Twitter 3.0

[JWags85]

Doesn't mean there aren't investors.

Sure but outside of huge PE funds and the like, the demands towards things like that in the private company realm are a bit less pronounced.  I'd also be pretty surprised if the majority of significant SpaceX investors aren't otherwise invested in Musk's other endeavors, aka investing in Musk the portfolio as opposed to just SpaceX,  as investor composition in private companies is usually more calculated and discerning by the founder/owners/majority shareholders.

Largely informed speculation, but just a hunch.  Pulling from TSLA for Twitter is a different issue, if that happened.

[MU82]

Sure but outside of huge PE funds and the like, the demands towards things like that in the private company realm are a bit less pronounced.  I'd also be pretty surprised if the majority of significant SpaceX investors aren't otherwise invested in Musk's other endeavors, aka investing in Musk the portfolio as opposed to just SpaceX,  as investor composition in private companies is usually more calculated and discerning by the founder/owners/majority shareholders.

Largely informed speculation, but just a hunch.  Pulling from TSLA for Twitter is a different issue, if that happened.

Musk sold 7.924 million shares of TSLA between Aug. 5-9 in advance of completing the Twitter deal, and he then sold another 19.5 million shares from Nov. 4-8 shortly after closing the deal.

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/insiders/musk-elon-831665

One would have to REALLY believe in coincidences if one argues that he wasn't selling billions of dollars worth of TSLA -- moves that contributed to the stock's price decline -- to help fund his Twitter purchase.

[JWags85]

Musk sold 7.924 million shares of TSLA between Aug. 5-9 in advance of completing the Twitter deal, and he then sold another 19.5 million shares from Nov. 4-8 shortly after closing the deal.

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/insiders/musk-elon-831665

One would have to REALLY believe in coincidences if one argues that he wasn't selling billions of dollars worth of TSLA -- moves that contributed to the stock's price decline -- to help fund his Twitter purchase.

Pulling employees from Tesla, like the SpaceX convo before.  Not money or shares

[MU82]

Pulling employees from Tesla, like the SpaceX convo before.  Not money or shares

Yes, that's different.

[pbiflyer]

Musk sold 7.924 million shares of TSLA between Aug. 5-9 in advance of completing the Twitter deal, and he then sold another 19.5 million shares from Nov. 4-8 shortly after closing the deal.

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/insiders/musk-elon-831665

One would have to REALLY believe in coincidences if one argues that he wasn't selling billions of dollars worth of TSLA -- moves that contributed to the stock's price decline -- to help fund his Twitter purchase.

Elon Musk sells yet another $3.6 billion in TSLA stock to fund Twitter

The sale represents almost 22 million shares of TSLA sold over the course of the last three trading days, at share prices between $156–$176. TSLA stock has fallen about 20 points in that time period, losing more than 10% of its value.


https://electrek.co/2022/12/14/elon-musk-sells-yet-another-3-6-billion-in-tsla-stock-to-fund-twitter-disaster/

[tower912]

Hubris.

[MU82]

Elon Musk sells yet another $3.6 billion in TSLA stock to fund Twitter

The sale represents almost 22 million shares of TSLA sold over the course of the last three trading days, at share prices between $156–$176. TSLA stock has fallen about 20 points in that time period, losing more than 10% of its value.


https://electrek.co/2022/12/14/elon-musk-sells-yet-another-3-6-billion-in-tsla-stock-to-fund-twitter-disaster/

Mr. Market hates huge management stock sells. In addition to the sell itself driving down the price, the market reaction drives it down further.

Terrible stewardship of Musk's main enterprise.

Here's more from the NYT DealBook:

Musk has now sold $23 billion worth of Tesla stock this year, much of it after he pledged in April to stop selling shares to finance his Twitter deal.

None of this will reassure Tesla shareholders who are fretting over the 61 percent drop in the carmaker’s stock price this year — and a C.E.O. who has admitted to spending nearly all of his time at Twitter nowadays. Leo KoGuan, one of Tesla’s biggest individual investors, tweeted yesterday, “Tesla needs and deserves to have working full-time C.E.O.”

Meanwhile, Musk has been busy suspending more accounts at Twitter. Most notable among them was @ElonJet, the brainchild of Jack Sweeney, a 20-year-old college student who drew on public data to track Musk’s private jet.

The move marks a shift in Musk’s approach to Sweeney, after the billionaire — a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist — initially pledged not to suspend the @ElonJets account. (Yesterday, Musk said he would take “legal action” against Sweeney.)

As The Times notes, Twitter justified suspending the accounts based on a change in its rules that appears to have been implemented only within the last 24 hours.

And this, from Seeking Alpha:

"No further TSLA sales planned after today," Elon Musk tweeted on April 28, implying that was the last financing needed to take over Twitter. The billionaire made a similar pledge in August, as he offloaded another 7.9M shares worth around $6.9B, saying it was "important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock in the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don't come through." Well, the deal closed in October, but Musk sold another $4B worth of shares anyway (in November), and he continues to sell by the billions.

"I will make sure Tesla shareholders benefit from Twitter long-term," Musk tweeted overnight following his latest stock sale, but criticism continues to grow about his guarantees and assurances. "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk," Musk promised a month ago, only to pull the plug on the account on Wednesday as Twitter updated its Private Information policy. Don't forget that at the end of 2021, Musk cashed out 15.8M of Tesla shares, worth about $16B, to help pay a reported $11B tax bill after polling his followers.

Why so many people would continue to loyally follow and defend an obviously me-first person who lies to them over and over and over again is beyond me.

[Hards Alumni]

The problem that Elon is having now is that no one believes what he says anymore.  And they shouldn't.

