
| Most ironic of all is the talk about Tunnels:
| https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=4000
|
| It was a shame that the FT, with a London based journalist,
| forgot to ask the question if he has ever heard about this Sci-
| Fi tunnel transport system called the London Metro :-)
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > Also, the guy is always going to extreme lengths to seek
| attention, just like one certain US politician
|
| Take it easy on Biden. Many geriatric patients act strangely
| because their sense of self awareness has faded with age.
| mzs wrote:
| Parag Agrawal warned us all more than a month ago, "There will
| be distractions ahead..."
|
| https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1513354622466867201
| exodust wrote:
| Isn't the deal on hold because the price might be too high for
| a bunch of spam accounts? If so, I'm not sure what you're on
| about.
|
| Sounds reasonable to confirm the actual number of spam accounts
| before spending 44 billion. Likewise I double check the service
| history of used cars too.
| fijiaarone wrote:
| Yes. Like when you make an offer on a house but then your
| inspector finds a crack in the ceiling and you back out
| because the bank promised you 3.5% with no points and nothing
| down but when the paperwork is done you've got a 6% interest
| rate with $10,000 in fees, property tax assessment tripled,
| your parents who were going to help out suddenly don't want
| to gift you $75,000 for the down payment, there was a murder
| 2 blocks away and the housing market just collapsed so paying
| 100% over the asking price (which was already twice what it's
| worth) doesn't sound a good idea.
|
| In other words, have you seen what tech stocks have done in
| the last week?
|
| Elon doesn't have the money to buy Twitter, and his lenders
| are getting nervous that it's a bad investment for a juvenile
| prank.
| [deleted]
| cinntaile wrote:
| Do you think it is reasonable to do your due diligence after
| you made an offer?
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| How do you know what due diligence was done and what new
| information might have come up? If the company
| misrepresented its users to Musk during negotiations that
| wouldn't be very reasonable.
| [deleted]
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _How do you know what due diligence was done and what
| new information might have come up?_
|
| Based on the "Funding secured" or "Pedo guy" nonsense
| revealed in court documents, I have a pretty good idea
| how much due diligence was done prior to the offer: zero.
| cinntaile wrote:
| I obviously don't know the details, but knowing the
| number of actual users on Twitter is probably the most
| important factor to base an offer on? He's not exactly
| new on Twitter, so if Twitter claims 5% bots he just
| accepts that? I find that extremely unlikely, unless he
| had another motive.
| xienze wrote:
| This would be more akin to the inspection period when
| buying a house.
|
| The threat of the deal blowing up with so much on the line
| is what holds Twitter's feet to the fire.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I've been involved in a couple of due diligence processes
| that were part of the conditions of the formal offer.
|
| You don't open your books to a competitor or in a hostile
| takeover situation.
| johngalt_ wrote:
| that's how it works in the bussiness world. you first make
| an offer, and then it enters the due diligence phase when
| information is shared and these matters are investigated.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Isn't that something he should've done before making an
| offer? It's not like he just discovered that bots are a
| thing.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| It was pretty much a hostile take over ... quite sure they
| didn't let him come in and "kick the tires" on their user
| data.
| hooande wrote:
| then...maybe he shouldn't have made the offer?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| This happens all the time. Literally. Sometimes you can
| kick the tires if you have a letter of intent, sometimes
| the offer is conditional on passing a due diligence.
| notyourday wrote:
| No, you make closing contingent on certain parameters.
| Twitter execs aren't going to drop their panties for
| inspection unless there's a good chance the deal might
| close.
| zthrowaway wrote:
| You think Twitter would be that open to let someone dig
| that deep into their IP before a purchase?
| [deleted]
| ryandvm wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. I think "unhinged" is the perfect
| descriptor. I like a lot of what he proposes and how he thinks
| (when he's not attention seeking), but I absolutely cannot
| stand the pathetic meme crap and shit-posting he does. Sadly,
| he also reminds me of the failed coup guy, but I honestly think
| he might be more dangerous. Because not only is he desperate
| for attention, he's also pretty clever. That's a bad
| combination and I fear old age Elon is going to be even more
| trouble...
| philliphaydon wrote:
| I'm not a fan of Elon, would never buy a Tesla. But Vernon
| Unsworth was worse in the whole incident. He started the whole
| argument. Elon was asked for help. He tried to help. Vernon
| threw his toys out of the cot. Elon responded like a child.
| Vernon sued and got laughed out of court.
|
| There's a lot of reasons to dislike Elon. The 'pedo guy' thing
| isn't one of them.
| filoleg wrote:
| To add details, Elon's sub prototype seemed fine, and his
| team worked with Thai authorities to evaluate its use to
| resolve the incident. It was deemed they didn't have enough
| time (given the constraints) to actually finish it, and
| diving was a more practical option given the entirety of the
| situation.
|
| Thai authorities told Elon as such, boys in the cave were
| already saved by the time he brought over the sub, and
| everything was fine.
|
| Then that one specific diver comes out of nowhere and tweets
| that it was all just a PR stunt and that Elon could "shove
| that sub up where it hurts". While Elon's response was an
| immature retort, it is a bit disingenuous how people seem to
| imply that he lashed out at the diver out of nowhere with
| that insult just because his sub wasnt used for the incident.
| That wasn't an issue at all, and he took the rejection from
| Thai authorities just fine. It was one of the divers that
| decided to throw this random insult at him, and Elon's retort
| (no matter how appropriate or inappropriate it was) was just
| a "one-up" response. Immature and inappropriate response,
| sure. But let's not act as if he decided to lash out on some
| innocent guy out of nowhere.
|
| Direct quote[0]: "Just as I didn't literally mean he was a
| pedophile, I'm sure he didn't literally mean shoving a sub up
| my a--".
|
| 0. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-
| international/elon-...
| manmal wrote:
| I have similar feelings as you do about Elon, and take anything
| he says with a grain of salt. But, he's in some (not all!)
| aspects the world's most successful company leader, and he got
| there with exactly this behavior. Evolutionary pressures in our
| society and markets seem to favor this behavior (also keeping
| in mind the last US president).
| Bud wrote:
| No, he didn't "get there" with this behavior. Elon's unstable
| erratic mini-Trump phase is relatively recent. Tesla and
| SpaceX were well-established on their current paths well
| before then.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Musk is the best, or at least among the best, marketers
| currently alive. That's it. Let's not make more out of this
| than it is.
| manmal wrote:
| I agree, and Elon seems to know - he closed Tesla's PR
| department a while back to (re)gain full message control.
|
| That's a pretty big deal though, since businesses usually
| run on marketing, and not on raw engineering prowess.
| Without great marketing, you can't even attract great
| engineers.
|
| Some people argue that the Nazis were as successful as they
| were due to propaganda (my final thesis at school was about
| Goebbels) - a sibling of marketing. Marketing rules the
| world.
| basisword wrote:
| >> Evolutionary pressures in our society and markets seem to
| favor this behavior (also keeping in mind the last US
| president).
|
| Trump was the first president since the 80's/early 90's not
| to get a second term. Acting like an asshole only gets you so
| far maybe until people grow tired of it.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Bring an a*hole got T his first term, being an idiot lost
| him his second. And, I'd argue, all the terms until his
| death after the second one.
|
| Putin is another example. Being a ruthless, smart sociopath
| got him all his power, being an idiot once lost him almost
| everything.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| What has Putin lost?
| hef19898 wrote:
| His influence on Western politics? A big chunk of the
| Russian economy? Finnland joining NATO? His ability to
| divide NATO countries? That list is quite long.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I'm not sure he had any of those to lose (nor that, eg,
| Finland joining NATO is assured) -- except the economy
| one, where the ruble is faring better than the dollar.
|
| The ruble currently trades stronger against the US dollar
| than September 2021.
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/RUB=X/
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The situation is still in progress, but if Russia can get
| out of this mess with just loss of Donbass, Crimea and
| the Black Sea Fleet, they would have to gratulate
| themselves for unexpected salvation. That would be akin
| to the Russo-Japanese war, where their diplomats were
| able pull off a much more reasonable peace than one would
| expect from the actual war result.
|
| The worst case scenario is a civil war like the one that
| followed their military collapse in WWI. Only with nukes
| in the mix. Yuck.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| What makes you think that is the likely outcome?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The attrition of Russian military equipment is very high
| and they are in no position to replenish it fast enough.
|
| At the same time, the Ukrainians are receiving enormous
| amounts of high tech equipment from a coalition of states
| that, taken together, is about 30 times as rich as Russia
| and much more technologically capable.
|
| The Russians already had to abandon their Kiev push and
| now are retreating from the Kharkiv region, unable to
| take a city located mere 25 miles from their own border
| and next to the major Russian military hub of Belgorod.
|
| Three or four months of further attrition warfare like
| that and they will have nothing left to deploy into
| battle.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| And you aren't concerned about Ukrainian troop losses or
| equipment losses?
|
| Nor the unrest in the US about spending $50B+ in foreign
| aid while (literally) letting US babies starve?
|
| Nor the inflation and supply shortages caused by lack of
| Ukrainian and Russia supplies to the West/abroad?
|
| Nor our allies turning against us -- eg, Saudi Arabia and
| Mexico challenging US foreign policy or the massive
| decrease in support between votes in the UN?
|
| And you believe that Ukraine and it's backers can sustain
| another 3-4 months of this combat? -- and then muster the
| forces to expel Russia from Donbas and Crimea?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The Ukrainians will definitely take some losses, but
| nations defending themselves from an attack have higher
| motivation to bear them. Plus, the worst danger for
| Ukraine - indiscriminate shelling of cities such as Kyiv
| and Kharkhiv, where a lot of civilians live - has receded
| with the failure of both Russian offensives. Russia does
| not have enough missiles to turn entire metropolitan
| areas into rubble, and conventional artillery can only
| shoot so far.
|
| Americans usually do not riot over money spent on the
| armed forces, otherwise the Iraq and Afghanistan
| campaigns would have led to a country collapse back home
| - both were an order of magnitude more expensive. I would
| even say that Americans are, of all the Western nations,
| the most complacent about high military spending.
|
| Inflation and supply shortages are a real thing, yes.
| Definitely worrisome. But if Russia can be knocked down
| from their imperial madness for some decades, I'll buy
| it. Things look a lot different from behind the former
| Iron Curtain, where I am from; being under Russian yoke
| for decades will make you say "Never Again". Of all the
| tyrannies of Central Europe, only the Nazis were worse
| than the rule of the Kremlin.
|
| I do not particularly care about Saudi Arabia (IMHO it is
| not our ally, but a major source of terrorism and
| extremism, exporting Wahhabist and Salafist ideology by
| the truckload) nor Mexico. (What reason would Mexico even
| have to join any pro-Russian coalition?) UN is generally
| a corrupt sham where the most useless diplomats and
| politicians of the world are disposed of.
|
| Yes, I think that both Ukraine and its backers are by now
| invested enough that they will persist until they break
| the capability of Russia to engage in war. European land
| wars are like that and always have been. Americans may
| view things differently, because their wars are usually
| fought abroad. For Europe, war is an unpleasant, but
| historically familiar phenomenon, and countries generally
| only surrender if they really cannot fight anymore.
|
| Which is the state I expect Russia to reach sooner. Their
| logistics are abysmal, their industry isn't in a state to
| support such attrition, and there isn't a single
| industrially developed country on Earth willing to throw
| material support behind them. They can get Eritrea to
| vote with them in the UN, but Eritrea won't supply them
| with tanks and planes.
|
| And the only major power that was their hope, China, does
| not look willing to shackle itself to the corpse of a
| dying empire.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Huh, I see many of those points as the opposite.
|
| I guess we'll have to see in a few months.
|
| I appreciate the detailed answers!
| pyb wrote:
| As Benedict Evans said, Elon breaks our mental model of
| productive people because he is a bullshitter who delivers.
| andrepd wrote:
| Delivers? Hardly. Autonomous driving? Hyperloop? The tunnel
| thing?
| sidibe wrote:
| He delivers a lot of announcements for future projects.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| You can buy a Tesla, a Starlink connection, or a launch
| of your satellite on Falcon 9 if you need it and have
| enough money. These are real, existing, widely used
| products.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And you could buy a luxury car before Tesla, and you can
| choose your lixury EV from all konds of brands now.
| Satelite internet existed before, ground based fibre
| usually is the better solution in most cases, there is a
| reason satelite communication is expensive when done by
| everyone else. And the Russians, Ariane,... happily sold
| launches to anyone before SpaceX.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| True, true, true, and yet not the entire story, because
| if all the previous products were better than those ones,
| those would have failed. There is a lot of automotive or
| space companies that have gone bankrupt and no one even
| remembers them anymore.
|
| Innovation does not mean only "coming up with something
| never yet seen". This is rare. Innovation also means
| making things more streamlined, efficient, more widely
| available, more capable.
|
| Starlink is a huge boon in places like Mariupol right
| now. Its capability matters, even though a random person
| from London can get cheaper service by fibre.
| sidibe wrote:
| You can also for many years now preorder Cybertruck and
| Roadster which are just around the corner or pay $12k to
| turn your car into a robotaxi very soon I swear. How many
| years have they been about to use dojo? There's also just
| plain embarrassing stuff like Boring Company and that
| half thought out robot idea that he announced before
| they'd even started looking into it. He does have a few
| hits but I feel like recently he's just throwing stuff
| out there with no follow through at all just to keep up
| his image
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This is actually a good argument, much better than the
| visceral hate shown in some other comments.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I don't get the irrational hate or the irrational love.
| He's a flawed, perhaps deeply flawed, billionaire who has
| been involved in some cool things, some not so cool but
| profitable things and some flops.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Oh, come on. Zip2, PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX.
|
| I mean, I don't think he's Tony Stark either, but stop
| cherry picking.
| anonymousab wrote:
| That's the point though. He is very far from perfect and
| has as much of a record for highly ambitious projects
| failing altogether as he does for them succeeding. On the
| positive side, his ratio of successes to failures
| probably beats out most people, and his failures probably
| haven't done too much societal harm (especially compared
| to the good done by his successes).
|
| But it's still not a good idea to treat any of his
| announcements or ideas as anything near a sure thing. His
| bullshitting still has a fairly high chance of turning
| out as bullshit.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| But this could be said of any successful person:
|
| "Steve Jobs delivers? Ha! The Lisa, Apple III, Pixar
| Computer, Next Computer. Checkmate!"
| squidbeak wrote:
| I'm not immediately clear why the guy shouldn't have
| personal moonshot projects, pursued alongside more
| conventionally realistic ideas?
| corobo wrote:
| Unpredictable rewards create obsession, it all tracks. He'd
| probably be less popular if he actually delivered 100%
|
| More background if you've not come across intermittent
| reinforcement
|
| https://www.nirandfar.com/want-to-hook-your-users-drive-
| them...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| As of today, some Ukrainians are alive (and some Russians
| dead) because of Starlink. Not a small feat, to
| substantially influence the progress of a major war between
| European powers. Few businesses aside from manufacturers of
| weapons can claim something like that.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Cheap space launches, fast satellite internet and arguably
| the car company that made EVs a commodity. He also invested
| a lot of money in the things you mentioned and, as far as
| I'm aware, none of those is canceled.
|
| He promises a lot, but to say he didn't also achieve a lot
| would be lying.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I agree woth Tesla, it accelerated the EV market by a
| couple of years. Without a model considerably cheaper
| than 30k USD so Tesla is far from being a commodity.
|
| Not sure how much cheaper SpaceX launches are for
| comparable payloads and orbits. I'd suspect they are,
| with e.g. Ariane developed for other thongs than LEO
| launches. As SpaceX isn't public wr don't have any
| reliable numbers. Based on some old leaked material, it
| is less than sure whether or not SpaceX is coonsiderably
| cheaper than the competition. Regardless, SpaceX is
| impressive.
|
| If Starlink is actually sustainable and profitable has to
| be seen, it could as well just be a way to push SpaceX
| profitabiliy further down the road through a Starlink
| IPO. Now way to tell either way.
| Bud wrote:
| You're "not sure" how much cheaper SpaceX launches are
| because you clearly and obviously didn't take 10 seconds
| to research before running your mouth. That info is
| readily available.
|
| You're also understating Tesla's significance. No
| surprise, I guess.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Ariane 5 launches are getting close enough to SpaceX in
| some markets, and Ariane Space is much more open about
| actual numbers and finacials. Agreed so, these figures
| are readily available.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > Not sure how much cheaper SpaceX launches are for
| comparable payloads and orbits. I'd suspect they are,
| with e.g. Ariane developed for other thongs than LEO
| launches.
|
| The direct competitor to SpaceX is the Space Launch
| System [0], with a cost of over two billion per launch.
| SpaceX charges below 100M$ [1] (and has cheaper options
| available [2]) and you can actually buy it right now
| (EDIT: although it's true that Ariane is in the same
| ballpark).
|
| > If Starlink is actually sustainable and profitable has
| to be seen, it could as well just be a way to push SpaceX
| profitabiliy further down the road through a Starlink
| IPO. Now way to tell either way.
|
| Whether a business can survive in the long term is never
| 100%. Still, you, as an average consumer, can order a
| satellite dish and get fast and mostly reliable internet
| for a reasonable-ish price right now. I'd say that checks
| as delivered.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System
|
| [1]
| https://www.spacex.com/media/Capabilities&Services.pdf
|
| [2] https://www.spacex.com/rideshare/
| hef19898 wrote:
| https://www.seradata.com/arianespace-lowers-
| ariane-5-launch-...
|
| You forgot Ariane Space. And the 100 million ballpark
| numbet is for Ariane 5, a rocket initially developed for
| a European shuttle program and not commercial, cheap
| satelite launches.
|
| Edit: Starlonk is cheaper than alternative satelite
| provoders. Whether or not this is selling dollars for
| cents is the question, one that cannot be answered by
| Starlonk's existence itself.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| SLS is a new rocket and you are comparing its development
| cost to the launch cost of a SpaceX rocket without its
| R&D cost.
|
| Ariane V, delta, and soyuz launches are all cheaper per
| kilogram than SpaceX.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > SLS is a new rocket and you are comparing its
| development cost to the launch cost of a SpaceX rocket
| without its R&D cost.
|
| Look on Wikipedia, the sideboard quotes cost per launch
| as:
|
| > Over US$2 billion excluding development (estimate)
|
| I'm not aware of the pricing of Soyuz and Ariane V,
| though.
| hef19898 wrote:
| >> I'm not aware of the pricing of Soyuz and Ariane V,
| though.
|
| Both of which are much more SpaceX alternatives than SLS.
| andrepd wrote:
| SpaceX isn't that much cheaper than Ariane. Satellite
| internet existed before Starlink. Electric cars existed
| before Tesla (of course) and many manufacturers offer
| more affordable EVs.
| squidbeak wrote:
| But it is cheaper?
| smt88 wrote:
| He delivers very little of what he promises.
|
| Most of his ideas aren't even something anyone should
| deliver. Hyperloop and Boring Company are terrible ideas.
|
| Meanwhile everything else is over-promise/under-deliver.
| fourseventy wrote:
| Tesla and spaceX are under-deliver? You are out of your
| mind.
| ben_w wrote:
| If I measured by the standards I have for myself, then I
| would agree he overpromises and underdelivers.
|
| Compared to the marketing bluster I see from the old
| aerospace companies and greenwashing from older car
| companies, however, he's a spectacular breath of fresh air
| with his honesty, openness, and willingness to say things
| have a less than 100% chance of success.
|
| And I say that despite agreeing with you about Hyperloop
| and TBC.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > he has a significant history of being indecisive and
| disorderly.
|
| Think of it as simulated annealing [1].
|
| Usually finds pretty decent extrema
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing
| nabla9 wrote:
| He seems to know his limits in the public. He throws low blows
| to US politicians, but if he has nothing but good to say about
| China or Xi Jinping he stays silent. He likes to punch down.
| That's a behavior Twitter and his supporters rewards. He is the
| second most effective Twitter user after Trump. It's indecent
| and disgusting behavior but it works.
|
| His business process is to try many things and fail a lot,
| nothing wrong with that as long as some of them succeed. He
| jumps into very hard challenges, then fails or iterates until
| there is success. His full automation of of Tesla factories
| with robots attempt cost Tesla several years, but Tesla is
| still success.
|
| His marketing is full of bullshit. He he has at least 4
| vaporware announcements for each real product. For example,
| that dancing robot man and self-driving cars "Next Year" every
| year since 2014.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Do you realize that the Russians are literally threatening
| him openly because of the Ukrainian Starlink operation? The
| Kremlin mob has a lot of assassinations behind it, so their
| threat is absolutely credible, not a random brain fart on the
| Internet.
| nabla9 wrote:
| >The Kremlin mob has a lot of assassinations behind it,
|
| Only against former Russians or Russians. Russia throws
| lots of empty threats, but has not threatened Musk
| personally.
|
| Angering Xi and China can affect his business, so he shuts
| up like a good boy.
| philistine wrote:
| Yeah, the supposed free speech absolutist, cowtowing to
| Communists. Who Elon doesn't talk about is more
| interesting than the punching down he always does.
