Elon Cleaning House

The market cap for those 4 companies has to be 6-7 Trillion. Little old Elon musk is going to disrupt that with what $10B. Yeah right.

 

That might be the greatest metaphor for Twitter's advertiser problem possible. Coca Cola, a relatively apolitical brand, decides to pause advertising to limit risk (with relatively limited consequences as Twitter is likely a very small part of their ad budget and is relatively inefficient as a form of advertising). Then, the owner of Twitter makes sure to show their brand next to a gun meant as a middle finger to the owner's critics, just the sort of brand association that they are trying to avoid.

 

I had not thought of that but you must be correct. Just so stupid for a man supposed to be smart. I know he must have been somehow insightful to get where he is. But man, in the last 6 months that I have followed his public pronouncements, he comes across as just stupid

 

Musk is wondering why Apple stopped advertising. Maybe it’s because he’s giving it to them for free. Check the time stamp bottom right.

 

For those who who can’t see the full tweet, it says Musk tweets from his “Twitter for iPhone”

 

I feel like he's a mixed bag; at times, I feel like I'm pulling for him (helping Ukraine) and other times he's beyond frustrating (re-tweeting the Paul Pelosi stuff). Maybe that's his goal - to keep everyone guessing and on their heels?

I think he's likely a genius unless people are lying about him to get something out of it. In the Space X documentary, there is a man who said Elon borrowed some books on the science behind rockets and digested the material quickly and thoroughly in a way that seemed to astound the man. Maybe that story was BS, but if true, there aren't many people who can do that IMO.

When Elon first went on Rogan (think it was 2018), I actually came away feeling a little sorry for him because he seemed like a super smart guy who was wrestling with his own complex thoughts, was perhaps on the spectrum, and legitimately wanted to help people. I got the sense he was a nerd who never felt at ease or part of the cool club. In 2019, he called that diver a "pedo guy," which I found really disappointing and petty. He later said he had been really stupid, but his argument - that he didn't mean it literally - didn't seem to add up to me., particularly given what he'd emailed about the guy "off the record." I'm still not sure how he won that case; maybe it was because Lin Wood was on the other side. During Covid, Elon was posting stuff which a lot of people thought was irresponsible given his platform and stature and his apparent lack any biological or medical expertise. I'm not even going to go into some of the allegations against him because I don't know how credible they are. I also don't really care that he has 10 kids, but his obsession with procreation is a little odd to me.

I thought Elon would probably get more reliable and responsible as he got older and more established, but his impulsivity seems to be increasing if anything. At times, he seems to appreciate the magnitude and reach of his opinions and quips. Other times, he seems oblivious to how impactful his statements are and seems like he wants the luxury of being treated as if he's just a common internet troll. There's a part of me that worries he's on a downward spiral of some sort.

 

That's really informative. It makes sense. There's no way he got to where he is today without having cognitive abilities far beyond those he's displayed in the last few months. He seems to be going down a rabbit hole, although that is an overused metaphor. But it seems to fit here.

I do have a hard time believing anyone can digest rocketry just by reading a few books, but I take the point that he's a quick study.

But his public pronouncements in the last 6 months or so just come across as someone totally out of it, like he's on some form of mind-altering pharmaceutical. He seems to have no real fix to reality. And I don't know if you heard about his obsession with procreation. I haven't seen it confirmed, but apparently a lot of the tech giant types seem to think it's their burden to procreate extensively to help the human gene pool due to their supposed superior mental abilities. I have not seen that confirmed but it seems likely to be true. I think he has gotten intermixed with both the far right conspiracies and the tech mogul/masters of the universe groupthink.

Either way, his rantings now come across as unstable and disconnected.

 

Fair post, but I think he knew exactly what his plan was when he bought Twitter and we are beginning to see it. He is going to parlay it into a new OS ecosystem which incorporates Twitter with a new phone. New phone will need its own OS, which is the challenging part. Twitter is part of that and his grand plan of the “X” app. Think about this rationally. Ultra-successful CEOs with Musk’s resume don’t spend billions haphazardly. And other billionaires don’t sign on to the plan without hearing some concrete ideas.