He changes tack so quickly and frequently.  Would you invest in a guy who can't keep his fingers off his twitter account nonstop?  I won't.

Elon needs to do some self reflection and self help.  Otherwise, things are going to probably get much worse.

[MU82]

From the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/14/qanon-musk-revival-twitter/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F389295f%2F639b5459ef9bf67b2320c814%2F5f8d147cae7e8a56e5b732a4%2F31%2F70%2F639b5459ef9bf67b2320c814&wp_cu=b1005792a416de1fbe1f17e5cf366b7d%7CB1FF71CA724A36FAE0530100007F88D6

Twitter owner Elon Musk’s boosting of far-right memes and grievances has injected new energy into the jumbled set of conspiracy theories known as QAnon, a fringe movement that Twitter and other social networks once banned as too extreme.

The billionaire has spread bogus theories about the violent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband to his 120 million followers, and he called for the criminal prosecution of infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci. He has thrown around baseless accusations about adults sexualizing children, helping stir up an angry online mob against Yoel Roth, a former Twitter safety executive Musk praised in October for his “high integrity.”

And on Tuesday, he tweeted a message with an emoji that many people interpreted as saying “follow the white rabbit,” possibly harking back to “Alice in Wonderland” or “The Matrix.” But many QAnon believers saw the rabbit as a wink to one of their foundational icons, a secret indicator shared in one of QAnon’s earliest online prophesies, known as “drops.”

Musk mocked the suggestion that the tweet could be interpreted negatively but offered no clarification. Among QAnon promoters, though, the message was clear: Musk was speaking to them.

One QAnon-amplifying account on Telegram with 118,000 followers, known for spreading a bogus claim that Russian fighters were targeting “U.S. biolabs” in Ukraine, said the tweet was only his latest flirtation with QAnon ideology.

“Elon called out Fauci for creating [covid-19], [is] calling out the woke hive mind, is paving the path for 2020 to be nullified and Trump reinstated … and now he’s directly quoting Q,” the account said. “Elon is an Anon,” the account added, using the term QAnon disciples call themselves.

Logan Strain, a conspiracy theory researcher who uses the name Travis View on the podcast “QAnon Anonymous,” said Musk’s “conspiracist dog whistles” have galvanized a group that was fractured after 2020, when major social networks including Twitter started banning QAnon accounts and Trump lost the White House.

“He’s responding to and validating a rogues’ gallery of right-wing conspiracists … [and] going through a checklist of far-right grievances in a way that has certainly energized them,” Strain said. For QAnon believers, “what they view as a major battlefield in the information war just opened up again.”

[Jockey]

Early in this thread, I called out Musk as a right-wing authoritarian.

Now we are nearing the point where he is going to need China and the Saudis to help monetize Twitter.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Early in this thread, I called out Musk as a right-wing authoritarian.

Now we are nearing the point where he is going to need China and the Saudis to help monetize Twitter.

You are a regular Quasimodo.

<insert classic Sopranos dialgoue here>

Jockey is playing Bobby Bacala in this scene.

[Jockey]

You are a regular Quasimodo.

<insert classic Sopranos dialgoue here>

Jockey is playing Bobby Bacala in this scene.

Got your trump cards yet?

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Got your trump cards yet?

He's your obsession.   I've moved on.

[reinko]

Weird coincidence all these reporters getting suspended.


https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1603551884748460034?s=46&t=riNM0K6LCrWIIU2d5_wEIw

[tower912]

Free speech!

[Pakuni]

So, what's the word on Mastodon?

[TSmith34, Inc.]

The ultra thin skinned one strikes!

To be clear, Musk can moderate his private platform however he wants. And to the side that is cheering him now, the hypocrisy (to the extent they even recognize it) is a feature, not a bug.

It took 10 years for Twitter to build into what it became, but Musk is doing his best to MySpace it in 6 months.

[JWags85]

At least we can all agree Olbermann deserved to be suspended, if only for being a complete all encompassing asshat who might enjoy sniffing his own farts even more than Musk

[Hards Alumni]

At least we can all agree Olbermann deserved to be suspended, if only for being a complete all encompassing asshat who might enjoy sniffing his own farts even more than Musk

I didn't see what he did, but this is still true in general.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

At least we can all agree Olbermann deserved to be suspended, if only for being a complete all encompassing asshat who might enjoy sniffing his own farts even more than Musk

Except that Olbermann will agree with you that he is an asshat and egomaniac. Musk has encased himself in such a bro bubble that he's lost all such self-awareness.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Except that Olbermann will agree with you that he is an asshat and egomaniac. Musk has encased himself in such a bro bubble that he's lost all such self-awareness.

🐷🐷

[tower912]

The mods here suspend posters.   In the case of twitter, just more character being revealed.

I wrote last April that I did not think that Musk and twitter was going to be a long term relationship and that if it was,  I expected a new platform to emerge to replace it. 

The advertisers have fled and it is burning money.   

I remember the few posters who wrote the letter to the mods and went off to form their own board.

Sometimes, scoop is just society writ small.

[Uncle Rico]

The mods here suspend posters.   In the case of twitter, just more character being revealed.

I wrote last April that I did not think that Musk and twitter was going to be a long term relationship and that if it was,  I expected a new platform to emerge to replace it. 

The advertisers have fled and it is burning money.   

I remember the few posters who wrote the letter to the mods and went off to form their own board.

Sometimes, scoop is just society writ small.

I posted mostly on that new board the last two weeks.  It was a delight

[tower912]

I am sure you were respectful.

[reinko]

What a thin skinned ❄️

https://twitter.com/forevereversley/status/1603612770892918784?s=46&t=uvIs86FOiUMhVZhOCZfWCQ