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| While you've described his behaviour quite accurately, I don't
| believe he's a fool. This could of course be due to the
| marketing buzz and fanboyism around him which I might have
| imbibed myself but I don't believe he's a fool.
|
| Squaring his public behaviour with his presumed intelligence
| suggests that he's doing all this for some specific purpose.
| Either it's marketing to a certain contingent that he's
| interested in selling to. Perhaps it's brand building to help
| hiring or something else for one of his companies. His movie
| cameos, shitposts etc. all seem to be calculated to create a
| connection between him and a younger demographic. Or maybe, I'm
| over intellectualising and he's just drunk on his own image or
| power. Can't really say.
|
| I don't particularly "like" the guy. But then again, I make it
| a point to try not to have an emotional opinion about any
| public figure. The default position is "ignore" and that's
| where I'm still at.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> if he was always like that or grew into it at one point._
|
| He went from being wealthy growing up, to being very rich after
| Paypal, to being an extremely rich billionaire, to being the
| most richest person in the world (maybe ever?). And now a
| single utterance of his can shape markets or otherwise
| influence millions of people.
|
| I think it would be difficult to go through the above and not
| come out the other end without it impacting your behaviors &
| world view. At a minimum, before he was this wealthy &
| influential he didn't have as much margin for error. A single
| bad decision might have tanked Tesla or SpaceX when they were
| getting started. It would have required Musk to be a lot more
| careful & deliberate. He also had to care a bit more (or at
| least pretend to care) about other people's thoughts/ideas etc.
| These days he can lose $1B in a twitter acquisition breakup fee
| and it barely matters. And he has enough "f*ck off" money (the
| amount required to tell someone to "f*ck off" with no
| significant consequences) to tell anyone to f*ck off. The need
| to adhere to social niceties is greatly reduced.
|
| This is all on top of the fact that the average person's
| behavior is usually going to change at least a little as they
| get older.
|
| All of which is to say that I think there's an excellent chance
| that he's grown into his current personality. If so, I think
| it's very possible that it's a mixture: He grew into where he
| is now, but the seeds were always there & his track in life has
| amplified or caused those seeds to take hold.
| croes wrote:
| Richest person ever? Not even close
| https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/people/954992/who-is-the-
| rich...
| ineedasername wrote:
| It's hard to compare people who lived under vastly
| different economic systems. I would also put people who
| were the leaders of their country into a different
| category: the line between what they own and what is part
| of the nation's wealth is very blurry. I think even for
| more recent private individuals like the Carnegies it's a
| little more complicated than taking assets multiplied by
| inflation rates. Spending power also comes into it, and you
| could use another measure like net worth as a % of GDP.
|
| Musk may still fall short in those ways, which is why I
| made the "ever" a question. Poking around the internet a
| bit more-- your link & others-- it seems pretty likely.
| Then again I'm not sure there can really be a meaningful
| difference in wealth between anyone who was worth the
| equivalent of > $100B in todays money, however it's
| calculated. (Possibly you'd distinguish between money on
| paper vs. more tangible assets. Or some method of
| distinguishing Musk's wealth, a lot of which seems based on
| the speculative future value of Tesla than based in its
| current operations)
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Yes, that article is doing some really weird comparisons.
| JD Rockfeller's net worth was no higher than $24B in
| modern inflation-adjusted dollars, but the article claims
| more than 10x that figure.
| carlivar wrote:
| His bad decision (to migrate to Windows) at PayPal caused an
| engineering mutiny and led to the board firing him as CEO. So
| I think he has always been stubborn and impulsive.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I'd have to know more about it. Did he have any reason for
| moving to windows? If there was a sound business case then
| I wouldn't call it impulsive. Even if it was impulsive, I
| don't think it falls into the same category as what we see
| from him today.
| carlivar wrote:
| My opinion is that he had no GOOD reason. He just knew
| the Windows dev stack and has a giant ego. But, I'm
| probably biased since he reminds me of managers/PMs I've
| worked with in my career that have weak opinions strongly
| held which affect me.
|
| I think it's similar to how he has banned use of Kanban
| or other Toyota Production System principles at Tesla
| (which is the easy explanation for their poor build
| quality, see: U.S. car manufacturing 1970's).
| hef19898 wrote:
| Which is ironic, Tesla is running one of Toyotas former
| top tier factories outside of Japan. A joint venture with
| GM at that.
| fartcannon wrote:
| That's a long way to says he's a bit of a dick.
| fartcannon wrote:
| I think he's fun, to be honest. Better than the other
| billionaires who made their money making everything worse.
| staunch wrote:
| Every person is a bit of a dick in one way or another. And
| people who have done high impact things in their lives will
| have greater opportunity to have made mistakes, no matter
| how good, ethical, or smart they are.
|
| Most elite celebrities, politicians, and businesspeople
| simply put a lot of effort into pretending to be perfect,
| mostly out of vanity. They lie, hide, avoid all
| controversy, and employ teams of PR people to craft their
| public image using publicity stunts, bribery, philanthropy
| and all kinds of tricks that have been proven to work for
| thousands of years.
|
| If Elon Musk followed the elite PR playbook, a lot more
| people would like him, probably a lot of the haters in this
| thread. Which says more about them than him.
|
| Elon Musk offers a glimpse of what very
| powerful/successful, and basically good, people are often
| really like.
|
| I'd argue that:
|
| 1. Anyone who completely denigrates and dismisses Elon Musk
| is a blind hater.
|
| 2. Anyone who claims he's without flaws is a fanboy with
| rose colored glasses on.
|
| 3. And only people who agree with his own assessment of
| himself, that he's a "mixed bag", are assessing him clearly
| and with intellectual honesty.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Exactly. Nobody is perfect and everybody has some deep
| dark skeletons in their closet. The mistake I think
| society makes is expecting celebrities / wealthy to be
| any different.
|
| Do they have a responsibility to set a positive example?
| Absolutely. Is that always achievable? Turns out probably
| not.
|
| I think society needs to learn to forgive. We got really
| good at canceling people, but we haven't got very good at
| forgiveness. In the internet age where your entire life
| can be saved on the internet, it is important to realize
| people change, everybody makes mistakes (sometimes even
| very stupid ones) and people aren't perfect.
|
| I don't know... I guess they say you should never meet
| your heroes. I think now that we can peek behind the
| curtain and often see the "actual person" we have to come
| to terms with the fact that under all the fancy dress and
| act, even the "highest" in society are ultimately the
| same flawed, imperfect humans as the rest of us.
|
| None of us really know what the fuck we are doing... we
| are all making it up as we go along. Even the most
| successful amongst us.
| macintux wrote:
| I'm fine with forgiving most things, but not in the
| absence of any attempt at apology and recompense.
|
| The "pedo guy" accusation was beyond the pale and, so far
| as I remember, Musk doubled down on it vs making any
| sincere attempt at an apology.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Yeah. I guess what I didn't want to imply is we can't be
| upset with their behavior. It's okay to take serious
| issues with said behavior. It's even okay to call out bad
| behavior
|
| And yeah... the pedo guy thing was completely uncalled
| for.
| caycep wrote:
| Granted, a friend of mine who met him at a party around
| 2011 or 2012 in SF, her opinion of him was a "total dick"
| mekoka wrote:
| Your one liner totally fails to embody what was said.
| jyounker wrote:
| While failing to provide a historical account, it summed
| up the result quite concisely.
| mekoka wrote:
| If you go back to the question that was being answered,
| you'll notice that the historical account _was_ the
| point.
|
| > if he was always like that or grew into it at one
| point.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Yeah, no I agree with you. I would delete it if I could
| but the time has past. I guess I'm kind of a dick, too.
| garbanz0 wrote:
| I like Kara Swisher's take on Musk:
|
| "He's obviously a visionary. I prefer dealing with him to
| others because he gives you genuine answers. He will call
| you back. He will have a beef with you when others run away
| because they're cowardly. If he disagrees, he'll be in your
| face, but at least he's in your face. I'm perfectly fine
| with that. In a world where everybody's making a lot of
| silly stuff, he's not. Cars, rockets, solar, these are
| important things. He can't be as silly or as fascist as
| people make him out to be. Maybe he does act like a stupid
| tech bro sometimes, but maybe he's a little more complex
| than that? Thomas Edison was not a nice man. Many inventors
| were very difficult, problematic people -- Steve Jobs, for
| example. The times we live in are so reductive that it's
| really hard to be able to get our minds around a truly
| complex human being. And that's what he is."
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/04/kara-swisher-on-
| elon...
| _jal wrote:
| He's obviously a finance guy.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| This is like reading what the common opinion about
| Leonardo Di Caprio or Jack Nicholson is around Hollywood.
|
| Or John Von-Neumann in Los Alamos and Princeton
|
| At the end of the day you have to deliver. Had Musk
| delivered even 1/100th of the quality of life that he
| promised to the population nobody would say anything
| about his flawed character.
|
| All he created was a financial bubble that he inflated to
| enrich himself for . work that he'll never actually
| deliver.
| memish wrote:
| It's like all the jealous engineers who constantly try to
| tear down Linus.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| In addition to what other users have mentioned, I think
| the impact of the Starlink system in Ukraine is an
| example of where a Musk project has delivered significant
| value, and delivered that to people who are not in the
| upper stratas of western wealth. Starlink provided a
| swap-in alternative to Ukraine's disabled SATCOM
| infrastructure, realtime communications are a critical
| tool in this war.
|
| As a side note, I would suggest reviewing HN's community
| guidelines regarding discussion of controversial issues
| and use of throwaway accounts. Respecting these
| guidelines would help your comments remain visible,
| rather than getting downvoted grey.[0]
|
| > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive,
| not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
|
| > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of
| other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us
| something.
|
| > Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information,
| but *please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a
| community--users should have an identity that others can
| relate to.*
|
| WRT the last point, maybe you just found HN this week and
| this is your brand-new community identity, but your
| account name and posting activity doesn't give that
| impression.
|
| [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| ericmay wrote:
| > All he created was a financial bubble that he inflated
| to enrich himself for . work that he'll never actually
| deliver.
|
| I literally drive a Tesla. I've watched SpaceX land
| reusable rockets and send people to the International
| Space Station. What you are saying here is factually
| incorrect and I'm really losing patience for this very
| obvious trolling and flame-baiting.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > I literally drive a Tesla
|
| Congrats for being rich I guess? Your car brand is still
| as rare as Porsches, if you account for Europe it's still
| more rare on the road compared to Porsches.
|
| Musk has been at the helm of Tesla since 2002. In FY21
| Tesla accounted for 1% of vehicles sold globally. 1% in
| 20 years
|
| I reapeat. 1% in 20 years. Hyper-growth for me (the stock
| market) , snail growth for thee (the American/global
| consumer)
| garbanz0 wrote:
| How many car startups in the last 50 years have made half
| as many cars as Tesla? Cars are an extremely competitive
| space. In my life in the last few years, Musk has gone
| from just a name on the internet to maker of a car I see
| on the streets at least once per day. That kind of
| progress is frankly undeniable. The same can be said of
| SpaceX - love Elon or hate him, there's no other company
| on earth doing what SpaceX does in the volume it does. I
| roll my eyes a lot at Musk on i.e. his Twitter takes, but
| I find the current zeitgeist of blind hate against him to
| be really reductive and boring. I feel like it's possible
| to be worried about his power, disagree with his
| politics, but also be impressed at the same time.
| kipchak wrote:
| For comparison in the US tesla had about a 2% market
| share in 2021, with Mazda at 2.3% and BMW group at 2.4%,
| and Toyota, the largest, at 15.5%, and Porsche at
| 0.46%.[2]
|
| [1]https://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-analysis-2021/
| [2]https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/porsche-us-sales-
| figures/
| Already__Taken wrote:
| Porche sold 14k(apparently record year) to Telsas 34k in
| the uk for 2021 alone.
|
| It's absolutely not that rare.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| The entire history of this user's 3 day old green account
| is made up of this behavior. It's one thing for people to
| do this on HN, but to skirt the community conduct
| expectations by using a throwaway account is frankly
| frustrating to witness.
| not-my-account wrote:
| Are you sure of this? Paypal truely was grand. Many
| people love their Teslas, and there is a (very strong,
| IMO) argument to be made that Tesla is the reason that
| the auto industry is transitioning, at least in part, to
| electric cars. Both of these seem like they are
| increasing the quality of life of the population.
|
| Then comes SpaceX, doing engineering that NASA seems
| either incapable of or uninterested in (no specific blame
| on NASA, there is no substantial government push for
| progress in this area). OK, maybe you and I have not
| directly benefited from SpaceX yet, but do not discount
| the accruing benefit of cheap transport to space.
|
| There are much, much, much easier ways to make money than
| to make an electric car company and a space company. Your
| argument is a little too cynical.
| hef19898 wrote:
| SpaceX built on existing engineering, and by some
| accounts isn't that much cheaper than Ariane 5 launches.
| It is bloody impressive so because it is a new company.
| Selling SpaceX as the saviours of space exploration and
| rocketry is a bit much so. It hirts to have Musks
| business, and other, attics overshadow that success.
| mlindner wrote:
| > All he created was a financial bubble that he inflated
| to enrich himself for . work that he'll never actually
| deliver.
|
| He's already delivered, one hundred times over.
| Continuously moving the goal posts of what you're
| criticizing doesn't suddenly make it a lack of delivery.
| michaelbrave wrote:
| Comparing him to Edison is appropriate I think, in both
| the good and bad ways that represents. I've also heard
| him compared with William C. Durant (Of GM circa 1910)
| which I think is also an appropriate comparison in both
| good and bad ways.
| meetups323 wrote:
| Penelope Scott's "Rat" [1] touches on this in a way I
| adore - So fuck your tunnels, fuck your
| cars, fuck your rockets, fuck your cars again You
| promised you'd be Tesla, but you're just another Edison
|
| Been listening to this song on repeat as my FAANG exit
| date approaches.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpxT9TLGoLI
| ineedasername wrote:
| _> Edison_
|
| I agree, and think of him in much the same was as I think
| of Edison. It's strange how polarizing a figure Musk is.
| It seems like a majority of people (or maybe a vocal
| minority) either want to attribute every single thing to
| his own personal genius, no help from others or good
| fortune. While others view everything he's accomplished
| as nothing more than luck born out on the backs of other
| people's labor. I don't know where the balance lies
| between those two extremes but I doubt that either one is
| very accurate.
| corrral wrote:
| > Many inventors were very difficult, problematic people
|
| Musk's not much of an inventor, though. Certainly, that's
| not why he's rich.
|
| Part of the criticism of Musk is that the popular view of
| him is totally out of whack with what you get if you just
| look at what he does, and has done. He's not Tony Stark.
| nsrose7224 wrote:
| I think we need to distinguish between inventor
| (literally building new things themselves) vs executor
| (making stuff happen that would not have happened
| otherwise, or least not as quickly).
|
| I think Elon falls much more into the second category,
| which I agree is not really like Tony Stark, but I think
| still provides a ton of value to society. I think there's
| a real argument to be made that he is the reason we have
| dropped cost per pound of payload to orbit by over half
| with reusable rockets, even if he himself didn't invent
| the functionality.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Third category: Owner. Inventors invent things. Executors
| help them do so. Owners, the Edisons of the world, are
| the people with the property interest in the invention.
| They are the ones who get to deploy and use inventions
| within their business.
| corrral wrote:
| Oh, he deserves plenty of credit. He seems to be quite
| good at, at least, certain aspects of running a business,
| and happens to be interested in some fun and/or useful
| things, which is nice.
|
| But he's not a super-genius, and given how flighty he can
| be, when he announces various Grand Visions, it's wise to
| take a wait-and-see approach. His big mouth probably
| ought to have landed him in quite a bit of legal trouble,
| too, except that it's so much harder for the justice
| system to deal with rich people than poor people.
|
| It's not that he's uniquely awful among successful
| business dudes, since much of the above is true about
| many of them--his PR and superfans are just... grating.
| [deleted]
| slg wrote:
| Which is why the Steve Jobs analogy might work better
| than Edison.
| corrral wrote:
| Henry Ford seems an apt comparison. "Industrialist and
| business magnate", from Wikipedia's Henry Ford article,
| seems to pretty much cover it. Though with less of a
| focus on making products affordable for the normal person
| (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a difference
| in priorities).
|
| That still makes him a pretty big deal, of course.
| slg wrote:
| Yeah, Musk, Ford, Jobs, and Edison are all a big deal
| regardless of their role in actually inventing
| technology. I think Jobs is the most appropriate analog
| because he also has a public perception as being the
| person who created the tech which isn't really accurate.
| I'm not sure Ford had that reputation and Edison was more
| hands on.
|
| It is also probably worth nothing that they all had
| another trait in common. They were all notorious assholes
| for various reasons.
| corrral wrote:
| Yeah, sorry, should have included that in my other post,
| but I do agree that Jobs is a decent analog, too. Similar
| public profile, sort-of similar reputation, though Jobs
| wasn't as prone to strident, public bullshitting.
| abirch wrote:
| Edison wasn't necessarily an inventor either.
|
| That said if you're a patron of inventors then you are an
| inventor. If you can manage the pain of failing and
| failing and failing, then in my book you're creative and
| a co-inventor.
| dekhn wrote:
| Is he really a visionary? Because from what I can tell,
| he has roughly the same background reading science
| fiction and making extrapolations from current science to
| the future, and has made similar conclusions about the
| risks of not multi-homing humanity, and the challenge of
| building intelligent non-humans. That doesn't make him a
| visionary.
|
| My conclusion instead is that Elon Musk is Chaos Titan;
| like the netflix chaos monkey, but basically just going
| around causing chaos by hyping up twitter and then
| causing massive swings with individual tweets.
| [deleted]
| ericmay wrote:
| I think that's a good question.
|
| I don't mind Musk much either way and while I'm annoyed
| when he wants to let Trump back on Twitter after what I
| _strongly_ believe was an attempt at a coup d 'etat, or
| him removing, say, the mobile charger in new Teslas I
| still like the products that his companies make and when
| he sits down and does an interview he says things that
| resonate with me.
|
| So what makes someone a visionary? I mean I sit down and
| have a vision where Earth is a multi-planetary species,
| we build an outpost on the Moon within the next few
| years, and then Mars, and then mine asteroids. But is
| that all it takes? If so I think the word visionary is
| often either misapplied or is quite diluted. But if we
| take into account the need to _execute_ on such visions,
| naturally, calling Musk a visionary makes more sense.
| Maybe we just don 't have a great word (or one isn't
| immediately coming to mind) for someone who says "we
| should go to Mars, and I'm going to participate/lead in
| the creation of the entity that will do that".
| memish wrote:
| John Carmack's take: "Elon is definitely an engineer. He
| is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and
| Tesla. He doesn't write code or do CAD today, but he is
| perfectly capable of doing so."
|
| Kevin Watson's take, who developed the avionics for
| Falcon 9 and Dragon and previously managed the Advanced
| Computer Systems and Technologies Group within the
| Autonomous Systems Division at NASA's Jet Propulsion
| laboratory:
|
| "Elon is brilliant. He's involved in just about
| everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a
| question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut
| reaction.
|
| He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of
| physics. One thing he understands really well is the
| physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody
| else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy.
|
| He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and
| whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at
| the same time and solve all these equations in real time.
| It's amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has
| accumulated over the years."
|
| Garrett Reisman, engineer and former NASA astronaut:
|
| "What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his
| knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart
| people but they're usually super super smart on one thing
| and he's able to have conversations with our top
| engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects
| of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing
| engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric
| welding process for some crazy alloy and he'll just go
| back and forth and his ability to do that across the
| different technologies that go into rockets cars and
| everything else he does."
| mmastrac wrote:
| Sometimes going the long way around is what's necessary.
| pm90 wrote:
| not this time though
| ineedasername wrote:
| He's a divisive figure, and people who like him will tune
| out if someone doesn't like him, and people who don't like
| him will tune out when someone likes him.
|
| So, I tried to walk the line without using judgmental
| language. My own opinion is that he's a complicated figure.
| I can't come to a firm judgement on him because I don't
| know how much of what we see is truly him, how much of it
| is an act, and if it's truly him whether or not it's a
| representative small slice of him or not. I have a firm
| judgement on his his public _persona_ , which I think makes
| him look like an asshole (the pedo guy stuff alone clinches
| that) but even if that's an accurate picture of him as a
| whole I still admire what he has accomplished.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > I can't come to a firm judgement on him because I don't
| know how much of what we see is truly him
|
| I say all we can judge someone is what they do. It's
| perfectly fine to judge Musk on his public persona.
| Unless you want to try to divine secret reasons for his
| public actions, but even that is judging him based on his
| public persona.
|
| I'm not saying you need to naively believe what he says
| are his motivations. But his public persona is at least
| somewhat predictable.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Everybody is flawed at some level. Maybe when you get to
| a certain level of fame and/or wealth it just amplifies
| all the good and bad in you.
|
| I mean look at all the other "big names" in tech... Jeff
| Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs. These are highly flawed
| individuals.
|
| Hell look at the entertainment industry... so many of the
| most famous successful people turn out to be hugely
| flawed. Take Jonny Depp for example--that dude has some
| major issues. Or to a much greater extent Bill Cosby.
| Cosby transformed TV in so many different incredibly
| positive ways and look how it ended...
|
| Fame and wealth does some weird stuff to people.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Fame and wealth does some weird stuff to people.
|
| This is the crucial point. Power corrupts, a painful fact
| long established. Therefore, when the power and wealth of
| an individual grows, they deserve more scrutiny and
| criticism. You don't "give them a break because they're
| human". The self-preservation of society and freedom
| itself demands that we closely scrutinize the powerful.
| If you don't want to be scrutinized like that, then it's
| easy to avoid becoming a leader. It's a cliche, but with
| great power comes great responsibility, and Musk is still
| acting like a child half the time, egged on by a legion
| of equally childish fans.
| Y-bar wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure these two opposites should have the
| same weight. Being a decent human should be the default
| and just some minor steps into shitty behaviour should be
| enough to justify significant criticism of a person.
| Consider the following generalisation on a random
| someone's behaviour:
|
| Someone is sexist against 50% of the people the interact
| with? They are sexist.
|
| Someone is sexist against 20% of the people the interact
| with? Still sexist.
|
| That someone is sexist against 5% of the people the
| interact with? Still sexist.
|
| The person does not stop being
| sexist/shitty/$negative_trait just because they most of
| the time are not acting on it. They become nice when they
| stop altogether, or at least make clear effort to stop.
|
| So, back to Elon, considering his recent praise of
| work/life balance and slave-like conditions in China, I
| see no reason to believe his nice side should be
| considered equally or more worthy of praise than his
| negative side be considered for criticism.
| garbanz0 wrote:
| He is a complicated man and I think that's how history
| will look back on him. If he really does put people on
| Mars, I think that is about as big an impact on the
| history of the human race as one can have.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Something like sexism, racism, etc are in a different
| category than merely "shitty", I think.
|
| Putting Musk aside, I'd have to know a little more about
| what you mean by $negative_trait to agree or not.
| Everyone has negative traits, everyone is occasionally
| shitty. Frequency certainly matters, but assuming it's
| not very regular than maybe it comes down to what you
| said about "clear effort to stop". You have to be self
| aware enough to recognize it when it happens and work on
| doing better.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| To me this seems more like - with the stock market down Elon
| figures he can get a discount on Twitter and so will now try
| to renegotiate the price.
|
| If you were buying a house, and had already made an offer and
| put down 3% earnest money with your offer, but then realized
| you could probably get 30% off the purchase price by backing
| out and offering again - would you?