 

Damn, son

 

Makes me think of when ESPN launched its own cellphone. An all time epic failure.

 

Or when Amazon did it as well. When Amazon, Disney/ESPN, and Microsoft all get booted out of a market with huge failures, that tells you something about a market.

 

Damn, I haven’t been this excited in anticipation since Trump said he was finding Obama’s birth certificate.

 

There's a quote from Steve Jobs to the then CEO of ESPN, can't remember his name, and it went like this

"You're phone is the dumbest %@*×[× idea I've ever heard"

 

Not that I think Musk is actually launching a cellphone, but if he did, at least he has starlink as starting infrastructure for a base point. That could be some kind of market disruptor, not having to rely on towers. But I could be completely wrong on that. I'm no expert.

 

Yeah, that is true. Sat phones are interesting, but have been very expensive and are of sketchy reliability. If he could do something with that, there is a possibility there. But if he is spending his time trying to re-do the OS on phones, that probably isn't going to work so well.

 

I am about 2/3 of the way through this episode now. These are guys that are much more plugged into the online world than I, and I learned a few things. They didn't go into analysis as to why they believe what I am about to recount, but I've learned to trust their judgment about such matters.

First, the liberal world is far more obsessed with the losing their blue checkmarks than I would have appreciated. Since I don't actually tweet and I don't live in the world of those who rely upon their statistics, I didn't really have a feel for how valued that blue check mark was. Still they think that Elon has vastly overrated its significance by a factor of about 10.

Second, they believe that Elon will be just fine destroying Twitter even if it destroys his investment. I have long thought that could be the case, but did not feel that anyone, even someone of his wealth, could be not overly concerned about the loss of so much money. But apparently they seem to think that is the case. I haven't really gotten into the numbers. But they believe the fact that he has the support of the Saudis and similar other well-funded sources will limit the pain to him if he essentially destroys Twitter and loses his investment. Many fellow travellers will be sufficiently content with the destruction of Twitter to support him financially or at least replace what he lost. I have long thought that mechanism existed for lesser amounts but not for these type of amounts. They seem to think it exists even at this scale.

Finally, they predict that the same circumstances that gave rise to QAnon after Trump was elected will happen with Twitter. Right now, all of the far Right is very excited that he's going to expose and confirm all their long-held conspiracy theories, much like they believed in early 2017 that Hillary was going to prison and Obama was going to get locked up with all his crimes exposed and all of their worldview confirmed.

Then that didn't happen. Instead of questioning the validity of their priors, they settled on the fact that there was a Deep State holding Trump back from exposing what they just know must be true. These guys anticipate the emergence of a Deep State Twitter argument that is holding back Elon from exposing the truth as they know it to be. They are far more obsessed with Twitter than even I realized, believing it to be the source of all types of liberal evil.

I'm always at a loss when I hear an account like this. Even if they're not completely true, what it reveals about the mindset of the far right just disturbs me deeply and leaves me without a frame of reference to comprehend based upon the world I knew for most of my adult life.

Edited to correct the link
Episode 208: Elon Musk Becomes a Mod - QAnon Anonymous

 

So you mock Musk for launching a phone and then ooops, you forgot he has Starlink in his back pocket. Perhaps you should think before you post.

 

Where did I mock Musk for launching a hypothetical phone? Perhaps you should read before you post?

As an aside, you really do just resort to personal attacks at all times if someone posts something you don't like. And then complain that all threads on Too Hot are derisive. Look in a mirror amigo.

 

Yeah, well Steve Jobs is dead and Tim Cook is in charge now. And Musk shits all over the ESPN CEO every day in terms of technical ability. Tim Cook hasn’t innovated anything. What exactly has he introduced that Musk doesn’t take 300 shits on every day with SpaceX and Tesla?

 

My personal attack was “perhaps you should think before you post.” I can be overly harsh sometimes. Please forgive.