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Good point - A former colleague made an asking price offer
| on a house in 2007 that was rejected by the sellers. He
| bought the same house a year later from them for 70% of his
| original offer thanks to the Great Recession.
| mlindner wrote:
| > He went from being wealthy growing up
|
| He wasn't especially wealthy growing up, to be clear. Upper
| class yes, but no more "wealthy" than a successful silicon
| valley engineer's child.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I would generally consider upper class to be wealthy, of
| course it's not a very specific term, individual
| definitions are going to vary greatly. A successful SV
| engineer old enough to have kids can easily be worth a few
| $million. That seems wealthy to me, but it's a subjective
| measure. I guess you could survey a bunch of people to try
| & get consensus on it, and evaluate the benchmark from
| there.
| kaczordon wrote:
| Source that he was really wealthy growing up? People seem to
| say this all the time but he says he worked his way through
| college without any help from his dad:
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211071324518531072
| ineedasername wrote:
| You added the "really". Otherwise I don't bother posting
| sources for every single thing that is easy to find online.
|
| Elon disputes some accounts of his family's wealth, but
| also doesn't offer much else on the topic except that he
| arrived in Canada with little money and ended with student
| debt. This is not incompatible with growing up in a wealthy
| family. People peace-out from their family for all sorts of
| reasons, and Elon himself gives a great one when he said he
| didn't want to be a part of apartheid, and that his father
| was a terrible person. I know someone who did that because
| of a similar father issue: very wealthy family, and the
| person wanted no part of his father's help once he was old
| enough to leave home.
|
| By the father's own account they owned a plane worth about
| $300,000 in today's money. That alone-- enough to have a
| luxury good of that value-- is enough to put someone down
| as wealthy to me.
| zionic wrote:
| >He went from being wealthy growing up
|
| This most definitely is false. Elon grew up middle class at
| best.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Incorrect. Earlier on, his parents were well educated and
| had good jobs, and enough money that his father owned an
| airplane. This alone makes your "at best" remark highly
| inaccurate. At a minimum in Musk's early life he was very
| comfortably in the middle of the middle class, but I would
| class nearly any family with enough disposable income to
| have an airplane to be "wealthy". Your standards for this
| may vary, and I'm open to your definition of wealthy being
| much higher, but his family was far from poor.
|
| On top of that, his father has claimes he sold the plane
| for the equivalent of about $300,000 in today's money and
| used some of it to purchase shares in gemstone mine, which
| then went on to make them even wealthier. This isn't
| independently confirmed. His father may have exaggerated.
| However others have said his family also own the largest
| house in the area, which sounds wealthy to me.
|
| Elon has disputed some of this, but not offered details
| beyond merely disputing some of this. He said his parents
| have been supported financially for the last 20 years, but
| going back 20 years from when he made that statement would
| put it in the late 90's, so it is not incompatible with
| growing up wealthy even though he now supports his parents.
| Plenty of multi-millionaires would tell their parents,
| "Hey, if you don't want to you don't have to work anymore.
| I got this".
|
| Also none of this is incompatible with Elon's own account
| of arriving in Canada with little money & ending up with
| student debt. It's possible Elon exaggerated but for these
| purposes I'll take him at his word. Because by his own
| account Elon didn't like Apartheid. His father also has a
| reputation of being quite an asshole. It would be perfectly
| understandable for him to "peace out" and go his own way,
| and it wouldn't change the fact that growing up his family
| was wealthy. In fact I know someone who did pretty much the
| same thing: Their father was terrorized the family in fear
| & abuse, but was extremely successful with a very expensive
| first house, another vacation home, etc. His father wanted
| him to continue in his (professional) footsteps but he
| wanted none of it, joined the military for the free
| education and after getting out went on to become extremely
| wealthy himself.
| coinbasetwwa wrote:
| Most people who are into airplanes or boats scrounge by
| considerably to be able to afford one for leisure. Which
| is evident by the fact that he had to flip his hobby
| plane to fund a business purchase.
| ineedasername wrote:
| According to his father flipping the plane was only
| partly connected to funding the mine. He flipped the
| plane, and was only then offered the mine opportunity. He
| might have had ample funds for the mine regardless.
|
| Either way, scrounging by to purchase a $300,000 luxury
| good (today's $ for the sell price of the plane) still
| qualifies a person as wealthy in my book, especially when
| taken together with owning the largest home in their area
| & his father's real estate & consulting business. It
| still means you had at least $300,000 in disposable
| income. Just because you choose to spend all of your
| disposable income on something like that doesn't mean you
| aren't wealthy.
| rchaud wrote:
| A "middle class" South African with a Canadian passport in
| his back pocket acting as an escape hatch for when
| apartheid was close to collapsing.
| bthrn wrote:
| His dad was half owner of an emerald mine.
|
| From wikipedia:
|
| "The family was very wealthy in Elon's youth; Errol Musk
| once said, 'We had so much money at times we couldn't even
| close our safe.'"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Childhood_and_famil
| y
| BurningFrog wrote:
| It's well documented that Elon was quite poor as a
| student in Canada/US.
|
| He left South Africa at 17 with no money to speak of.
| He's estranged from his father for reasons no one talks
| about, which makes the father's possible wealth
| irrelevant.
|
| And yet this "apartheid emerald mine fortune" is such a
| good story that it will keep being "internet true"
| forever.
| clickok wrote:
| According to others, that story is severely embellished:
|
| https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-
| mus...
| ekianjo wrote:
| Wikipedia is not a reliable source for every info in the
| world. I hope people realize that. It's funny that some
| people blindly trust what some unknown party has written
| on the net on any kind of subject.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| We certainly don't and shouldn't blindly trust you, since
| all you're doing is attacking Wikipedia's reliability,
| instead of presenting any reliable facts or evidence or
| citations about the actual discussion topic himself, Elon
| Musk. Wikipedia is a hell of a lot more reliable than
| some random guy on the internet who doesn't have a point
| or any evidence, and has to resort to generically
| attacking Wikipedia instead.
|
| Attacking the very idea that it's even possible to know
| the truth is what you do when the truth isn't on your
| side.
| samtho wrote:
| Tertiary sources (e.g. encyclopedias) are inherently this
| way regardless of whether or not it is editable by nearly
| anyone. One of the strengths in Wikipedia is crowd
| sourcing and a strong editorial culture that, for
| example, enforces citing sources and giving unbiased
| takes, with mechanisms to mark problems with articles
| rather than deleting them. This ultimately leads to a
| degree of editorial transparency that is unmet by any
| other type of source of this kind.
| paisawalla wrote:
| Anyone who has tried to insert a true, but counter
| narrative, fact into a topical article know where the
| limits of your description are.
|
| For any popular topic, there are self-appointed watchdogs
| who will revert edits in bad faith and argue with you on
| the Talk page until you give up and go away. There aren't
| enough admins to adjudicate all disputes, so what you're
| reading on a controversial topic is often the product of
| the most stubborn arguers.
|
| That's how the sausage is made on WP.
| jlmorton wrote:
| When people start using abstract measures to describe
| something easily quantifiable, it's usually because
| they're dissembling.
|
| We have a pretty good idea what Errol's net worth is, and
| it's a couple million bucks.
|
| The emerald mine in question was purchased for the
| equivalent of $40,000.
| weakfish wrote:
| Couple million is still leagues above middle class
| jlmorton wrote:
| When we're discussing total net worth, a couple million
| dollars is decidedly middle class.
|
| In the US, there are 13.6 million households with a net
| worth over $1 million when excluding their primary
| residence, out of a total of 126 million households.
|
| Over 10% of households in the US, even when excluding the
| value of their home, have over a million dollars in
| assets.
| weakfish wrote:
| So 10% is middle class? Shouldn't it be 35+?
| memish wrote:
| Besides that, Elon didn't inherit that wealth. He moved
| to Canada with little money, worked blue collar jobs and
| had student debt. That's what he started with. At Zip2 he
| couldn't afford a second computer.
|
| People WANT to believe a mythology that Elon started off
| rich to feel better about not accomplishing anything with
| their own equally or more privileged life. People that
| started with little themselves don't have this level of
| cognitive dissonance and see it more as an immigrant
| success story and inspiration.
| jkestner wrote:
| He got a $28,000 loan from his father when starting Zip2.
|
| The biggest privilege is having your family's security
| net, even if you don't use it. Musk has also had luck,
| being in the right time and place for the dot-com boom.
| Unlike a lot of people who grew up privileged, he's been
| a hustler with great business instincts. Unlike a lot of
| hustlers with great business instincts, he grew up
| privileged.
| memish wrote:
| The loan came later and he was no more privileged than
| the average Canadian or American at the time. People who
| dismiss it as privilege are projecting envy, full stop.
| jkestner wrote:
| And what are people who feel the need to defend the
| world's richest person projecting?
|
| Could the average American in 1995 give a $28,000 loan to
| his kid? Median net worth was ~$100,000 in today's
| dollars. If 'privilege' has negative connotations for
| you, use 'luck' instead. I don't think there's any
| question that Musk made some of his own luck through hard
| work and intelligence, but we often observe the rich with
| survivorship bias because it would upset the social order
| if we stopped believing that hard work and intelligence
| are enough to become rich.
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| False, it was not when starting Zip2, it was a later
| funding round and the funding didn't depend on Errol's
| investment
|
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211064937004589056
| jkestner wrote:
| I looked for a source other than a tweet from Musk, who
| like many entrepreneurs is known to stretch the truth.
| Couldn't find a definitive source, but it's mentioned
| going as far back as the 90s according to Google, with
| not enough detail to say the exact timing but suggesting
| that it was crucial at the time. Of course, that's also a
| hallmark of startup stories.
| corobo wrote:
| > When he started Zip2 he couldn't afford a second
| computer
|
| What does this sentence mean, why'd he need a second
| computer? Parsing out the odd wording that means he could
| afford a computer
|
| What's with the second computer? It's proper nerd sniped
| me this haha
| memish wrote:
| One computer for development, one for a server. He
| couldn't afford a second so had to use his primary for
| both purposes.
| corobo wrote:
| Actually in fairness that does make sense given a bit of
| thought
| ineedasername wrote:
| In today's money it's the equivalent of about $150,000,
| and funded by selling a plane that sold for twice that
| amount. I would classify having enough disposable income
| to own a $300,000 plane & a net worth of a few million to
| be wealthy.
|
| I should note that my working definition of "wealthy"
| doesn't mean they never have to work again, or don't have
| to work to maintain their desired lifestyle. Other people
| may have different benchmarks. As you said, abstract
| measures aren't easily quantified, and someone else's
| benchmark for wealthy may be higher.
| paisawalla wrote:
| This is some motivated accounting right here. You have no
| idea what debt financed either of those assets.
| nailer wrote:
| > I would classify a net worth of a few million to be
| wealthy.
|
| This describes many boomers that simply own a house.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| > _This describes most boomers and older GenXs._
|
| It most assuredly does not.
| jlmorton wrote:
| The median net worth of the Baby Boomer generation in
| America is $1.2 million.
| gilbetron wrote:
| Median net worth of boomers is $200k, average net worth
| is $1.2m because there are a lot of very rich boomers.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-baby-boomer-net-
| wort...
| nailer wrote:
| > Median net worth of boomers is $200k, average net worth
| is $1.2m
|
| That's not mathematically logical. 'Average' can be used
| to describe mean, median or mode.
| gilbetron wrote:
| While average is more informal, it is the same as the
| mean, mathematically speaking. Some people may use it,
| well, informally, to represent other concepts, but the
| mathematical definition is quite clear.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Right. And the point here is that the original comment
| implied that _most people_ in that age bracket had a net
| worth of $1.2 million.
|
| So median is the relevant interpretation of average in
| that context. Your correction and interpretation are
| valid.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| like anyone in developing countries and especially
| wealthy white South Africans do fit this bill rather well
| would hoard their actual private wealth in other
| jurisdictions. just because the company itself is worth
| nothing on paper doesn't mean they haven't pillaged the
| country resources for private gain like all the other
| wanna-be crooks and aspiring kleptocrats. [1][2]
|
| There is a good reason why the family left SA the moment
| apartheid was abolished and why Elon Musk never went back
| since the end of apartheid.
|
| Every entitled chuckle-duck born with a silver spoon in
| their mouth likes to launder their past to make them look
| self-made. Elon is no different.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Islands:_Tax_H
| avens_a...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptopia
| Ralfp wrote:
| Imagine arguing that somebody didn't have financial
| backing because his dad sold plane and bought emerald
| mine for half of profit (in country then known for black
| worker exploitation) for $40.000, and is worth couple
| millions at best.
| jlmorton wrote:
| This is how every discussion on Errol Musk's wealth goes.
|
| Someone makes an implication that they were fabulously
| wealthy, using abstract measures like emerald mines, or
| small planes as a substitute for a concrete measure of
| wealth.
|
| Someone points out the value of both those things was
| actually quite low.
|
| Then the goal posts shift to how much more money the Musk
| family had than the average family, which is true enough.
|
| But they were still decidedly middle class. They all had
| to work for a living. And in American terms, there are
| tens of millions of households with similar wealth. Upper
| middle class, to be sure, but nothing unusual.
|
| And the emerald mine, such as it was, is said to have
| been in Zambia, not South Africa.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| As someone pointed out in another comment, "wealthy" does
| not mean "never having to work again". My life growing up
| would have been dramatically different if my parents had
| been worth even a low amount of millions, and the
| opportunities available to me would have been drastically
| higher.
| Ralfp wrote:
| > Then the goal posts shift to how much more money the
| Musk family had than the average family, which is true
| enough.
|
| There's hardly a move of goalpost here. People merely
| argue that showing Elon as self-made "in parent's garage"
| is bullshit. He had family with capabilities to enable
| him to participate in ecoms bubble.
|
| > Zambia, not South Africa
|
| "You are wrong, that labour camp wasn't in USSR but in
| North Korea." I've haven't named the country BTW.
| NhanH wrote:
| A million dollars in 1970-1980 is worth around 3 to 7
| million dollars now. 3 millions in that period is worth
| at least 10 millions right now. And there is decidedly
| not tens of millions of households in the US with that
| networth, let alone a single person.
| jlmorton wrote:
| To be clear, his net worth is a couple million dollars
| today.
| starkd wrote:
| Wikipedia is great for many things, but I would steer
| clear of it for biographical information of prominent
| contemporary persons. It's very political and the amount
| of on-the-fly stealth editing that goes on the site
| should discredit it. Great for technical information or
| basic history. Avoid it like the plague anywhere it seeks
| to weigh in on "the current thing".
| DonHopkins wrote:
| When you have to attack Wikipedia as being generically
| unreliable, instead of presenting some reliable facts and
| citations about the discussion topic that actually prove
| your point, you don't have a point.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| What facts would you believe? Elon himself tells a very
| different story:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-
| Future/dp/...
| starkd wrote:
| It has been a long-standing complaint for awhile. In
| partricular, there appears to be a core group of editors
| that have displayed a blatant bias against Israel. Huge
| ommissions of information that only inflame anti-semitic
| passions and hinder real dialogue from occuring. There
| are other issues, but this one shows the limitations of
| wikipedia and how a narrow mindset can comandeer a few
| pages. Again, I like wikipedia, but it's only reliable
| for mundane issues.
|
| https://aish.com/48964486/
|
| https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/wikipedias-jewish-
| problem-pe...
| starkd wrote:
| Also, personal campaigns being carried out to smear
| people. Not a good look for a neutral non-partisan
| outfit. That's why I ignore bios about anyone as a rule
| on wiki.
|
| https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/former-wikipedia-
| edi...
| nxm wrote:
| Left bias is very prevalent: https://youtu.be/kiRgJYMw6YA
| nullc wrote:
| Well right now the highest value note in south Africa is
| worth about $13.
|
| I'm sure many HN regulars have homes costing much more
| than a safe full of $13 notes.
|
| I wouldn't be too confident that "We had so much money at
| times we couldn't even close our safe." is an amount of
| money that would actually make someone particularly
| wealthy by American standards without doing a fair bit of
| research on what currency that safe would have been full
| of and how much it had been worth at the time.
| _djo_ wrote:
| At the time the South African Rand was kept somewhat
| pegged to the US Dollar, and has an average value of
| R2/$.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Why would anything right now be relevant to Elon growing
| up 40 years ago?
| nullc wrote:
| > and how much it had been worth at the time
| webmaven wrote:
| Why assume that the safe was full of South African
| currency?
| nullc wrote:
| > a fair bit of research on what currency that safe would
| have been full of
| webmaven wrote:
| There are too many unknowns: the currency, the
| denominations, the size of the safe. There is little
| point in speculating whether it was (or was _not_ ) a
| life-changing sum.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Meh, whatever you think of the 'angle' of the NYTimes
| article, it was pretty clear from talking to his classmates
| that they were in a very wealthy area of Joberg.. his dad
| was successful in business (being part owner of at least
| one mineral mine) and was a local politician.
|
| > _Interviews with relatives and former classmates reveal
| an upbringing in elite, segregated white communities that
| were littered with anti-Black government propaganda, and
| detached from the atrocities that white political leaders
| inflicted on the Black majority._
|
| > _Mr. Musk, 50, grew up in the economic hub of
| Johannesburg, the executive capital of Pretoria and the
| coastal city of Durban. His suburban communities were
| largely shrouded in misinformation. Newspapers sometimes
| arrived on doorsteps with whole sections blacked out, and
| nightly news bulletins ended with the national anthem and
| an image of the national flag flapping as the names of
| white young men who were killed fighting for the government
| scrolled on the screen._
|
| > _"We were really clueless as white South African
| teenagers. Really clueless," said Melanie Cheary, a
| classmate of Mr. Musk's during the two years he spent at
| Bryanston High School in the northern suburbs of
| Johannesburg, where Black people were rarely seen other
| than in service of white families living in palatial
| homes._
|
| They go onto say that Musk had black friends and left SA to
| avoid serving the apartheid government via mandatory
| military service.
| [deleted]
| mattigames wrote:
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Ah, middle class.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Certainly much more firmly middle class than the GP
| comment's "at best" would imply.
| coinbasetwwa wrote:
| Pretty much, looks like Tudor style homes in PA that sell
| for $400k.
| ineedasername wrote:
| That doesn't mean it was the local equivalent of a $400k
| home. Local marketplace matters. Near me, within the same
| 10-mile radius, that house would cost between $800k to
| $5M depending on the specific location, but I'd say $400k
| would be the absolute floor on price just about anywhere
| in the US.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Yea, my house is a 10th of that probably and it's a 500k
| home in the PNW. That home looks very well built, upper
| upper middle "at best"
| zarzavat wrote:
| There's been a huge stock market crash since he first initiated
| the buyout. It would have been unhinged if he _didn't_ try to
| renegotiate the price or otherwise pull out.
|
| It can be argued that the whole idea of Musk buying Twitter is
| unhinged, but it doesn't seem much different to Bezos buying
| WaPo, it's simply on a larger scale. Media companies provide
| good political power/$ value to billionaires.
| yangikan wrote:
| unhinged is absolutely the right word to describe him. Not just
| in terms of acting up, but also in terms of testing the
| boundaries of lawful behavior. A kind of behavior that can only
| be explained by the assumption that he thinks he is above the
| law (probably because he has a large number of fanboys and
| money). This is also similar to the behavior of the US
| politician that you are alluding to.
| rdelpret wrote:
| I think he's always been like that to an extent. In his
| biography there are stories of him staying up all night and re-
| writing everyone's code in his earlier days.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Funny how many smear articles against him are going on. Because
| he wants to stop online censorship of conservatives.
|
| How many here would do what they consider right knowing they
| will be vilified for it.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Funny how many smear articles against him are going on._
|
| He was The Left's darling, now he's The Right's darling.
|
| Personally, I think he made a mistake. I feel like Elon wants
| to be liked, but the celebrity/media left are now going to
| have their go at him.
| vmurthy wrote:
| I can't vouch for _everyone_ supposedly writing smear
| articles /commenting on Musk but _my_ own problem is that
| there is a public cost to his antics like "Going private" ,
| "just bought 9% of TWTR" , "won't buy TWTR" etc. There's a
| reason SEC has rules around these. If Musk had done it once,
| you could call it eccentric or just plain stupid. If there's
| a pattern to it, perhaps his intentions aren't really to save
| the world or even noble. I'd trust someone who is openly
| greedy than someone who claims to do virtuous things while
| doing shady things.
| zosima wrote:
| Elon gets attention because he is doing absolutely
| astonishingly amazing things.
|
| The appearance of indecisiveness and disorderliness is because
| he's doings things nobody has done before. And that's how that
| sort of thing looks.
| boringg wrote:
| I agree with this too. It's like everyone on this thread
| wants Elon to be a perfectly manicured fully formed opinion
| on everything and that he needs to be batting 1000. He's
| batting far beyond anyone else that's try to move the needle
| - don't forget that. I don't pretend that I agree with a lot
| of what Elon does but I recognize someone who is
| fundamentally changing the planet.
|
| To the comments of him not wanting to talk to the press most
| of the time because it's boring ... do you guys know how
| boring talking to the press is? You get equal parts adoration
| and pot shots without actually gaining anything but trying to
| get a message threw. There are very few enlightening moments
| in dealing with press and podcasts and you are constantly
| guarded about some asinine sound byte taken out of context.
| It's not like the podcast/press corps are typically deeply
| knowledgeable and are going to bring up some new idea to help
| you out. It's about getting a message out to different groups
| of people and it is really boring/wearing if you don't like
| saying the same thing over and over again.
|
| I guess the saying goes - haters are going to hate as is
| deeply visible on the thread.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I would add that not only is talking to the press boring it
| is fraught with risk. I would never talk to the press about
| anything unless forced.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| > The appearance of indecisiveness and disorderliness is
| because he's doings things nobody has done before.
|
| Indecisiveness and disorderliness are the least of his
| problems, at least as far as the public is concerned.
|
| He's a bully and he's untrustworthy.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Thank you FartyMcFarter for your judgment, hopefully we can
| all live up to your standards.
| zosima wrote:
| Well, if he was a sensitive soul he would have stopped what
| he was doing, long time ago. Just look at this thread.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| DrBoring wrote:
| > unhinged
|
| I have this speculative theory that Elon Musk's public behavior
| is a complex long term ruse. I suspect his odd behavior is
| intentionally designed to get other to underestimate him.
| Consider it a mental form of the drunken fist martial arts
| style [1], where a fighter will use unpredictable body
| movements to confuse the opponent.
|
| I use the word "theory" intentionally. I have explainable
| reasons for how I formed this theory. But now is not the place
| for that.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_boxing
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| Unhinged? It is possible, that Musk didn't expect the twitter
| deal to become as politicised, as it did. Maybe he just got
| afraid of getting into the center of politics in the US. For
| example the state is a major customer, and they could just stop
| buying launch services from SpaceX for example, as the
| president might not agree with the politics of Mr Musk.
|
| I mean look at Bezos, he got into a fight with Trump, and the
| pentagon preferred Azure to AWS, all of a sudden. Yeah, and a
| year later that deal got cancelled too, by the next
| administration [1]. I mean Musk has a lot of business with
| Uncle Sam, he really can't play his own game, in terms of
| politics.
|
| I mean, i mean, they really have a lot of 'leverage' with Musk,
| to begin with. I would guess that Musk would be looking for a
| way out of the twitter deal, in order to protect his business.
| Also the economy is going into a recession, therefore his deals
| with the various governments are going to be much more
| important. Look, there is even talk of Musk building an e-tank
| with a German firm, Rheinmetall [2]
|
| [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/pentagon-terminates-
| controvers...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDe7OGpPodM
| inglor_cz wrote:
| After this war, Musk is probably in no danger of losing
| federal contracts just because of his free speech politics.
|
| The Russians knocked out the entire Ukrainian SATCOM
| infrastructure at the start of the war, plus quite a few
| stations elsewhere in Europe; AFAIK none of them went online
| again. Electronic warfare at its finest. Once this happened,
| Starlink was used as a drop-in substitute and defeated all
| Russian attempts to knock it out too. The Ukrainians
| coordinate their artillery, drones etc. over Starlink and the
| Russians can ... gnash their teeth.
|
| This is an impressive capability and it gives the U.S. a huge
| advantage in any potential future military conflict with a
| near-peer power. Advantages like that aren't discarded just
| because of random culture war flare-ups.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| Interesting perspective. Actually the US government payed
| for the service:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-
| quietl...
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/spacex-ukraine-elon-
| musk-...
| seshagiric wrote:
| He does not look indecisive :), to the contrary seems to be
| jumping to action without bothering much about consequences.
| For example, why make acquisition bid without checking on spam
| accounts first? IIRC his offer letter to the Twitter did not
| carry this condition about spam bots.
| b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote:
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| peterth3 wrote:
| I started to become concerned about Elon when I read his 2017
| interview with Rolling Stone[0]:
|
| > I explain that needing someone so badly that you feel like
| nothing without them is textbook codependence. Musk disagrees.
| Strongly. "It's not true," he replies petulantly. "I will never
| be happy without having someone. Going to sleep alone kills
| me." He hesitates, shakes his head, falters...
|
| He's been in desperate need of therapy for a long time. It's
| sad in some ways. He is one of the most brilliant men alive,
| but he would be 10x happier and more effective if he worked on
| himself as hard as he works his companies.
|
| [0] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-
| features/elon-m...
| status200 wrote:
| This is strong evidence that you can have it all financially
| and still be a miserable human. The most valuable skills are
| recognizing when you have "enough", and being content with
| keeping yourself company.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| > He is one of the most brilliant men alive
|
| I wonder where this notion started. Tesla was an existing
| company he bought and all the heavy lifting a SpaceX was done
| by other people. He made some good business calls, but I'd
| say a lot of his success stems from being at the right place,
| at the right time with the right wallet.
| brunnock wrote:
| You could say the same thing about Steve Jobs or Thomas
| Edison. Good luck convincing folks neither is a genius.
| brtkdotse wrote:
| Indeed. But it's well documented that both Jobs and
| Edison were shrewd businessmen first, rather than
| technical geniuses.
| kibwen wrote:
| Geniuses at self-promotion and manipulating others,
| certainly. A world full of Jobses would be an unlivable
| dystopia. A world full of Wozniaks, now that would be
| interesting.
| tolmasky wrote:
| I think you might both be right, but never agree with
| each other, due to the trickiness of language. That is to
| say, depending on your definition of "genius" (and
| depending on the still not fully understood nature of
| genius), you might on the one hand agree that he
| qualifies as being a "genius", but isn't "one of the most
| brilliant men alive."
|
| Setting aside any purely semantic disagreements (for
| example the fact that "one of the most brilliant men
| alive" is highly dependent on the number of other
| brilliant men around), I think part of what OP is arguing
| against is the implication that most people attribute a
| specific _kind of_ genius to him (and OP should
| definitely step in to disagree with me here if I am
| mistaken). For example, most people may agree that Warren
| Buffet is a genius, but it 's clear (to me at least),
| that they mean genius in a very different way in that
| context than when applied to Musk. The implication seems
| to strongly be that Musk is not merely a savvy
| businessman, but a "brilliant scientist" or "brilliant
| engineer" or something as well, something I think no one
| would assign to Buffet. Buffet bought Duracell, but no
| one believes he is key to battery technology. For the
| record, I am not arguing about whether Musk is or is not
| this kind of genius, just that Musk is a unique case in
| that the conversation exists on this axis, arguably much
| more so than even with Steve Jobs (who most people at
| best attribute "design genius" to, but will readily admit
| is not an "engineering genius", and in fact may even
| attribute the ability to see "past that" as one of his
| strengths). So I think the frustration I detect in this
| argument is that Musk seems to often be imagined in the
| same ranks as the actual Nikola Tesla perhaps, which they
| feel is unearned, and then the defense given is more
| appropriate for an Edison or Ford-esque "businessy
| crossover genius", vs. a description of direct technical
| accomplishments. Again, I am not arguing either way as to
| where he should be placed, just pointing out that I see a
| lot of this sort of "talking past each other", since
| "genius" colloquially implies something that doesn't make
| "Steve Jobs" immediately come to mind, vs. Einstein.
| [deleted]
| mescaline wrote:
| He's a classic visionary with the ability to manifest that
| vision in others with his words. His track record speaks
| for itself, likely because of his vision and willingness to
| risk. He likely has strong skills in seeing positive
| outcomes and cast them as truths into others. He will
| continue to succeed in business outcomes, until his vision
| falters.
| thaway2839 wrote:
| Tesla was basically a fully government funded entity for
| the first decade of Musk's ownership. His greatest skill
| with Tesla lay in promoting it (and doing an even better
| job of promoting the myth of Tesla being hand built by
| himself alone) and in securing government benefits.
|
| There was the direct half a billion dollars in loans the
| government gave Tesla after the financial crisis without
| which it would have collapsed. But even more so, the only
| reason Tesla could survive financially during the 2010s was
| a combination of government subsidies and government green
| credits which essentially had the likes of GM and Ford
| paying Tesla to build cars (so they could offset their
| credits).
|
| What I will never get over is GM/Ford being so short
| sighted that they were willing to pay a competitor hundreds
| of millions of dollars, rather than investing in coming up
| with an electric platform of their own.
| vel0city wrote:
| > What I will never get over is GM/Ford being so short
| sighted that they were willing to pay a competitor
| hundreds of millions of dollars, rather than investing in
| coming up with an electric platform of their own.
|
| They kind of did have electric platforms that never sold
| well. They were probably of the mindset that nobody
| really wanted these cars, too niche of a market for them
| to participate in other than the most basic of compliance
| cars.
|
| A lot of the legacy US automakers barely survived the
| financial crisis. In this time period they're very risk
| adverse. They've made a few EV versions of their cars
| previously for compliance reasons, but they never really
| sell well and don't actually make the company any money.
| To them, it made sense to focus on producing the cars
| they know how to make with good margins to pay back the
| bailout money.
|
| Looking back we can say they should have probably
| bothered to make actually decent EVs and market the hell
| out of them instead of half-assed retrofits of existing
| cars with half-baked electric powertrains. But I dunno,
| if I'm in that board room in 2008-2009 and someone says
| "lets bet the farm on products that lose money and nobody
| likes" vs "lets keep building trucks and SUVs that are
| shown to print money and maybe we'll actually make it out
| of this economic disaster", there's a good chance I'd
| have picked the "lets print money" option. Its only
| seeing the EV market today a decade+ later that we see
| there really is a market for decent EVs, but at the time
| that market definitely had not been proven.
|
| Also, by the end of 2008 gas prices had fallen back down
| to ~$1.60/gal. Cheap gas was in, hybrids were out. Even
| the Prius began to struggle in sales compared to trucks
| and SUVs. Its easy to see the value of an EV with gas
| being >$4 on average, its harder when gasoline is cheap.
| malnourish wrote:
| While I don't disagree with you, there must be _some_ level
| of 'right place and time' involved with anyone who holds
| superlative accolades. Same can be said for the converse.
| tragictrash wrote:
| Yeah it's called being born wealthy, and then becoming a
| billionaire.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Yeah that's why Bezo's Blue Origin is doing _so_ well
| compared to SpaceX.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| I started becoming concerned about peterth3 when I read his
| HN comment in 2022.
|
| > He's been in desperate need of therapy for a long time.
| It's sad in some ways. He is one of the most brilliant men
| alive, but he would be 10x happier and more effective if he
| worked on himself as hard as he works his companies.
|
| He started diagnosing people online either without meeting
| them or knowing them personally. It's sad in some ways. I'm
| sure he's a decent engineer but he'd be 10x happier and more
| effective if he focused on himself and not trying to find
| fault in others.
| peterth3 wrote:
| dang, a personal attack...
|
| I'll leave. Peace
| hunterb123 wrote:
| It was an ad lib, I simply swapped out Musk with your
| name and replaced relevant nouns.
|
| Are you saying you can hurl personal insults, but others
| can't at you?
| darksoulshell wrote:
| cinntaile wrote:
| It could be what drives him and if he goes to therapy it
| might ruin that, I believe this is a common reason why people
| like that don't go to therapy. I don't know if he needs
| therapy or not by the way.
| usrn wrote:
| Honestly going to sleep alone is awful. My SO is in another
| country right now and I think I understand why old people
| tend to die shortly after their partner does.
| causality0 wrote:
| Same. It was the saga of the media talking about poor working
| conditions and safety at Tesla, then his response by making an
| anti-media media site, then the fallout from that, then his
| decision to use those trapped kids as an opportunity to
| publicly virtue-signal by "building a rescue submarine", and
| his infantile tantrum when he was told that wasn't useful.
|
| If Elon Musk had shut the fuck up in 2010 I'd probably be
| calling for statues to be built of him.
| syndacks wrote:
| I lost all respect for him when he seriously posited that life
| is a simulation.
| rednerrus wrote:
| The problem is reward this kind of behavior. Trump became
| president by be the most outlandish buffoon. Kanye is a
| billionaire for his antics. It's all free advertising for their
| brands. Probably 100s of millions of dollars worth of free
| advertising.
| themitigating wrote:
| I have no evidence but was thinking about his work schedule,
| which by his own omission is insane, and he is running multiple
| companies. Along with his outspoken nature and need to insult
| people publicly makes me wonder if he is using some amphetamine
| or similar. Erratic behavior seems to be a side effect that
| comes with all that energy. Again, no evidence just throwing it
| out there
| cyco130 wrote:
| Some years ago a friend suggested someone should make a browser
| extension that replaces the text of every Elon Musk tweet with
| "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!" and I made a quick MVP:
| https://gist.github.com/cyco130/d96f678d41fd7acfe4ac6c4e01d2...
|
| Edit: Alas, it doesn't work anymore. Updates are welcome.
| Edit2: Updated!
| RivieraKid wrote:
| He's always been like that - narcissistic, manipulative,
| dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking,
| unhinged.
|
| I can't believe that so many people still haven't figured him
| out (which is also true for the previous American and current
| Russian presidents, who have similarly repulsive
| personalities).
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > He's always been like that - narcissistic, manipulative,
| dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking,
| unhinged.
|
| That only makes it even _more_ impressive that he has managed
| to accomplish truly world-changing things like building
| reusable rockets or practical mass-market EV 's. Most
| "narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking
| empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged" folks wouldn't manage
| to do anything even marginally worthwhile, even in such a key
| position as, e.g. being president of a large superpower.
| (Also, let's give the previous U.S. president credit where
| credit is due; he might have a repulsive personality, but at
| least he didn't start any foolish wars! So there's that,
| too.)
| hooande wrote:
| > "truly world changing"
| NaN1352 wrote:
| Not that impressive, but something our society needs to
| grapple with: how left hemisphere's distorted view of
| reality is highly functional in our cuurent way of life and
| especially around capitalism.
|
| Much of that is addressed in McGilchrist's The Divided
| Brain.
|
| I don't think Musk is a bad person, but he is displaying
| like many "high functioning" people in our current economic
| and political systems, signs of lack of empathy, hyper
| materialist views, etc.
|
| Unsurprisingly left hemisphere dominant people (who are
| unbalanced), can do very well in systems that are designed
| by the left hemisphere and reward everything the left
| hemisphere is about (control, supposed knowledge of how
| reality works or is, power, inflated sense of self and
| ideas of being "self made" etc.)
| akie wrote:
| You should read Steve Jobs' biography for another example
| of someone with these characteristics.
| papito wrote:
| The characteristic is being able to see the talents of
| others and exploit them. Jobs was and Musk is great at
| that, although Musk is an actual [software] engineer.
|
| Those employees trapped on an island for months
| developing SpaceX rockets in miserable conditions did the
| work.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I've always felt Musk's most unique ability was finding
| the right people to fill the right roles and somehow
| convince these people to come work 8 days a week for him.
| thomasz wrote:
| [deleted]
| lapcat wrote:
| > Steve Jobs was charismatic and somewhat of an asshole
| to the people around him. But he wasn't unhinged, self
| aggrandizing and attention seeking.
|
| He wasn't unhinged.
|
| He was definitely self aggrandizing and attention
| seeking.
|
| Jobs was an asshole, but he was an adult asshole. A
| mature asshole. He wasn't a juvenile asshole. Both Musk
| and Trump give the impression of having the emotional
| maturity of a pre-teen.
| lolive wrote:
| Do read it on your iPhone for even more cognitive
| dissonance ;)
| andrepd wrote:
| I was under the impression he was the money / marketing
| guy, I didn't realise he built or designed any rockets /
| EVs himself.
| e8gy3 wrote:
| This! Amazes me everyone thinks he's the brain behind the
| incredible technologies his companies create.
| blairbeckwith wrote:
| Even if this was true (nearly everyone who has studied
| Musk says that although he may not lead day to day
| engineering, he is gifted at figuring this stuff out)...
|
| It is clearly non-trivial to rally a group of people,
| funding sources, and, er, marketing resources to
| accomplish what he has accomplished.
|
| Evidence: nobody else has done it.
| danparsonson wrote:
| > Evidence: nobody else has done it.
|
| Er... what? He's focussed his attention on some specific
| problems and made good progress solving them; people have
| been doing that for as long as there have been people.
|
| Sure he's had great success and clearly does a lot of
| things well. He's not singular in that.
| martyvis wrote:
| You need to watch this interview with Tim Dodd (the space
| YouTuber) and you'll realise in the first 15 minutes he
| really is an engineer https://youtu.be/t705r8ICkRw
| kibwen wrote:
| _> That only makes it even more impressive that he has
| managed to accomplish truly world-changing things_
|
| Nobody should be surprised when a CEO acts like a jagoff,
| that's par for the course.
|
| To wit, so quickly HN forgets about Jobs and his cult of
| personality. Ten years ago, it felt like half of the people
| on this forum had their lips so far up Jobs' sphincter that
| they could see the sunlight through his nostrils. Now it
| seems this adulation has found a new outlet.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| It's a reminder that cult of personality is a virus which
| can attack anyone ranging from the successful full stack
| developer making 200k in the Bay area to the Iowa farmer
| trying to figure out who to vote for.
|
| It's also a reminder that things can always become worse.
| At least Jobs managed to first put a phone in every
| pocket and only then got paid for it. Like Gates with
| PCs.
|
| Also Jobs was paid a salary because his hubris got
| himself outed from Apple the first time around and his
| ownership was down to single digits.
|
| Musk first sued for the right to be called the founder of
| Tesla , he then managed to inflate a financial bubble to
| get paid upfront for work he'll never deliver.
|
| It's the gilded age of frauds out there.
| Jordrok wrote:
| > _(Also, let 's give the previous U.S. president credit
| where credit is due; he might have a repulsive personality,
| but at least he didn't start any foolish wars! So there's
| that, too.)_
|
| I always find it so amusing when the best thing anyone can
| say about our previous White House occupant is what he
| DIDN'T do (and not for lack of trying!). As if a pet rock
| or farm animal couldn't have accomplished the same feat.
| kibwen wrote:
| And completely ignoring that he was trying his damndest
| to provoke Iran into a war as late as early 2020, by
| ordering an airstrike on one of their generals.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but being good for
| humanity overall is not the same as being a good person to
| be around. He definitely did a lot of good for this world,
| but that doesn't mean that he's an easy person - quite to
| the contrary, to be this successful, you need to be very
| assertive and sure of yourself.
|
| Look at Bill Gates for another example. His early business
| dealings are well known to be ruthless and he pushed MS at
| the cost of a lot of things, but now he uses his wealth
| mostly for good.
|
| As much as we'd like, we really can't reduce people to
| "good person" and "bad person".
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| The question is whether the damage these people made
| while accumulating wealth gets compensated by the good
| they did later. With Andrew Carnegie and John D.
| Rockefeller I don't think so. With Gates I am not sure.
| Musk actually looks better. He has shaken up two
| industries that needed a good shake.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > With Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller I don't
| think so. With Gates I am not sure
|
| All 3 of them took wealth away from paper-millionaire
| shareholders of competing companies (eg. Netscape) and
| delivered superior quality of life to the consumer.
| Nobody sheds a tear for the paper-millionaires,
| rightfully so. It's only their greed which didn't make
| them cashout before Standard Oil/Microsoft eventually
| outcompeted them delivering a better product to the
| consumer.
|
| Same with Facebook v. Myspace and Google v. Yahoo. Nobody
| sheds a tear for the shareholders of Myspace and Yahoo.
| Rightfully so.
|
| Musk is robbing taxpayers in the form of subsidies and
| tax credits for luxury vehicles which all end up parked
| in front of Bel Air mansions and 5th Avenue shops.
|
| On top of that he already said that he'll never do
| philantropy
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "All 3 of them took wealth away from paper-millionaire
| shareholders of competing companies (eg. Netscape) and
| delivered superior quality of life to the consumer"
|
| Especially Carnegie made life miserable for tens of
| thousands of his workers. No amount of charity can make
| up for the amount of suffering he caused.
| lapcat wrote:
| > All 3 of them took wealth away from paper-millionaire
| shareholders of competing companies (eg. Netscape) and
| delivered superior quality of life to the consumer.
| Nobody sheds a tear for the paper-millionaires,
| rightfully so.
|
| Well actually... Microsoft was almost broken up by the
| government for what it did to Netscape, until there was a
| change of US Presidential administration, after which
| Microsoft was given a wrist slap, and then 9/11
| immediately hit, which made the issue disappear from
| public consciousness.
|
| I'm not exaggerating here: the Department of Justice
| announced it was no longer seeking to break up Microsoft
| in September 2001. See this article from the WSJ
| literally the day before 9/11:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000076767888491506
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > Microsoft was almost broken up by the government for
| what it did to Netscape
|
| It should have been given the medal of freedom
| instead...those crackpots at netscape wanted to charge
| people money for the browser.
|
| Only former netscape shareholders could possibly defend
| Netscape.
|
| Microsoft I will always defend, the decision by Gates and
| Ballmer to allow piracy enabled me and my family to
| always have the latest version of Windows/Word/Encarta/IE
| even though we were poor.
| greedo wrote:
| The Federal EV tax credit for Tesla was completely phased
| out in 2020.
| [deleted]
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Exactly. In capitalism, if you want to become rich,
| successful and admired (purely selfless motivations), you
| usually end up being good for humanity as a byproduct.
| kibwen wrote:
| That "usually" is doing a whoooooole lot of heavy
| lifting. Capitalism is the ultimate "fuck you, got mine"
| system, and only serves the good of society with heavy-
| handed intervention.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Assertiveness and being sure of yourself can almost be
| considered prerequisites to becoming that successful,
| sure I can buy that. Doing things like constantly posting
| juvenile and inflammatory stuff on Twitter (such as
| baselessly accusing people who you think have slighted
| you of being pedophiles), that I'm not as convinced
| points to traits that are as positive.
|
| > As much as we'd like, we really can't reduce people to
| "good person" and "bad person".
|
| I don't find that difficult at all. Yes, obviously
| literally every single person have good and bad
| characteristics and have done good and bad things. But as
| a human being I'm perfectly able to look at those things
| in aggregate and decide for myself if I think they tally
| up to someone being what I would personally consider a
| good or bad person.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > truly world-changing things
|
| Musk has been at the helm of Tesla for 20 years. The past
| year was a very slow year for the car selling business
| except for luxury vehicles of course (which Tesla is). In
| 2021 Teslas accounted for approx. 1% of total global
| vehicles sales.
|
| 1% in 20 years. World-changing.
| Msw242 wrote:
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Msw242 wrote:
| PayPal is profitable, SpaceX is the cheapest way to get
| cargo into space, and Tesla is 3x profit per car versus
| Ford/GM.
|
| He's not Jesus, but he's also not Bernie Madoff.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _PayPal is profitable_
|
| Elon was gone way before he could have had any influence
| on modern Paypal's profitability.
|
| > _SpaceX is the cheapest way to get cargo into space_
|
| Well, we don't know the financials, so it could be
| cheaper for the customer, while burning investor capital.
| But this one seems like money-well-spent, at least.
|
| > _Tesla is 3x profit per car versus Ford /GM_
|
| Are you talking about gross profit margins?
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| > PAYPAL
|
| Musk was CEO of Paypal for 6 months back in 2001. He was
| fired because he was running the company into the ground.
| Peter Thiel managed to save the company and sell it to
| Ebay
|
| > SpaceX is the cheapest way to get cargo into space
|
| Is the American consumer in need to send any cargo to the
| ISS? SpaceX is a graft built on big government
|
| > Tesla is 3x profit per car versus Ford/GM
|
| 30 Billions of subsidies and credits in 20 years to
| arrive to the same financial achievement as Ferrari in
| the 90s. Only Teslas don't look like Ferraris
| unfortunately. They are also still more scarce than
| Ferraris, if not on the roads, for sure in absolute
| numbers. Pretty poor performance when the Italian brand
| makes 9,000-12,000 cars per year dependant upon
| macroeconomic enviornoment.
|
| Also they are cooking the books. Everybody who looks at
| musk and how it operates understands this. He believes in
| manifestation and faking it till you make it.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| > Also they are cooking the books. Everybody who looks at
| musk and how it operates understands this
|
| Any additional references or reading material that could
| help break this down?
| [deleted]
| RivieraKid wrote:
| This can also be said about good-hearted people, most of
| them don't have world-changing achievements. It's said that
| the rate of psychopathy among CEOs is above the population
| average.
|
| So not sure what's your point. But I like the passive
| aggressive nature of your comment.
| themitigating wrote:
| "narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking
| empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged" folks wouldn't manage
| to do anything even marginally worthwhile, "
|
| Is it rare? We just had a president with similar traits
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Not an American, but what worthwhile things did the
| former president achieve for you? Our media painted him
| in a less-than-pleasant light.
| themitigating wrote:
| Simply achieving the office is what I was referring to
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| Worthwhile things: stacking the Supreme Court with far-
| right justices & lowering taxes for the wealthy. These
| are massive successes for the party he represents (which
| is actually a minority of the country, unfortunately)
| sweetheart wrote:
| Actually narcissistic, manipulative, and low empathy people
| tend to do better in capitalist societies. It tends to be a
| benefit, rather than a hindrance, when it comes to finding
| professional success.
|
| I mean, you'll alienate yourself from everyone, but you'll
| be rich!
|
| Source: My wife professionally studies personality
| disorders
| seu wrote:
| > Most "narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful,
| lacking empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged" folks
| wouldn't manage to do anything even marginally worthwhile,
| even in such a key position as, e.g. being president of a
| large superpower.
|
| On the contrary, our world is practically made for those
| people to be successful. Psychopaths do great in unbridled
| capitalism.
| bilvar wrote:
| You should read some history books and find out how
| successful and effective they were in collectivist
| societies (eg. Nazi Germany, USSR) too.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| yup, and you know what his super power is?
|
| _money_
|
| Anyone with enough billions can do what Elon has done.
| ben_w wrote:
| 1) He didn't start with billions
|
| 2) Neither Boeing nor Ford have put a car into a trans-
| Martian Solar orbit, and they did start with billions
| hef19898 wrote:
| Ford pioneered modern car manufacturing, and Boeing got
| stuff farthet out in space. Shooting a Tesla on a SpaceX
| rocket was just a publicity stunt. A genius one it seems.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Boeing got stuff farthet out in space.
|
| Despite which SLS is still not flying and Starliner is
| stuck in test flights and not human certified, despite
| both having been started a bit before SpaceX was being
| valued as high as $1.3 billion.
|
| Similar with Ford: fantastic past! Yet the money from
| that past win didn't let them do what Musk did.
|
| QED, "billions" are not enough by themselves.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Boeing made the x-37, which is autonomously roving around
| space, and landing on its own.
|
| Musk pointed a rocket at the sky and pressed play. In
| terms of difficulty, boosting a car into an extended
| orbit is trivial. Manoeuvring a "space plane" to
| intersect multiple satellites, grab them and return to
| earth, that is orders of magnitude harder.
|
| Ford make cheap cars world wide at volume, and pioneered
| the production line.
|
| as for point one, like me, he was in the right place at
| the right time. I am rich because I joined the right
| start up and got bought out. yeah I worked hard, but not
| anywhere near hard enough to justify the money I got.
|
| The same with musk.
| ben_w wrote:
| > as for point one, like me, he was in the right place at
| the right time.
|
| Let me rephrase:
|
| SpaceX was valued at less than one billion dollars when
| they launched the first Falcon 9 to orbit.
|
| The total money raised in the investment rounds only
| exceeded $1 billion in 2015, after 13 launches.
|
| Total raised from investors only exceeded $2 billion,
| enough to be called "billions" plural, in Jan 2019, which
| is just before SpaceX got Starhopper off the ground.
|
| https://craft.co/spacex/funding-rounds
|
| In comparison, the per-launch cost of the SLS is
| estimated to be "over $2 billion", plus dev cost, and an
| Orion capsule would be extra.
|
| SpaceX didn't need billions to achieve _impressive_
| things, just for _ridiculous_ things like "enable the
| colonisation of Mars".
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| What was the gain from having a car in a trans-Martian
| orbit other than yet more space junk?
| ben_w wrote:
| Judging by the difference between the funding rounds 2
| months before the launch and the one 2 months after, it
| gained $3.4 billion.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| I should have been more specific. The gain for
| _humanity_.
| ben_w wrote:
| Other than a demonstration that the new experimental
| launch vehicle worked? Sure, shame nobody took him up on
| the offer a free launch, but I kinda understand why
| people didn't want to risk its maiden flight.
|
| (Something something Romans:
| https://youtu.be/Qc7HmhrgTuQ).
| chasd00 wrote:
| it was a demo flight for prospective customers. I don't
| think it was intended to do anything for humanity.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Neither Boeing nor Ford have put a car into a trans-
| Martian Solar orbit
|
| Good?
|
| This reminds me of the scene from the film "Tin Cup"
| where he asks "You ever shoot par with a 7 iron?" and his
| rival replies "Hell Roy, it never even occurred to me to
| try." (The backstory being that Tin Cup and his caddy
| broke all of his other golf clubs in a childish
| argument.)
| papito wrote:
| Smart doesn't mean wise. Yes, he has pushed electric car
| and space market forward, but he talked about e-cars and
| going to Mars back when he was 14. He is literally a rich
| kid living out his teenage phantasies. Albeit successfully.
| He is still a tool.
| andrepd wrote:
| It's precisely this narcissistic personality which some
| people love about him.
|
| Personally I blame marvel movies. Many immature people think
| the world is a superhero flick and Elon Musk is a real-life
| Tony Stark: arrogant billionaire genius who is going to fix
| the world from his superlab.
| ben_w wrote:
| IIRC, MCU Tony Stark was based on Musk.
| jcranberry wrote:
| Tony Stark had a strong sense of accountability/guilt
| though.
| maxerickson wrote:
| In the first movie he commits extrajudicial killings
| (maybe these are murders, maybe not) and then when
| leaving the scene almost kills a 'friendly' pilot, while
| laughing about it all with his buddy.
|
| I'm Civil War he tries to kill the man who murdered his
| parents, for revenge, not justice.
| jcranberry wrote:
| If you look at the Avengers from a realistic perspective
| then they're a group of anarchistic, unhinged,
| uncontrollable vigilantes who resist any kind of
| oversight or procedures to reduce collateral damage.
| andrepd wrote:
| They possesses supernatural abilities and incredible
| technologies and use them to... maintain American
| hegemony and the capitalist status quo. It's almost some
| Elysium type shit.
|
| Relevant smbc: https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2305
| hef19898 wrote:
| And when Stark almost killed thr world through Ultron,
| after being traumatised by near death experience saving
| NYC, he continued his self righteousness and ran straight
| for the Sarcovia Accords as a counter balance.
| [deleted]
| smt88 wrote:
| Notably, Tony Stark nearly destroyed the world because he
| was an unelected oligarch who thought he knew better than
| everyone else...
| croon wrote:
| Honestly I would rather blame _some_ fans (Musk included)
| of great shows like Rick & Morty, IASIP, Breaking Bad or
| the Joker movie for mistaking protagonists/anti-heros/funny
| characters for people to emulate and completely missing the
| point.
|
| If you cheer the part you're supposed to laugh at/feel sad
| for, I start to get a picture of what "dangerous" media
| could mean.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| As a counterpoint to shows like the ones you list (where
| they revel in showing terrible, yet likable, characters
| doing terrible things), the show "Mythic Quest" flips and
| shows terrible characters struggling with trying to
| change within themselves, and how it's a slow,
| discontinuous process where it's possible to both
| backslide and recover.
| Chazprime wrote:
| > narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking
| empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged.
|
| It sounds as if Musk and Twitter are a match made in heaven.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| People love a charismatic narcissist though.
| ben_w wrote:
| Isn't that a tautology? Everyone likes charisma, don't
| they?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| No - I mean people often find narcissism charismatic.
| ben_w wrote:
| Ah, understood. Thanks for the clarification! :)
| aaa_aaa wrote:
| Previous and the current presidents are far worse evil
| people. They first destroyed lives with meaningless lockdowns
| then pumped trillions of dollars which destroyed economy and
| impoverished people. Musk cannot even come close to these.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I find it fascinating when someone agrees with me about a
| person (e.g. the previous president being evil) but their
| list of reasons has none of the items on my long, long list
| of terrible actions and, instead, has only items from my
| "at least they did the following" list.
| [deleted]
| JohnBooty wrote:
| He's always been like that - narcissistic, manipulative,
| dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking,
| unhinged. I can't believe that so many people
| still haven't figured him out
|
| Many of their fans love them precisely _because_ of those
| "negative" qualities.
| api wrote:
| The only reason Elon looks superhuman to so many people is by
| comparison to our worthless decadent elite. He's a decent
| engineer with a strong work ethic and resources who actually
| does do things, making him look like a comic book superhero.
| That's because the rest of his class is mostly jacking off on
| yachts, sponsoring bullshit politics of various flavors,
| posturing at glorified overpriced TED sessions (Davos etc.), or
| running companies whose products and market they don't
| understand full of people who have meetings to discuss the
| meeting schedule.
|
| If our elite really were a meritocracy Elon would be average
| among his peers, if that.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| I get the feeling he is a lifelong nerd with poor social
| skills, but after his success and wealth he is now perceived as
| an interesting person with high social status, and it just
| isn't in him to deal well with it.
|
| He divorced his wife, starts dating actresses and musicians,
| the latter turns him on to smoking pot and he thinks to
| himself, "Hey, I'm now a cool guy who smokes pot. I need to
| show people I'm a cool guy who smokes pot" and goes on Joe
| Rogan and shows off his new coolness. Same thing with his
| twitter antics.
|
| The first time I heard him speak was watching clips from his
| solar roof announcements. He had the charisma and presentation
| skills of a 4th grader giving a book report.
| duxup wrote:
| I wonder how different I would be if what I did was highly
| successful and I had the money to do what I want / indulge
| myself at my whim... I worry it wouldn't be pretty...
| memish wrote:
| He's autistic and a genius. That combination is typically
| misunderstood and derided in their time.
|
| When there is distance he'll be able to be viewed with a
| dispassionate lens. Historians and future generations will put
| the mistakes in their proper context as they benefit from
| sustainable transport, reusable rocket ships and free speech in
| the public square.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > He's autistic and a genius. That combination is typically
| misunderstood and derided in their time.
|
| Going to call bullshit on that one, because it's an easy way
| to discount all the downright shitty crap he's done.
|
| I think it _is_ amazing what Musk has accomplished, and if
| you look throughout history most hard-charging folks that get
| shit done tend to have a ton of narcissistic traits and are
| not really folks you 'd want to be friends with. Both Newton
| and Edison were legendary assholes. Many of "... The Great"
| leaders throughout history achieved their "greatness" by mass
| murder.
|
| So it's not incongruous at all to call out Elon for being a
| giant narcissistic, lying dickhead, and to also be in awe of
| his accomplishments.
| hartator wrote:
| > don't know if this is the right word -- unhinged
|
| [my bad misunderstood what unhinged means.]
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _He said that he has Aspergers._
|
| People are often looking for explanations for their
| personalities or interests. Look at how many people claim to
| be "on the spectrum" on HN underneath any article on the
| topic.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I've known many people with spectrum disorders. Some were
| difficult to work with and you make accommodations. A few
| were assholes.
|
| Universally, the assholes with spectrum disorders used
| their diagnosis to get away with abusive behaviour and, in
| two cases, sexual harassment.
| shakna wrote:
| Most people go to some lengths to ensure that their health
| doesn't present in such a way that it needs to be an excuse
| for their behaviour. Especially in autistic communities. A
| certain amount of masking seems to be a requirement to
| function as a responsible adult.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| I and lots of my friends have that or equivalent diagnoses.
| It doesn't make you unhinged.
| jaggs wrote:
| If you've met one person with Aspbergers, you've met one
| person with Aspbergers?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| What does this even mean? Meeting one person with
| Asperger's who is not unhinged is sufficient to show that
| not all people with Asperger's are unhinged.
| mikeyjk wrote:
| That is not a clinically recognised term.
| hartator wrote:
| Some doctors do give that diagnostic.
| pigeons wrote:
| anymore.
| nicce wrote:
| That is quite misleading as it has been. It is part of the
| ASD in these days [1, 2].
|
| [1]:
| https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/5855/asperger-
| syn...
|
| [2]: Mirkovic B, Gerardin P (April 2019). "Asperger's
| syndrome: What to consider?". L'Encephale. 45 (2): 169-174.
| doi:10.1016/j.encep.2018.11.005. PMID 30736970. S2CID
| 73452546. "Asperger's syndrome is a neurodevelopmental
| disorder that is part of the large family of autism
| spectrum disorders."
| equalsione wrote:
| To be fair, it was a distinct diagnosis from autism until
| relatively recently. It was "absorbed" into autism in DSM 4
| or 5.
|
| So if he was diagnosed with Asperger's in the past, he
| would now be considered to be on the autism spectrum.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| It's now considered a autism spectrum disorder, but you
| could literally have received an "Asperger's Syndrome"
| diagnosis in the past 10 years.
|
| It IS a "clinically recognized term" in the sense that if
| you went to a mental health professional and said "I have
| Asperger's Syndrome" they might say politely "we don't call
| it that anymore" but it is very unlikely they would rudely
| say "I don't know what that is, it is not a clinically
| recognized term."
| hnbad wrote:
| I wish people would stop excusing bad behavior with "oh
| they're autistic". It just makes us autistic people look bad
| by association.
| danjac wrote:
| Best nickname I heard for him was "Phoney Stark".
|
| We want to believe in the cool, if a bit unhinged, hero-
| engineer that builds all the cool stuff we were promised in all
| the sci-fi movies as kids but failed to materialize, such as
| Mars colonies and self-driving cars. A lot of that failure is
| due to some things being a ton harder in reality than fiction,
| but a lot is also due to a managerialist, short-term culture
| that no longer seems to be thinking big and taking risks. Musk
| is the avatar for those who want these cool things and kicks
| back against the prevailing culture - a real-life counterpart
| to the billionaire genius in the Marvel movies.
|
| The problem is, of course, that Tony Stark is a fictional
| character and Musk is not. Not only has he been drinking his
| own kool aid of late, but he's not much of a hero either,
| rather a spoiled bully who punches down.
| elorant wrote:
| The dude built a rocket company, an automotive juggernaut, a
| brain implant research company, and a few other things. I
| wouldn't call these "phoney".
| turtledove wrote:
| The dude did not, in fact, build those things. The dude was
| present for them in some capacity.
|
| And Tesla is hardly a juggernaut, their cars have horrible
| build quality (speaking as someone who owns a Tesla) and
| are likely to face stiff competition in the next five years
| from companies that know how to actually build cars.
| stusmall wrote:
| Tesla's market share is approximately 14%. They are
| impressive, innovative and might have a bright future but
| they aren't at the juggernaut stage yet. Their huge market
| cap and cultural share is because of their dominance in a
| small, previously ignored subset of the market that is
| expected to grow.
| brentm wrote:
| This + the bro cult around him on Twitter certainly make him
| hard to stomach sometimes. But still, when I see he is on a
| podcast or some other media it is usually worth the listen.
| rhacker wrote:
| One thing I really like about this new Elon is, while he is
| liberal, he's more real. There are a lot of liberals playing a
| part - like towing the liberal line. However a lot of ACTUAL
| liberals in person might be like, shit let's stop abortion or
| lets stop illegal immigration or lets cheer black people but I
| don't want everyone on TV to be black (I'm not saying all of
| them - but real people have actual opinions like that). There's
| too much focus on hyper liberalism or LEFTism right now and I
| rather think the word is not unhinged it's REAL. Same REAL that
| elected Trump.
| saila wrote:
| In the United States there is very little leftism. If you
| think there is, point to any major party etc that is
| advocating to dismantle the existing power hierarchy and
| transfer ownership of the means of production to workers. The
| most "radical" mainstream advocacy we typically see is around
| reform, which really isn't radical at all.
|
| It's true that there are pockets of leftist activism here and
| there, but said activists have very little power or
| influence. There's no communist bogeyman waiting round the
| corner to redistribute your wealth (or whatever else it is
| that people imagine communism to be).
|
| It's important to reiterate that _liberal_ and _progressive_
| are not synonyms for leftism. Advocating for social change in
| and of itself is not leftism. More Black people on TV isn 't
| leftism, and the notion is quite absurd, especially since
| it's far from true that _everyone_ on TV is Black now.
|
| The reason this is so important IMO is that we can't have
| productive discussions about social and political issues if
| we don't understand the basic terms and concepts under
| discussion.
|
| As to Musk, I don't know what to think. He's certainly made
| some good business decisions, but he also goes off the deep
| end on occasion. I don't think calling him liberal really
| makes much sense. When you're one of the richest people in
| the world, your world view is undoubtedly much different than
| that of an average person.
|
| And just in general the labels "liberal" and "conservative"
| aren't very meaningful, especially in that most people could
| be considered either depending on which issue you're looking
| at. And when you look at how people actually live and what
| they prioritize, the lines become even blurrier.
| Jach wrote:
| The word you're looking for is _eccentric_.
| rland wrote:
| The foundation of Musk's wealth, above all else, is that he
| operates as a one-man marketing machine. The funding for all of
| his ventures depends on Musk. The magnet for ravenous, loyal,
| intelligent nerds (and thus, the ability to eventually deliver
| on his promises!) is powered by Musk. The ability for any of
| his ventures to cover a failure to deliver with a
| PR/controversy storm -- yup, it depends on Musk.
|
| I like your comparison with Big T. He is, in some sense, a
| sleeker and more savvy Trump. Trump does have a similar psychic
| energy to Elon, but he's an older model. He came from the TV
| world. Now, the TV world was pretty powerful -- it got DT
| elected president! But Americans are not living in the TV world
| this century; they're living in the social media world.
|
| This is the origin of the Twitter thing. It's not about
| Twitter's profit, or free speech, or anything as lofty as that.
| Here's what happened with Twitter:
|
| Trump got elected based, in part, on his statements on Twitter.
| Around the same time, Elon was astroturfing Reddit, Twitter,
| etc. to build the hype machine that eventually became the $1T
| social media product, Tesla.
|
| Elon, consciously or not, came to realize that simply by his
| statements on Twitter, could manipulate the world to his whim.
| He fired the entire corporate PR team at Tesla. He realizes,
| why do I need a PR team? _I_ can shape the narrative just as
| well with my social media account!
|
| Then, BOOM! Trump gets banned from Twitter, and _immediately_
| disappears completely from discussion. Just like that, in the
| blink of an eye -- erased from public imagination. Do you
| remember how quickly this happened? He was black holed from the
| public imagination in a couple days. As soon as the trending
| hashtag disappeared, Trump was gone.
|
| Elon _saw this happen_. He made the connection between his
| valuations and his Twitter account. And remember, at this
| point, Elon 's compensation is basically tied entirely to the
| stock price. He realizes that leaving his podium on someone
| else's property is a mortal risk. And... here we are.
|
| Twitter is pretty stupid not to have banned Elon as soon as he
| left the slightest hint of acquisition.
|
| Musk does not come from a scientific or technical lineage: his
| father wasn't a geotechnical engineer, a computer programmer,
| or a physicist. He was a chiropractor. A chiropractor! This is
| the essence of Elon. He is the greatest influencer of our time.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| It amazes me how easily you cast aspersions onto someone you
| don't even know. To go so far to accuse someone who leads
| massive innovations and organizations and still has enough time
| to share his thoughts on Twitter as someone who's "disorderly".
|
| What would we say of you, if your life were so public?
| mungoid wrote:
| Elon is acting like the weird kid in school who accidentally
| did something that kinda made him popular and thought he could
| do it over and over but everyone just got tired of it after the
| first couple times
| Avicebron wrote:
| I also used to like him or at least respected him a bit more, I
| think the best way I can put it is that he seems lost in his
| own sauce.
|
| I remember listening to someone describe a conversation they
| had with him or where he was speaking, and he relayed that Elon
| was telling them that in his world he can't relate to people
| because to him its like everyone is a toddler mentally and he
| has to go down to their level....now, I just fully don't
| believe that, that sounds like the most contrived "I'm a genius
| peasants" story imaginable, something out of a movie.
| kortex wrote:
| He seems to open up more when talking to people he considers
| "on his level" or at least deeply interested in what he is
| interested in. Take for example photographer and journalist
| Tim Dodd. Since Tim has a huge passion for rockets and
| actually wants to dig into the details of rocket engine
| cycles, manufacturing scale up - all the stuff Elon finds
| interesting - he really opens up.
|
| That's actually pretty common among those "gifted with mild
| ASD/ADHD" types, they can't be assed to talk about anything
| that doesn't pique their interest. I struggled with it a lot
| until I learned to be more social with other folks' topics of
| discussion. I think Elon is the logical endpoint of what
| happens when you have zero pressure to socially accommodate.
|
| It does seem like he's increasingly emboldened to act an ass
| since being crowned world's richest man.
| danans wrote:
| > That's actually pretty common among those "gifted with
| mild ASD/ADHD" types, they can't be assed to talk about
| anything that doesn't pique their interest.
|
| Despite people in tech conflating ASD/ADHD and using them
| as some kind of weird bragging right (and excuse for not
| considering others), I don't know that there is any public
| information about his having either condition.
|
| > He seems to open up more when talking to people he
| considers "on his level" or at least deeply interested in
| what he is interested in.
|
| That's just called childish behavior, and despite it's name
| it is common in a lot of adults, not just Musk.
|
| But most adults who act that way can't get away with it.
| When it is paired with wealth and a megaphone as it is with
| Musk and others like him, not only can they get away with
| it, but it can be amplified by a mass following of people
| who wish they could get away with it, and live vicariously
| through them. That is basically how cults work.
| kortex wrote:
| He openly admitted to having (deprecated term) Asperger's
| syndrome on SNL.
|
| > That's just called childish behavior,
|
| That's pretty judgy, IMHO.
|
| > But most adults who act that way can't get away with
| it. When it is paired with wealth and a megaphone as it
| is with Musk and others like him, not only can they get
| away with it, but it can be amplified by a mass following
| of people who wish they could get away with it, and live
| vicariously through them.
|
| True.
| danans wrote:
| > That's pretty judgy, IMHO.
|
| I punch up. Even if he has Aspergers, with his amount of
| wealth and power he doesn't get to escape my judgement.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I watched those interviews on his Everyday Astronaut
| YouTube channel.
|
| Musk looked bored with Tim, was often evasive, gave the
| appearance of wanting to get away from a fanboy.
|
| The few times he would "open up" it was more like a
| recitation from someone to a disinterested audience -- or
| as though Musk's mind was somewhere else, not really
| engaged or focused on the interviewer.
|
| EDIT: Skimming the two-part interview again, Musk seems to
| switch between seemingly being engaged to not. Maybe it is
| because the interview went on really long and appears to be
| uncut.
| kortex wrote:
| That's charitable. That was a _really_ long interview
| /behind the scenes. I also interpreted it mostly as being
| tired (he normally works obscene hours and around this
| time he was particularly burning both ends).
|
| I think it's telling that he didn't tell Tim to scram or
| he even got that close of a look at all. If he wanted to
| get away, he could have easily done so.
|
| The disparity is even more obvious in the pressers when
| reporters ask typical reporter questions, vs when someone
| (often Tim, but there are others) asks something
| technical.
| chasd00 wrote:
| one thing about that interview i've always wondered
| about. There was a part where Musk was talking about the
| heat shield and lamenting about progress and then watched
| some guy bang on a heating tile with their hands for
| about 10 seconds. After that, he picks up his phone to
| make a call then the interview cuts to a different scene
| entirely. I get the feeling that phone call was not a
| pleasant one and SpaceX asked it be removed from the
| footage.
|
| Later on when he was giving that update at Starbase he
| mentioned the heat shield and thanked someone for a
| "robust" shield. I couldn't quite tell if he was being
| sarcastic or not.
| rayiner wrote:
| > The disparity is even more obvious in the pressers when
| reporters ask typical reporter questions, vs when someone
| (often Tim, but there are others) asks something
| technical.
|
| Can you even imagine being Musk and running an EV company
| and a rocket company and having to field questions from
| your typical journalists? Like that Q from a journalist
| about why the new image of the black home at the center
| of our galaxy is so blurry:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31353677.
| chasd00 wrote:
| not trying to make excuses but Musk mentioned at the end
| he was suffering from pretty bad back pain too. Back pain
| on your feet really sucks and can destroy a coherent
| thought.
|
| Having said that, Musk is pretty much the worst
| communicator i've ever heard at the C suite level. I
| hope/pray he's better when talking to direct reports
| trying to get his crazy ass ideas and timelines done.
| Those poor poor people if he's not...
| yehBut0 wrote:
| Let's not diagnose him sympathetically without evidence
|
| He's posting his cold brew pics to Twitter. Caffeine is a
| psychoactive substance that can foster manic behavior. Lack
| of sleep can create cognitive stability issues. Been there
| with both.
|
| Who knows if he's taken other things here and there as Mr
| Private Plane bounces around socializing.
|
| Despite Twitter, how much of Elon's life we don't see is
| significant.
| kortex wrote:
| He openly admitted to having (deprecated term) Asperger's
| syndrome on SNL.
| yehBut0 wrote:
| WA wrote:
| On the other hand, he says outright stupid things all the
| time and only if he gets into a topic you know a thing or
| two about, you realize how wrong he often is.
|
| One thing that almost everybody on HN should be able to
| judge as completely wrong is his claim about "L5 autonomy
| very close / later this year" [1].
|
| L5 autonomy is the equivalent of the halting problem. L5 is
| a goal that can't be achieved [2], just like no program can
| be written that determines if the input program will ever
| terminate. [3]
|
| So what to make of this, if this apparently smart guy says
| entry-level stupid things?
|
| [1]: https://electrek.co/2020/07/09/tesla-tsla-elon-musk-
| level-5-...
|
| [2]: https://macdailynews.com/2019/01/07/waymo-ceo-
| level-5-fully-...
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem
|
| Edit: Because so many replies here about why I compare it
| to the Halting problem: That comparison is invalid as many
| of you pointed out. My reasoning was not in a strict
| mathematical sense, but more like this: even experienced
| humans can't drive in every condition. There are situations
| where you just need to stop. L5 autonomy will only work if
| we create AGI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gen
| eral_intelligenc...), so that the system can observe itself
| and think about itself. An AGI might be possible (in the
| far future), whereas the Halting problem is mathematically
| impossible. Thanks for pointing this out.
| angus-prune wrote:
| L5 autonomy is a absolutely a long way off (if ever
| practially acheivable) and Elon is a bullshit artist, but
| I don't understand your comparison to the halting
| problem. Could you elaborate?
|
| I interperate your comparison to the halting problem to
| mean that even if we ignore the feasability of a
| particular solution, it is literally an impossible
| problem to solve.
|
| My understanding of L5 is driving without external human
| intervention. In one sense we already have the technology
| to do that - our brians. It would never be feasible (or
| ethical), but if we could put a human brain inside every
| tesla, wouldn't that achieve L5?
| mlyle wrote:
| I think equating to the halting problem is silly, but the
| ISO levels are a bit of a mess.
|
| * Level 5 is a vehicle that never needs a human to take
| over and can drive in "all conditions". _Humans do not
| meet this driving standard_.
|
| * Level 4 is a vehicle, that within a set of vehicle-
| defined conditions can drive the vehicle without a human
| ever having to take over. It refuses to drive unless the
| conditions are met.
|
| So a level 4 car could be a vehicle that can drive in a 1
| block area of residential streets only... or something
| that can drive in way more conditions than I could safely
| attempt, but refuses to drive in say, whiteout blizzard
| conditions at night.
| webmaven wrote:
| _> In one sense we already have the technology to do that
| - our brians. It would never be feasible (or ethical),
| but if we could put a human brain inside every tesla,
| wouldn 't that achieve L5?_
|
| It would achieve L5 of a sort, but people don't usually
| mean "L5 autonomy" in the sense of "capable of crashing
| the vehicle deliberately to protest the horror of their
| existence".
| zosima wrote:
| The difficulty of creating L5 autonomy and the provable
| impossibility of the halting problem are not comparable
| at all.
|
| There is absolutely nothing fundamental that makes L5
| autonomy impossible, while the halting problem is
| provably impossible, as normally formulated.
|
| I don't know how close or far away L5 autonomy is, but
| it's definitely theoretically reachable, while the
| halting problem is always going to be impossible.
| mlyle wrote:
| Halting problem comparison is silly, but L5 autonomy as
| defined ("all conditions") is probably not attainable.
|
| A car that would complete all the trips I'm willing to
| complete, and some more, but refuses under some
| circumstances (e.g. whiteout blizzard conditions) would
| be a L4 vehicle under the ISO definition.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| When we are actually have cars that sufficiently close to
| what humans can do in terms of range of condition, I
| suspect the level 5 definition will be updated to be more
| like:
|
| Can drive in approximately the same set of conditions as
| a human (professional driver?), possibly being unwilling
| to drive in certain (seldom encountered) conditions where
| most humans would, but offset by being willing to drive
| in conditions few people would.
|
| Importantly, the car must avoid completely giving up on
| driving mid trip (as opposed to deciding "too dangerous,
| turn around and go back at next opportunity"), unless
| conditions are comparable to those in which a human would
| give up mid trip (which are pretty limited, as humans
| seldom just stop and give up on the road unless the car
| is broken down, or fully stuck. At worst, in some really
| bad conditions, humans may pull other to wait for the
| storm/extreme-fog/etc to blow over.)
| mlyle wrote:
| Or perhaps at that point we won't need the definition
| anymore. It becomes a bit arbitrary and market-y at that
| point. Assuming that we don't end up with a single
| vendor.
|
| "My BMW still drove during the snows in February, but my
| neighbor's Tesla said it wouldn't drive 2 of the days."
| "Yah, but mine doesn't insist that the windows are
| perfectly clean and pristine before starting a trip!"
|
| We probably should never have had level 5, but split L4
| into a couple levels: heavily geofenced/restricted vs.
| _relatively_ unlimited applicability with some
| restrictions.
| Satam wrote:
| Will never be achieved? Only if humanity dies ous
| quickly. If, literally, even the dumbest people can learn
| how to drive, I'm sure with enough time we'll be able to
| replicate that autonomously.
| omarhaneef wrote:
| I know what the halting problem is and I had to study why
| it cannot work.
|
| However, for L5, you just have a quote saying it doesn't
| work. We know it is mathematically possible for L5 to
| work because, well, humans perform at that level. We know
| that our vision, our ears, our hands and senses are
| enough input to solve the problem.
|
| Do you have a direct connection between them or are you
| just using it as a metaphor for an unsolvable problem?
| mlyle wrote:
| Humans actually don't perform at L5, we perform at a very
| high level of L4. (Still, the halting problem comparison
| is silly).
| Applejinx wrote:
| I needed a reminder, so I opened a new tab in Chromium
| and typed in 'the halting problem' and hit return and
| Chromium immediately crashed :)
|
| Which is not only funny, it's exactly why the halting
| problem is so hard...
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| I mean, he has a pretty clear financial incentive to say
| stuff like this given that he runs an auto manufacturer
| that heavily invests in vehicular automation.
|
| Not saying he's right, but find me a company that doesn't
| polish their own turds, even just a little bit. Everyone
| trying to sell something is painting the best picture of
| their product possible.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Yeah, but even this doesn't seem very thoughtful. He
| recently acknowledged his predictions around full self-
| driving were wrong, and said it was because he'd failed
| to appreciate that it would essentially require
| artificial general intelligence.
|
| Then he claimed we'd have that solved by 2023.
|
| Not sure what the upside is of being known for repeatedly
| making non-rational predictions and being wrong.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| > Not sure what the upside is of being known for
| repeatedly making non-rational predictions and being
| wrong.
|
| It can significantly move markets in the short term,
| which he seems to have become adept at doing over the
| last few years. And unfortunately, the stock market isn't
| really interested in long-term thinking, it's largely
| about breaking news and twitter rumors nowadays.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| Well, he's definitely mastered market manipulation. I
| take your point there.
|
| But, the degree of absurdity across predictions
| undermines even that strategy over time. I think he does
| himself a disservice here. He should get out of his own
| way and allow his actual achievements to speak louder
| than irrational predictions (and other distractions).
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| I totally agree, and that's the very definition of short-
| term thinking: doing what's best for today at tomorrow's
| expense.
| juanani wrote:
| bena wrote:
| There's polishing a turd, then there's calling a pile of
| shit a chocolate cake.
| cinntaile wrote:
| I really hope this becomes an actual idiom.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Elon has changed his tune (somewhat) about automated
| driving. He said in an interview that he now believes
| full auto-drive requires AGI.
|
| Personally I think full auto-drive requires us to change
| to the roads to make them work for machines... but that's
| a different story.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I heard him say FSD will be fully functional by next year
| in the ted interview he did a few weeks ago.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I mean, they already ship it, don't they? How do their
| customers square these statements with what they were
| sold and can enable with the flick of a button?
|
| Or is this FSD in the sense of "my car can drive itself
| home after dropping me off" type of thing?
| elorant wrote:
| You make that he's a businessman who also tries to sell
| his product. We try to judge him as an engineer, but he's
| much more than that.
| tejohnso wrote:
| That Waymo CEO quote is about feasibility of fully
| autonomous driving in snow / rain. Seems unreasonable to
| even expect that. But I don't think it's as intractable
| as the halting problem. There's no formal proof against
| feasibility of L5.
|
| But as far as Musk, yes he lies and isn't shy about it.
| It's shameless and overt. Perhaps he justifies it as
| being part of his job.
| janekm wrote:
| Hmm... While I don't see any evidence that L5 autonomous
| driving is near, I don't follow your argument that L5 is
| equivalent to the halting problem. Can you explain?
|
| I am not convinced that L5 is fundamentally impossible
| (unless we posit that humans are also not L5 autonomous,
| which I suppose one could argue, as they are prone to
| driving errors). Granted I subscribe to Universality, and
| assume that humans are not capable of hyper-computation.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I think he knows intellectually that a lot of his claims
| and predictions are bogus, but he also knows that his
| fanboys are all over it. Look at the amount of preorders
| for cars that - as it turns out - were years away still,
| if at all (thinking of the new roadster, pick-up truck
| and big trailer truck at the moment). Look at Tesla's
| stock which is based entirely on hype and less so on
| actual product, market share or financial results. Look
| at how many companies and universities around the world
| started developing a Hyperloop just because he mentioned
| it - I don't even know if there was like a grant for it
| or some other financial incentive.
|
| Intellectually everyone can deduct that a long distance
| hyperloop is science fiction, ridiculously expensive,
| complicated, and will likely face long outages at any
| incident (see the channel tunnel, but like if it was
| 10-100x as long and a vacuum). But because Musk says it
| with Confidence, an army of fans jumps onto it.
| contingencies wrote:
| _he says outright stupid things all the time and only if
| he gets into a topic you know a thing or two about, you
| realize how wrong he often is._
|
| Recently he said "complexity and cost of a car is greater
| than that of a humanoid robot".
| luke0016 wrote:
| Unfortunately you are doing the very thing that you
| accuse Musk of doing. L5 autonomy is not formalized (nor
| do I think it is able to be formalized) to the extent
| that would permit a rigorous proof showing it is
| isomorphic to the halting problem.
|
| Your claim conflates a nebulous, squishy, human goal with
| a formally and rigorously proven mathematical problem.
| The only support offered is links to wikipedia and news
| articles, none of which help connect the two in an
| equally formal and rigorous fashion.
| rayiner wrote:
| Do you know engineers? I've had this conversation I can't
| count how many times in my life.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yes, I am one and work with engineers. I had these
| doscussions, almost exclusively with the actually pretty
| bad engineers.
| Applejinx wrote:
| It's a particular kind of intelligence. I'm actually in a
| relationship with somebody who tends to lean this
| direction. If you know what you're dealing with it's not
| too burdensome.
|
| What's happening is, you have a person (Elon) of
| exceptional intelligence, so they can recognize a thing
| or concept and instantly follow it out to rational
| conclusions faster than the people around them, but they
| have not developed their intuitive side and don't respect
| the empty part, the unknown part, of the problem space.
|
| It's like that halting problem thing: they become so
| accustomed to being able to see 'the answer' that they
| get blind to the mystery, the ambiguity of the non-
| answers and the areas where a real innovation will come
| from. They're not surprised by anything, or surprisable,
| so they become a specific kind of intelligent, very very
| quick and correct.
|
| If you're a designer/inventor/artist type person you rely
| much more heavily on the non-answer spaces because those
| are where you work. That's not Elon. He has people for
| that, and takes the credit for their work, and impresses
| them so much with his ability to be quick that they go
| right along with it. In real terms they could not get
| their stuff done without him as that ringleader,
| figurehead, the 'Mr. Outside' there to impress the masses
| and get them to give him their money. It's a symbiotic
| relationship and Elon has done that over and over.
|
| Don't look to Elon personally to have the revolutionary
| idea. However, if you show him one, he may well see where
| it leads way quicker than you do... and take it, and make
| a business out of it, and then hire you and have you
| doing it whilst taking a big cut of what you earn from
| it.
|
| In this way Elon 'gets' capitalism as well and quickly as
| he gets everything else. He's definitely the man for late
| stage capitalism.
| chasd00 wrote:
| This is a pretty good observation IMO. I've always
| wondered why his timelines are so ridiculous. It jives
| with what you said because maybe he looks at current
| state and can follow it to the end state but misses the
| unknowns in-between. The devil is always in the details.
| But i would expect that of someone relatively new to the
| job of GettingThingsDone and Musk has been doing this for
| a long time. I can't get my head around why his timelines
| are so outside the realm of reality. Any date he gives i
| just mentally ignore because it's wildly unreliable.
| hef19898 wrote:
| His timelines are of the kond you get from clueless
| founders overpromising revolutionary products. It works,
| he gets all the funding he needs.
| discreteevent wrote:
| Indeed, it's hard for someone to be a good engineer
| unless they have some breadth of mind.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Good engineering is a team effort. Engineers unwilling to
| listen because of some self-percieved superiority complex
| are bad at that. And they hardly get any better.
| freeopinion wrote:
| I don't mean to defend snobishness, but it is possible to
| be in the top 10% of your field and dismiss anybody not
| in the top 30% of your field. That comes across as
| arrogant and dismissive to almost everybody because it
| is. But it doesn't mean you can't work in a team of
| equals.
|
| Somebody like Anish Giri might be a very good sport and
| play a (very short) game of chess with me, but I doubt he
| would expect to learn anything from it. Of course, he
| probably wouldn't waste his time on me. Either way, he
| would still be a great asset to help somebody like Ian
| Nepomniachtchi prepare for a tournament.
|
| Of course, being considerate and welcoming to everybody
| all the time is super awesome. Those who manage it have
| my respect whether they are perceived as the best in
| their field or not.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| > it is possible to be in the top 10% of your field and
| dismiss anybody not in the top 30% of your field
|
| This is how the 10% end up with 5 jobs in 8 years,
| watching those who they thought were beneath them rise up
| and take leadership positions because they're too much of
| a pain in the ass to work with.
| Avicebron wrote:
| I do, I happen to be one, but I've never approached someone
| who wasn't an engineer like they have the mental capacity
| of a child (baring literal children). I can't play the
| cello, but I know music majors who can and they would
| struggle in Thermo. I don't see how anything but hubris can
| make someone see differently.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| > baring literal children
|
| Baring literal children isn't legal!
| rayiner wrote:
| > I can't play the cello, but I know music majors who can
| and they would struggle in Thermo.
|
| You can use thermo to build civilization, but you can't
| use a cello to do that!
|
| > I don't see how anything but hubris can make someone
| see differently.
|
| We don't know the context of this conversation with Musk.
| In "just between us engineers" conversations, there's
| plenty of hubris to go around. It's not just engineers,
| of course. Many of the highly educated professionals I
| know will express demeaning opinions about religious
| people or rural folks after a few drinks.
|
| To be clear, I don't think being condescending is a
| virtue. But I don't see any reason to single Musk out for
| that specifically. I don't see him talking shit about how
| stupid everyone is, like many people do.
| zamfi wrote:
| > You can use thermo to build civilization, but you can't
| use a cello to do that!
|
| Depends on how you define "civilization"!
| rayiner wrote:
| I definite it in terms of inventing air conditioning:
| https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8278085/singapore-lee-kuan-
| yew...
| zamfi wrote:
| Oh interesting, didn't realize civilization started in
| 1902.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > I don't see him talking shit about how stupid everyone
| is, like many people do.
|
| That would Provo be because the attached attic sis
| related to belong musk not "everybody" and "many people".
| [deleted]
| travisporter wrote:
| Good point but i think good engineers can be this way only
| in their field.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| > I also used to like him or at least respected him a bit
| more, I think the best way I can put it is that he seems lost
| in his own sauce.
|
| Agreed. Musk has gone full Assange.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| At least for Assange, one can say that being holed up for
| years in an embassy room and now having to face decades in
| an US prison (or even the death penalty!) isn't going to
| make _anyone_ feel well.
| kibwen wrote:
| It feels like Elon Musk read that anecdote about how von
| Neumann spoke with three year-olds as equals, and somehow
| managed to conclude that the lesson was about expressions of
| superiority rather than about expressions of empathy.
| planarhobbit wrote:
| The core difference is that von Neumann was a genius and
| did many, many things single handedly. I feel Musk is a
| businessman who would take credit for the work done by
| someone like von Neumann.
| chasd00 wrote:
| well given enough time who knows how history will judge
| Musk. Take Bill Gates, anyone working in tech in the 90s
| knows he's about as ruthless as you can possibly be. Now
| Gates is known as a saint as he tries to buy his way into
| heaven.
| weego wrote:
| He's just a Steve Jobs who doesn't know to keep his worst
| traits hidden from the public eye.
| hef19898 wrote:
| More like tye worst version of Jobs before his firing from
| Apple. And not just hiding his worst traits, but also
| unable of keepong them in check.
| bko wrote:
| How has he lost his sauce? He's actually delivering on his
| two major companies. He's shipping electric cars at an insane
| growth rate. He's doing what car companies had 100 years to
| do and still can't get right in the US. All the other
| electric car companies are basically vaporware VC money pits.
| He's also delivering on SpaceX. I get it, you don't like his
| politics or share his sense of humor but don't pretend like
| he's some unhinged twitter personality.
|
| Tesla revenue for the quarter ending March 31, 2022 was
| $18.756B, a 80.54% increase year-over-year.
|
| Tesla revenue for the twelve months ending March 31, 2022 was
| $59.810B, a 74.73% increase year-over-year.
|
| Tesla annual revenue for 2021 was $53.823B, a 70.67% increase
| from 2020.
|
| Tesla annual revenue for 2020 was $31.536B, a 28.31% increase
| from 2019.
|
| Tesla annual revenue for 2019 was $24.578B, a 14.52% increase
| from 2018.
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TSLA/tesla/revenue
| bengale wrote:
| > he seems lost in his own sauce
|
| I read this as a polite way of saying he's up his own arse,
| which seems accurate.
| bko wrote:
| Sure he's arrogant but I wouldn't rank his
| accomplishments and person hood by tweets. He has an
| incredible record as an engineering manager and investor
| and to brush that off is just silly.
| otterley wrote:
| I will brush that off, because the character of our
| leadership matters. It would be a regrettable outcome if
| our next generation of leaders acts as boorishly as Elon
| Musk does. We want leaders who inspire others to be the
| best version of themselves, and that includes treating
| others with respect and care.
| houseofzeus wrote:
| High on his own gas.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| > I get it, you don't like his politics or share his sense
| of humor but don't pretend like he's some unhinged twitter
| personality.
|
| He called Vernon Unsworth a "pedo guy" in a tweet after he
| rescued all of those kids in Thailand and criticized Musk's
| plan to build a small submarine to get them out. That
| wasn't a joke, it wasn't meant to elicit a humorous
| response, it was clearly meant to defame someone. Notice
| that accusing folks of pedophilia has become a pretty
| common tactic for the right nowadays.
|
| Calling someone a pedo seems pretty unhinged for a
| billionaire responsible for running major companies, it
| honestly surprised me how Musk would spend his public
| energy saying that kind of stuff, and especially when you
| consider the power dynamics involved, it's hard to
| interpret his actions as anything other than driven by
| insecurity. But I guess beauty is in the eye of the
| beholder.
| bko wrote:
| It's slang. Maybe not tasteful or obscure but it is just
| an insult. You ever have someone attack you and call them
| a name? It's pretty human. Someone's life isn't defined
| by an insult he used years ago. You need to get over
| it...
|
| https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-pedo-guy-
| really-...
| medler wrote:
| He didn't just call him a pedo guy. Elon also emailed a
| bunch of journalists to make serious (and untrue)
| accusations that the guy was a "child rapist."
| otterley wrote:
| No. A person in Musk's position should know better than
| to behave this way, and perhaps to even bounce drafts of
| his communications off a trusted confidant for feedback
| before hitting "send." Heck, I do this myself a couple
| times a month, and I'm nowhere near his level of power
| and influence. It's not like he can't afford an army of
| comms people.
| gspr wrote:
| Slang?! What is it slang for, pray tell?
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| You know, it's funny to me how often the "just kidding,
| it's slang" argument gets used. You'd think someone as
| smart and talented as Musk would've figured somewhere
| along the way to actually say what they mean. Which
| strangely enough, he seems to do just fine most of the
| time. But you're right, it's all my fault and I should
| really get over it and be more empathetic towards the
| billionaires that can't seem to communicate clearly.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Why are you springing to the defense of the richest
| person in the world? Are you hoping to get in his good
| graces or... something?
| thrwy_918 wrote:
| When you have tens of millions of Twitter followers and
| are an international celebrity, it's reasonable expect a
| modicum of care when making public statements about a
| private individual. I don't really care how that phrase
| would be interpreted at a private school in South Africa
| in the 1980s. What matters is how it can reasonably be
| expected to be interpreted by the millions upon millions
| of people who heard it as a result of Musk using it.
|
| It doesn't really matter if this was intentional malice
| or reckless negligence. It was wildly, wildly
| unacceptable either way.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| > You ever have someone attack you and call them a name?
|
| No, I'm a mature adult. Sure, I'll disagree with someone.
| Hell, I'll even say things like, "that was a bigoted
| statement", but I will never make up an insult to avenge
| an attack. I work every day to prevent that behaviour in
| my kids. I'm not going to replicate it in my life.
|
| It's also not up to you to decide when someone "needs to
| get over it."
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| My thoughts on this are that extremely smart, hard-charging
| people with heavy narcissistic traits are "constrained" in
| their earlier years by:
|
| 1. They still need to follow the basic rules of society, i.e.
| people haven't started "God-Emperor Elon" memes yet, so not
| every single person is going to bow down.
|
| 2. Before they've achieved amazing success, they aren't 100%
| confident in their other-wordly abilities. Now, given his
| success with PayPal, Tesla, and Space-X, it's easy for him to
| believe his own press.
|
| Thus, Elon is now at the point where all of his negative
| traits are essentially allowed to "run wild" because they are
| constrained neither by society at large, nor his own doubts.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| I still respect him, probably more every year.
|
| I never liked him before and probably won't in the future. I
| doubt I'd like anybody who's literally dragging humanity into
| the future, but he is doing that.
|
| Whether he's doing it right, or whether he's doing it well is
| an open question, but no other single person is to this
| degree shoving humanity forward this often and this much, as
| far as I know.
| smt88 wrote:
| This comes across in his public persona too. Elon's entire
| vibe is like a 14 year old who thinks they know everything
| and everyone else is stupid.
| ra7 wrote:
| That's pretty evident with his technobabble. He uses just
| enough technical buzzwords that impress non-technical folks
| and acts like he is an expert in every topic he talks
| about.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Currently being in my x-th, and out of order rewatch, of
| DS9 I kind of blame Star Trek for that. Technobabble,
| check. Geniusus saving the day and universe, check. Moral
| superiority, check. Throw in some Tony Stark vibes and
| you have it. And social media influencing.
| hnaccount141 wrote:
| > Technobabble, check. Geniusus saving the day and
| universe, check. Moral superiority, check.
|
| It's a shame that these are so often the takeaways from a
| show that is at its core about a group of people with
| different skillsets and backgrounds working together with
| mutual trust and respect to further a common goal.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I mentioned that it is my x-th tike watching DS9? I like
| Star Trek, there simply are some aspects that didn't age
| too well, or that I see differently now.
|
| As a comparison, back the day I t liked Babylon 5 better.
| Tried watching it again and just couldn't the way I can
| always rewatch ST TNG, DS9 or even Voyager.
| hnaccount141 wrote:
| Apologies, I didn't mean that as a statement about you
| personally. I more meant to agree that those are aspects
| of Trek that many latch on to (while missing some of the
| healthier lessons).
| hef19898 wrote:
| Trek has a lot of those. Dax as a gender fluid character
| for example. Or Data being an artificial life form. The
| risk of the Federation becoming military dictatorship.
|
| On the other hand there is the fact that Starfleet is the
| de-facto military junta, a morally fine one of course. Or
| moral high horse crap like the prime directive. The
| overall optimism is good so, and especially DS9 did a
| good job in showing the ambivalency that comes from
| ideals meeting real politics. E.g. the arc between Sisko
| and the Maquis, having Sisko side with, of all people,
| war criminal Dukat.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| All Musk's plastic surgery and hair implants do make him
| look kinda weird like Odo.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Or he is slowly loosong his ability to keep a form for a
| lengthy period of time.
| jmprspret wrote:
| I agree but I'm also unsure if he's putting on that persona
| because his audience has reacted to it in a positive way.
| Flanderisation, I think they call it?
| themitigating wrote:
| My mom called it "seeking negative attention"
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Flanderisation is a little different -- generally applied
| to fictional characters, its when a single trait
| overrides every other aspect of your personality. Ned
| Flanders on the Simpsons is the inspiration for the term:
| a character initially created as a foil and mirror for
| Homer Simpson (kind, calm, and collected where Homer is
| typically brash, emotional, and chaotic) became a one-
| note character defined by his faith.
|
| I guess you could kind of apply it to Musk in that he
| seems to revel in being something of a jerk, but (in the
| view of someone who's been very skeptical of Musk for a
| while) it's not an all-consuming thing.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It's not that uncommon among people with Asperger-like
| traits, which Musk has publicly acknowledged in 2021.
| marricks wrote:
| That's the thing though, you don't have to seek attention
| or power. That's not an Asperger trait. That's the thing
| which really makes it inexcusable.
|
| You can also be rich and relatively unknown, most rich
| people are. He chooses to be super public.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| He uses that attention and focus in ways that benefit the
| world at large. Like helping build more ethical AI's, or
| getting people to Mars. There's nothing wrong with that
| IMHO.
| yehBut0 wrote:
| There is something wrong instigating further extreme
| resource exhaustion to serve boyish Star Trek pipe
| dreams.
|
| There's absolutely no guarantee he's on the right track.
| Humans expanding away from Earth is as likely as us being
| able to rewrite the speed of light.
|
| There's no rewriting the fundamentals of reality. One
| really bad day and Mars colony is wiped out. How much
| damage we do here before getting there is a real concern.
| g_sch wrote:
| It never ceases to amaze me how many people consider some
| problems here on earth to be hopelessly intractable, but
| simultaneously consider a livable human colony on Mars to
| be not only achievable, but also not subject to the same
| supposedly intractable problems of today.
| MockObject wrote:
| A Mars colony is merely an engineering problem. The
| intractable problems on Earth are stuck because millions
| of dollars don't want them solved.
| g_sch wrote:
| What is it about Mars that would cause those same
| problems to collapse into mere engineering problems over
| there?
| MockObject wrote:
| There really isn't a comparison between engineers
| figuring out how to build a sustainable biosphere on
| Mars, and the problems that we're presumably discussing
| on Earth, like climate change and pollution, which are
| political problems inasmuch as billion dollar business
| models are benefiting from them, and actively fighting
| your efforts to interfere.
| yehBut0 wrote:
| I like how you try to extricate getting to Mars as it's
| own thing despite the industrial effort to do so
| exacerbating climate problems that are political
| problems.
|
| Please, go on. I want to hear more about how
| thermodynamics can be waved away for "just an engineering
| project."
|
| This is what I mean. Obsession and success with
| engineering has titillated people to the point of blind
| faith. Externalities do not exist in their conceptual
| void. It's become akin to unfalsifiable religious belief.
| MockObject wrote:
| > I like how you try to extricate getting to Mars as it's
| own thing despite the industrial effort to do so
| exacerbating climate problems that are political
| problems.
|
| If humanity doesn't spend the resources on spreading
| humanity throughout the universe, then the resources will
| be spent on disposable plastic toys that fill landfills.
| It's not as if an edenic utopia is being despoiled for
| this boondoggle. Our environment isn't in its precarious
| state because of too much space travel. We're debating
| over the disposition of a tiny fraction of our dwindling
| material resources, negligible in the grand scheme.
|
| > I want to hear more about how thermodynamics can be
| waved away for "just an engineering project."
|
| If we have a limited period before climate doomsday, then
| we'd better get cracking on space travel before it's too
| late.
| [deleted]
| martyvis wrote:
| My concern is he losing his focus. I know I get
| distracted from the work I am supposed to be doing
| (sometimes my paid job but even more so at home). I
| really should be finishing some home renovation work but
| there is that mail box I need to finish, and the 3D
| printed lid for a mouse trap, and the synthesizer I am
| thinking of building, oh wait there is an nice branch
| from the plum tree we trimmed that I could turn into a
| flute on the lathe...
|
| Elon really needs to focus on the energy and
| transportation thing that he really is good at.
| foxhill wrote:
| sorry to pick you up on this, and i'm unable to phrase
| this in such a way as to not sound inflammatory (again,
| apologies):
|
| * which ethical AI would that be?
|
| * how many people has elon sent to mars now?
|
| elon has marketed an image to people, one of a tony
| stark-like figure, that might do or say the wrong thing
| at the time, but who truly wants to make everything
| better.
|
| the reality is that, whilst perhaps not a conman
| (although i find my opinion of him leaning to that end
| more each day), he's definitely just another profit-
| driven business man, with little to no regard of the
| people around him. and probably a sociopath.
|
| bill gates has done (a lot) more for humanity. and i'm
| not particularly fond of him, either.
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Can you elaborate on Musk being a conman? I don't follow
| the news these days.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Well there was that incident where he committed
| securities fraud by saying he's taking Tesla private at a
| certain amount.
| weego wrote:
| As with all outputs from any neurodiversity or
| personality disorder, it's a reason not an excuse
| wongarsu wrote:
| I don't think being rich is his end goal. His goal is to
| do great things, to advance humanity (in very specific
| ways), maybe having a great legacy. Being rich helps him
| achieve these goals, but so does building hype and being
| present in the media. Being rich and unknown isn't a
| great strategy to achieve his goals.
| yehBut0 wrote:
| There's absolutely no reason to believe he's on the right
| track
|
| No science says "yes rockets and spreading through the
| stars is definitely the future for humans."
|
| The odds he's just exacerbating damaging industrial
| feedback loops and a worse mess for the future are much
| higher than successful Mars colonies and extrasolar
| expansion coming from his efforts
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Musk's bullshit endangers the valuable things he's doing.
|
| If he wants to make Starship a reality, he needs permits
| and government contracts.
|
| I met an African-American man about ten years ago who
| owned an excellent patent portfolio covering technology
| like this
|
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US6695260
|
| but he was the only black person I've ever met who hated
| Barack Obama. He was an extreme Republican, thought
| Democrats all worked for the anti-Christ, etc.
|
| I figured there was no way he'd succeed at what he was
| trying to do because he'd need to make nice with the
| government no matter who the administration was. I
| haven't heard from him again.
|
| I see Musk going down the same road. I can only imagine
| the last man is dying on Earth 1000 years from now and
| cursing: "If only Elon Musk didn't have to post that
| tweet we would have made it to Mars."
| [deleted]
| g_sch wrote:
| I can't buy this. He very clearly seems to relish public
| attention for its own sake. Otherwise we'd have to accept
| that his hyping of random crypto tokens (e.g. DOGE) is
| somehow indirectly connected to saving the world or
| advancing humanity.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Being rich helps him achieve these goals, but so does
| building hype and being present in the media.
|
| Does it? I know literally nothing about the personality
| of the Wright brothers. Or Henry Ford. Or Thomas Edison.
| Their legacy is their inventions. Hype and media coverage
| are temporary at best. And unfortunately, Musk's hype and
| media presence tends to show him at his worst. I'm not
| sure whether Musk fans realize how many non-fans actually
| despise the guy. If anything, he's wrecking his legacy.
| Shut up and build stuff.
| phil21 wrote:
| I mean, Thomas Edison may as well be a 200 year old Elon
| Musk. Practically all he did was be a hype man.
|
| Ford was pretty similar from my reading.
|
| Both men had early career success and worked harder than
| most at achieving their goals. But their ongoing
| successes were very much political and public perception.
| Ford especially was incredibly politically active and
| noisy about it.
|
| I imagine Elon's legacy (should he be remembered) will
| not be his twitter shitposting, but electric cars and
| rocketry.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Edison and Ford had the small detail that the product
| they sold became widespread among the population very
| quickly.
|
| They represented the last effort after standing on the
| shoulders of giants, basically being the person who got
| to sign off the quality of life improvement and reap the
| financial reward. It happens, could have been somebody
| else but in the end it was them.
|
| mr.Musk has been at the helm of Tesla for 20 years and
| his product is nor widespread (only 1% of total number of
| global vehicles sold in FY21) nor revolutionary from a
| quality of life standpoint (at the end of the day it's a
| car and you can hardly tell the difference between Tesla
| EVs and MercedesEQS, iBMW, Toyota EVs etc....if anything
| the Quality Of life gap is towards the other automakers)
| freeopinion wrote:
| That's like saying a 1930 Ford Model A is not that
| different from a 1930 Cadillac. That doesn't mean that
| Ford didn't change the automobile industry in a historic
| way before 1930.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Where is Tesla's equivalent of the Model T, or Windows 95
| or the Wright Brothers biplane, or the Montgolfier
| brothers hot air baloon?
|
| The paradigm shift that gets to 95% marketshare before
| getting copied? Nowhere to be seen.
|
| Tesla changed the way people feel about Tesla.
|
| When people say they are not a car company they are
| right. They are a cult company. They sell cult. Of the
| techno-utopian kind.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Yes. Tesla changed the way people feel about Tesla.
|
| Importantly, some of those people were in positions of
| influence at other auto manufacturers. So Tesla didn't
| have to capture 95% marketshare to change the industry.
|
| I think that the blinding glamour of a Tesla has faded
| quite a bit. I think, 20 years on, we expect to see
| strong competition to them. The lane assist, the adaptive
| cruise control, the touch screen console... these are a
| bit boring now. Others have had them for a long time.
| Some probably had them before Tesla. Hopefully, several
| competitors will start offering 500 km range EVs. Tesla
| can still cult that advantage.
|
| But the cult of Tesla scared established players.
| Everyone has scrambled to adapt since. And the public has
| been persuaded to keep the pressure on. Tesla represents
| an historic shift. I don't have to like them or buy them.
| But I recognize their place in history.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > at the end of the day it's a car and you can hardly
| tell the difference between Tesla EVs and MercedesEQS,
| iBMW, Toyota EVs etc..
|
| I'll go a step further and I can hardly tell the
| difference between a Tesla and a used ICE car.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| I have not enough karma to make the point above and not
| risking ending up underwater.
|
| But the hell with it...I can always delete it.
|
| I think people are taking crazy pills, they religiously
| follow this guy and his delusions about becoming a
| multiplanetary specie before the Sun becomes a red
| giant....5 billions years from now.
|
| As they have such thoughts they have to walk through
| human feces and scenes from the Walking Dead...only with
| the homeless instead of zombies.
|
| Stuff that would scare them to death if they saw it in a
| movie or compel them to pity if they happened in the
| background of a live news reportage from Ukraine.
|
| Instead it's happening under their nose as they wonder if
| Mars is ambitious enough or we should aim directly for
| the Andromeda Galaxy.
| MockObject wrote:
| "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at
| the stars."
| lapcat wrote:
| > But their ongoing successes were very much political
| and public perception. Ford especially was incredibly
| politically active and noisy about it.
|
| Nobody remembers Ford's political activism. Apparently he
| ran for US Senate once and lost. Is there any reason to
| think that Ford's political activism had anything to do
| with the success of the Ford Motor Company?
|
| Ford hyping cars is fine and expected. Ford hyping
| politics doesn't really seem to add anything. In fact, it
| appears that there were some antisemitic writings
| associated with Ford, there was a lawsuit and a consumer
| boycott, and he was forced to apologize.
|
| A common fallacy is to assume that everything a
| successful person does in life contributes to their
| success. OJ Simpson was one of the greatest football
| running backs ever, and he was also a murderer. You might
| say, "if he wasn't a violent person, then he wouldn't
| have been a great running back", but somehow Barry
| Sanders managed not to murder anyone.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Alternative take, things like the space program; while
| there are some prominent names in there like Wernher von
| Braun and Louis Armstrong, the endeavour which changed
| human history was an endeavour by many people, not just a
| few individuals with Personalities. Same with other
| current endeavours like nuclear fusion and the LHC; I
| can't name any individual person behind those projects.
| They are a lot more selfless.
|
| Meanwhile, there's great engineers working at both Tesla
| and SpaceX, but the only person you know is Elon.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > not that uncommon among people with Asperger-like traits
|
| Lets get one thing straight. If you are on the spectrum,
| the reason you act like this is because you don't
| understand that you are doing something wrong. Its a
| spectrum, normally around social interaction, and not
| understanding, or being able to pick up on the slow of
| social information.
|
| However for most high functioning people it is possible,
| with work, to mitigate those "negative" qualities.
|
| It is not an excuse to be a dick. What Elon is doing is a
| choice. He is perfectly capable of interacting with people
| enough to have a series of relationships with people
| without making them feel like shit. I would therefore
| postulate that whilst he might be on the spectrum, he has
| worked hard to mitigate it.
|
| What Elon is, is a rich school boy.
| tomp wrote:
| > the reason you act like this is because you don't
| understand that you are doing something wrong
|
| No, it's actually because you don't think it's wrong in
| the first place.
|
| I _understand_ why people prefer to lie to protect other
| 's emotions, or why people prefer being high-status
| rather than being right, but I disagree with that, _I
| think it 's wrong_.
| danparsonson wrote:
| That's a false dichotomy - there is a whole range of
| options between 'lying to save someones feelings' and
| 'being rude'.
| Starlevel001 wrote:
| > If you are on the spectrum, the reason you act like
| this is because you don't understand that you are doing
| something wrong.
|
| completely untrue, nearly all autistic people I know
| including me are hyper-aware of social situations and
| specifically act in ways to avoid being a dick. this is a
| pop-psychology notion of autism.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Yeah, but that's because we spent our childhoods and
| young adulthoods dealing with the consequences of not
| understanding what we were doing wrong, and put effort
| into figuring out what we were doing wrong and fixing it.
|
| Now, I don't think Musk never faced consequences when he
| was young, and never learned this stuff, but I do think
| he faces absolutely no consequences today, and is happy
| to not put in any effort.
| freeopinion wrote:
| Your last sentence resonates with me. I would add that he
| might consider different efforts he might make and
| determine that it wouldn't change the results. He might
| offend a different 2/3 of the audience and please a
| different 1/3 of the audience. So why exhaust yourself
| all the time when the outcome is arguably
| indistinguishable?
|
| Somebody on the outside might see a big difference in
| result, say a 50% approval rating vs a 35% approval
| rating. But from the inside it can all look the same:
| "everybody hates me anyway" or "most people love me
| anyway".
| chasd00 wrote:
| > Now, I don't think Musk never faced consequences when
| he was young, and never learned this stuff, but I do
| think he faces absolutely no consequences today, and is
| happy to not put in any effort.
|
| my late step-father would say this person needs an "ass-
| whoopin"
| vidanay wrote:
| My 13 year old child reached this epiphany just this week
| (ADHD, not Aspergers). They told me "whenever I think
| about something, I am really interested in it but then I
| simply stop thinking about it and do something else."
| They were a little upset because they wanted to continue
| with those interesting activities. We had a nice long
| talk about reaching a maturity point where their active
| thoughts can control their impulses.
|
| Yes, it is more complex than simply "mind over matter",
| but it's still an important development milestone.
| chasd00 wrote:
| (total tangent but i've had a couple moments like this
| with my kids. It's amazing to see, i love it)
| alasdair_ wrote:
| > If you are on the spectrum, the reason you act like
| this is because you don't understand that you are doing
| something wrong.
|
| Sometimes, you know it's wrong, at least at some level,
| but are so fucking tired of masking all the time you just
| do it anyway.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > but are so fucking tired of masking all the time you
| just do it anyway.
|
| I feel like "masking" is being used for "be polite". I
| didn't decide to be rude, I decided not to mask my
| disability.
|
| That is bullshit.
|
| People on the spectrum may have a harder time
| understanding what is rude, and that may give some passes
| when you don't realize it. But if you decide to ignore
| what you've learned is rude, you're just an ass.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| "Being polite" is emotional labor, whether or not that
| labor takes the form of "masking" a disability. While of
| course we should be respectful of those we engage with,
| avoidance of emotional labor should always take
| precedence over shallow notions of politeness that have
| nothing to do with actual respect for others.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > "Being polite" is emotional labor,
|
| And "going to bathroom and not pissing on the floor" is
| physical labor. Even more so if you are on crutches.
|
| I completely disagree with your artificial distinction
| between "being respectful to others" and "politeness".
| Politeness is defined as being respectful to others
|
| We all benefit from a more polite interaction. To refuse
| to be polite because it requires effort is just taking
| advantage of the system without paying it back.
| kortex wrote:
| > Lets get one thing straight. If you are on the
| spectrum, the reason you act like this is because you
| don't understand that you are doing something wrong.
|
| This might be a nitpick, I wouldn't describe it as an
| "understanding" problem. Usually we understand that there
| are social cues and what they mean (at least in the mild
| cases). The difference is in the strength of that signal.
|
| It's like as if people have a warning indicator when
| doing things socially inept. Most folks seem to have a
| loud klaxon "You are being an ass! Stop that!". With ASD,
| it's more like a quiet "check engine" light that's easy
| to overlook.
|
| If you never experience the social pressure to actively
| look for that indicator light (see exhibit E.), you never
| really build strong social graces. Or, maybe you just
| don't give a damn about masking, too tired, just not
| interested.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > Or, maybe you just don't give a damn about masking, too
| tired, just not interested.
|
| I strongly feel this is the case with not only Musk, but
| a lot of high ranking "leaders"; I believe that you need
| an amount of ruthlessness, of indifference, an ability to
| turn off your morals to be in that position and get even
| richer. I mean just look at how he fucks his staff over
| and expects them to work ridiculous hours, bragging about
| how much he works (the difference being he gets paid for
| every second he is alive, while staff only gets paid for
| contract hours).
| yehBut0 wrote:
| Musk has publicly said a lot of things that were BS for
| attention and sympathy
|
| Let's not act like our air gapped view of him through
| screens can provide an accurate diagnosis of real medical
| conditions
| croes wrote:
| Acknowledged or claimed?
| lazyeye wrote:
| Elon would be completely forgiven if his politics were more
| left-wing than they currently are.
| rasfincher wrote:
| Like Michael Avenatti?
| ben_w wrote:
| I think it would just be different people complaining in
| that case.
|
| (My impression of his politics is more that they're
| anarchic then left/right, but I'm not excited enough by
| his words to listen _beyond_ the presentations and random
| support for e.g. UBI).
| Bud wrote:
| Please cite examples to support this, er, rather
| extraordinary assertion. Which prominent left-wing
| figures have acted like Elon Musk and have been
| "completely forgiven"?
| wowokay wrote:
| I don't think they were stating it as in they had
| examples, they were extrapolating from other left leaning
| activities like BLM vs Insurrection. Similar aggressive
| approaches but only insurrection gets attention as bad.
| hef19898 wrote:
| BLM protested police brutality. Jan 6th wanted to stop /
| prevent a democratic election process. Seems like
| different things to me.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > Jan 6th wanted to stop / prevent a democratic election
| process.
|
| And possibly abduct or murder congresspeople (thinking of
| the guy with clearly visible tie wrap restraints, or the
| republican that was telling where to find democrat
| members of congress)
| mikeyouse wrote:
| And the violent parts of both were pretty roundly
| condemned?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| These two are not comparable; you're trying to push an
| indefensible equivalence.
| [deleted]
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I don't take anyone that uses the Asperger moniker
| seriously anymore; the guy was - in all likelihood - an
| eugenicist who picked out the "good" kind of autistic
| children and sent the "bad" ones off to get "euthanized";
| see e.g.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5907291/.
|
| Plus, it's often used as an excuse or a mark of honor; an
| excuse for unacceptable behaviour, and a mark of honor for
| being super smart and not like those Other Autists who
| struggle in their day to day.
|
| The word has been besmirched by its namesake and the
| behaviour of those using it to distinguish themselves from
| "other" people with autism.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| I would have genuinely laughed out loud if someone said that
| to my face. My reaction would have been to give him a reality
| check - "My man, you may know some things, but definitely
| don't know it all!". Perhaps, also ask him - "Have you
| considered that some of those people considered talking to
| you as dealing with a toddler who thinks he knows it all?"
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Then he laughs, turns away and talks to somebody else and
| leaves. He will still feel superior and not waste time.
|
| See for instance https://youtu.be/ye8zcgxWMDc where he only
| stays as it's a major presse event (the guy buy his side
| was running for chancellor to succeed Merkel; and yeah the
| questions were "dumb" but with your questions you won't get
| a better response)
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That'll definitely teach him a lesson, I'm sure it would
| make him reflect on his behaviour and will make him a
| changed man.
| koheripbal wrote:
| Why are we so obsessed with loving or hating him.
|
| Both amount to celebrity worship. We enable the drama which
| feeds off both the love AND the hate.
|
| I posit that mature intelligent people don't care about Elon.
|
| Our rallying for or railing against him, is an expression of
| our own narcissism, as if our individual opinions of him change
| literally anything in the world.
|
| People need to grow up and focus on their own lives and
| changing things within their power.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| I very much agree with all you said, but it's also a way to
| find likeminded people.
|
| If I discuss with somebody and they agree with me that Musk
| is a conman and a cult leader, chances are they have the same
| mental framework around other broader things such as how SV
| has become a hotspot for cults.
|
| How maybe it's time to get out of such hotspot for cults, how
| maybe the template for success isn't inflating a financial
| bubble such as Tesla but going old school like Microsoft,
| without raising any money, going straight to building
| products and attack Goliath without fear like they did with
| IBM, not in the press but in the marketplace.
| Jach wrote:
| I mostly agree with this, and would add that thoughts on Elon
| make a great Rorschach test (and a less great but still
| interesting test on what bits of misinformation have stuck to
| a person). But I disagree with the "enlightened disinterested
| middle" prescription. A mature intelligent person can love
| and hate and be disinterested in things (and people), too,
| and regardless of how other people think (or don't think)
| about the thing or person. There's an old copypasta going
| around again that implicitly makes this point at least for
| liking -- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/if-x-has-a-million-
| fans-im-on... -- a mature intelligent person should be able
| to have their likes and dislikes be mostly independent of
| what others think. (My own bias is somewhat contrarian, I
| notice myself irrationally starting to like something less if
| it becomes more popular. Sometimes I can justify it more
| rationally by saying that popularity changed the thing -- our
| opinions are part of our brains and thus are part of the
| world and can indeed sometimes affect the world even beyond
| our brains, effects are more likely when more brains share
| opinions -- and I like the thing it became less, or even
| actively dislike it, without having to diminish my liking of
| what used to be. Sometimes I realize I'm being irrational,
| notice my feelings aren't what I want them to be, and attempt
| to correct them (sometimes towards disinterest!). Sometimes I
| don't care. But the correct thing is not necessarily
| disinterest, nor a more extreme stance I once thought which
| was abandoning my likes and other emotions altogether.)
| ausbah wrote:
| musk is kinda the closet thing to a celebrity there is in the
| tech scene
| [deleted]
| IAmEveryone wrote:
| I think what's worst is how _boring_ he is in all these
| shenanigans. Peter Thiel invents a method to sue your business
| out of existence. Evil, yes, but also smart. Musk? Calls people
| he doesn't like pedophiles. Like some schoolchild, or
| Republican House candidate.
|
| And Musks politics are similar: dumb, but also dumb in exactly
| the same half-informed wannabe libertarian 20-year old American
| guy way as half the people on Reddit.
|
| It's really rather strange, because Musk isn't anywhere close
| to normal in many other ways, and good ways, too. Making five
| or six businesses work, some at the same time, with only two or
| three duds along the way, is far ahead of anyone else and can
| almost claim statistical significance.
| nailer wrote:
| > indecisive and disorderly. This deal is a perfect
| demonstration of how I feel.
|
| Why is it disorderly to not want to acquire a company that may
| be lying about their figures?
| situationista wrote:
| I have the distinct feeling that Elon's motives are genuine,
| that he genuinely believes he is on a mission to save humanity,
| and is genuinely convinced that he is the only one who is able
| to do it. The problem is the last point - he's developed
| something of a saviour complex, and has convinced himself that
| if what is at stake is important enough (reverse climate
| change, become interplanetary species, restore free speech) he
| somehow has a moral obligation to take it upon himself. Whereas
| earlier in his career financial constraints might have hemmed
| him in, not that he's the richest man in the world he's
| becoming tempted to use that power in an Emperor of the
| Universe fashion, attempting to fix everything he believes
| important. If he stuck to solving just one existential problem,
| such as electrifying transport, he'd probably be quite well
| respected in the long run. The richest man in the world, who
| already holds massive power, also buying up the "de facto town
| square" was never going to go down well. We need more people
| with Elon's vision, drive and determination, not one Elon with
| more and more power.
| memish wrote:
| This makes much more sense than calling him a fraud and
| projecting one's envy onto him. Frauds don't build and they
| don't solve problems.
|
| His fans are supporting the savior complex because he's
| virtually the only one who is actively making a better future
| in a significant way. While everything else is crumbling.
| They forgive the mistakes he makes given that context.
| notyourday wrote:
| The highest upvoted comments in this thread are just that:
| jealous people who cannot believe they aren't successful
| but he is.
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Success is measured by subtraction.
|
| If Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, TheBoringScam etc.
| disappeared overnight, consumers quality of life would
| not be affected one bit. It's very similar to Ferrari or
| Tiffany&CO going under..it's meh. Contrast that with
| Exxon, Saudi Aramco, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Walmart,
| Costco, VW, Daimler...
|
| There are unknown private companies such as Vitol selling
| 300bn dollars worth of products per year. Do you know
| Vitol? No? Well why would you...the CEO isn't constantly
| shitposting on twitter.
|
| Musk is like Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton,
| Joe Biden etc. What you call success is what people who
| don't fall for cult of personality call "being a BS-
| seller". Convincing fans and supporters that they are
| some sort of hero against dark forces
| rez9x wrote:
| I agree with you on this and think his savior complex is
| likely compounded by things like the potential Twitter
| buyout. There are a lot of people who view Twitter as a
| extremist echo chamber and want to see it change, so they're
| treating Musk like Twitter's savior now. Anecdotally, I've
| seen as much support for Musk's actions accidentally
| destroying Twitter as 'fixing' it.
|
| When I see how small of a subset of the population actively
| use Twitter, or have even posted once, compared to the
| political power it has, it's hard for me to argue we're
| better with it around.
| jsmith45 wrote:
| The outsized influence of twitter largely has to do with
| the fact that basically every journalist, celebrity,
| politician, brand, influencer (original, pre-Instagram
| meaning of person on youtube/twitch/whatever who can
| accidentally/deliberately create trends just by wearing
| something or offhandedly mentioning something).
|
| Having all of those people, plus pretty small proportion of
| "regular people", can make it really feel like _everyone_
| is on twitter. But the many of the heaviest "regular
| people" users are often actually those who are trying to
| promote some agenda, which can be one that is very not-
| representative of the public at large.
|
| But this feeling of everyone being on there, means that if
| a small group of vocal participants who have an agenda can
| get something trending, especially if they can do with with
| only limited pushback from other groups, it makes it feel
| like something everyone cares about. Worse is that the
| algorithm tends to promote extreme views a lot because they
| get more interactions.
|
| Now the influencers, politicians, celebrities, journalists,
| etc are not very much not immune to mistaking an
| artificially algorithmically inflated hot take by a tiny
| but vocal minority on twitter as representing a consensus
| of a huge group of regular people on twitter. The next
| thing you know, the current twitter outrage is on the news,
| and your favorite celebs are probably talking about it both
| on and off twitter.
|
| This can cause people who never would have seen or
| interacted with the twitter controversy to become involved.
| Obviously if the news is talking about it, this is a big
| thing that a very sizable chink of the population is
| feeling, right? It could not possibly be not something
| initially stirred up by at most few hundred extremists of
| some form on Twitter, right? Wrong.
| mlindner wrote:
| > Also, the guy is always going to extreme lengths to seek
| attention, just like one certain US politician...Something
| turns me off from these types of people.
|
| Elon Musk isn't an attention seeker and never has been. I don't
| get how people make this argument. Every chance he gets, he
| redirects praise to the people of his companies.
| dcow wrote:
| Is it not possible that Elon is acting in a perfectly rational
| way based on information that has come to light during
| diligence? Or am I missing something more subtle between the
| lines? It seems at least possible that Elon or Twitter's board
| or both hold inaccurate views about how valuable Twitter
| actually is...
| turtledove wrote:
| No? Have you seen his communication style? It's not one of a
| person acting "perfectly rational".
| pontus wrote:
| I mostly agree with you. Just to play devil's advocate though,
| I wonder if this is just an artifact of him being overly open /
| verbose. In other words, I suspect that all this stuff would
| normally happen behind closed doors anyway during due
| diligence. Similarly if you look at his performance in Tesla /
| SpaceX is terms of hard metrics I guess he's doing pretty well
| even though he might be talking about self driving being a year
| away all the time.
| xattt wrote:
| It would sure be ironic if he followed the genius-to-madman
| trajectory of Nikola Tesla.
| TimPC wrote:
| The main thing that soured my opinion is that he supported
| Bitcoin and other crypto. The environmental damage from crypto
| is larger than the environmental savings for all electric cars.
| Elon Musk went from being one of the best things to happen to
| the planet to someone doing less than nothing for it.
| dqpb wrote:
| > I just can never trust anything he says because he has a
| significant history of being indecisive and disorderly.
|
| All agents have two modes: exploiting and exploring
|
| Indecisive and disorderly are the qualities of exploring.
| rayiner wrote:
| You dislike someone who built multiple pioneering tech
| companies because of mean tweets and a vague resemblance to
| Trump's demeanor? Being a bit of a blow hard isn't exactly
| unusual among CEOs of multibillion companies! Does anyone
| remember Steve Jobs?
|
| Heck, narcissism is currency in Silicon Valley. I don't know
| what else I'd call the whole "we're changing the world through
| Ad Tech" shtick.
| nailer wrote:
| dang can we flagkill this entire thread? The thread is mainly
| unsubstantiated character attacks with no supporting arguments.
| Joeri wrote:
| The thing with Elon is that he has no respect for rules. This
| is what makes his companies successful. His company will zag
| when everybody zigs, because he will say "zigging is stupid,
| and only an idiot would do it that way", after which he will be
| mocked by all the zigging rule-followers, and ultimately either
| be proven right, or dead-wrong.
|
| This lack of respect of rules brought him to the top, and
| somewhere along the way he seems to have forgotten how to turn
| it off. So now he does whatever he wants whenever he wants and
| who cares about the consequences because why should he follow
| someone else's rules? This greatly offends many people, while
| simultaneously attracting a fan club who love his rogue
| character.
| feintruled wrote:
| I think the word that might fit better than unhinged is
| 'capricious' - given to sudden and unaccountable changes of
| mood or behaviour.
| bambax wrote:
| > _Uniquely among public-company CEOs, Elon Musk has in the past
| pretended he was going to take a public company private with
| pretend financing! I am not saying that he's joking now; I am
| just saying he's the only person who has ever made this
| particular joke in the past._
|
| > _Perhaps he has decided that the joke would be even funnier if
| he signed a merger agreement, lined up billions of dollars of
| financing from banks and equity partners, committed to a $1
| billion breakup fee and a specific-performance right in the
| merger agreement, got through antitrust review and a shareholder
| vote, showed up at the closing and said "nope, just kidding!" I
| mean, that would be very funny._
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-11/terra-...
| [deleted]
| imron wrote:
| Twitter Inc estimated.
|
| Oh the difference a missing space makes.
| schmeckleberg wrote:
| I think the (TWRT_T) link in the press release got removed by a
| summarizing bot or a summarizing intern. Thus, through chance
| and endless change, the English language has again been
| improved. I do believe I will now add "incestimate" to my
| personal lexicon for any assessment of an entity's value that
| comes from that self-same entity.
| drumhead wrote:
| Elon Musk overpaid for Twitter, he knows it and it looks like
| he's trying to knock the price down or exit the deal entirely
| fleddr wrote:
| If Twitter is true to their word that bots are less than 5% of
| the user base, then they should not have a problem providing
| evidence for that. It's an entirely valid question not just in
| Musk's interest, it's in the interest of every shareholder.
|
| The only questionable thing here is that Musk either does not
| grasp (or care) how influential his tweets are. He's tweeting as
| if he's just a random person with an opinion, but in reality his
| tweets tank stocks, pump (or dump) crypto, and activates a lot of
| harassment towards anybody he criticizes. With this in mind, the
| question about bots should have been asked behind closed doors.
|
| Usually, I don't at all have the impression that there's some
| evil master plan behind it, they are spontaneous clumsy tweets
| based on whatever is bothering him.
|
| Which in this case are bots that make Twitter unusable for him,
| or anybody else with a large following. Twitter very much
| deserves scrutiny and heavy criticism as it comes to bots. Look
| at Musk's tweets, within seconds there's hundreds of bots
| replying all with the same avatar and a slight misspelling of a
| user they're trying to mimic.
|
| It's a stunningly primitive pattern, and yet still Twitter is
| entirely incompetent or lax to address it. For years. These bot
| replies come in from their API and work based on accounts or
| simple keywords.
|
| Don't try this on somebody else's tweet, but you can test this
| yourself. Type "I need help with my metamask password". The
| moment you hit send, the notifications come rolling in.
|
| Setting aside Musk's intentions with Twitter, I am fully in favor
| of the wake-up call. The bot problem. A mysterious verification
| protocol. Weird boosts and declines in followers. Unclear
| censorship and shadow banning protocols. Twitter has some
| explaining to do.
| the_doctah wrote:
| Don't care about the reasons, but finally one of these platforms
| are getting called on their BS.
|
| MAU has a large impact on valuation, all of these platforms are
| filled with spam bots, and they are allowed to flourish because
| it pumps up those numbers. The platforms content suffers
| (Instagram comments anyone?), but they reach higher valuations
| because of these nonsense MAU numbers. They are all guilty of
| fraud. It's well within their ability to combat bots, but they
| have zero motivation to do so.
|
| Eager to see what comes out of this.
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