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    • breakfastmtn
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      1 year ago

      He could’ve just shut it down at any time. I doubt he planned the destruction of his reputation. He’s gone from tech boy wonder to being widely loathed. It’s hurt his other companies as well but, more personally, it’s so obvious from his posts that he’s desperate to be loved and revered.

      He just really sucks. Being surrounded by people who never criticize or challenge him unshockingly doesn’t improve things either.

      • Chthonic@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        My understanding is that the SEC would have fucked him if he just shut it down, because it would indicate that he never intended to buy it in the first place and instead was just trying to manipulate the stock market (which is definitely what he was doing).

          • Chthonic@slrpnk.net
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            1 year ago

            It’s not. He never wanted to buy twitter, he just wanted to pump and dump the stock, but because he is stupid and the plan was obvious they sued him to make him honor the deal.

            So if he just turned around and shut the company down, it would give the SEC legal grounds to argue that his intention all along was market manipulation.

            • Instigate@aussie.zone
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              1 year ago

              This here is the real answer; Elon doesn’t want X now and he never wanted Twitter. Much like Trump falling arse-backwards into the US Presidency he never actually wanted, he’s now just manipulating the thing he didn’t actually want, but now has, to follow his ego and whims. Trump’s presidency and Elon’s ownership of Twitter share a lot of similarities. Far, far too many similarities.

            • CileTheSane
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              1 year ago

              He could have just done nothing with the company, hired someone to put in charge and say “you have a year to make Twitter profitable”, and when that inevitably fails shut it down.

              He didn’t have to tank his reputation. All the time he’s spending running Twitter into the ground he could have instead done nothing, and still shut it down in the same time frame for being “not-profitable”. Enough time would have passed for him to get away with it, and would have lost less money in the process.

              So even if his plan is to destroy Twitter, he’s still an idiot doing it in the dumbest way possible.

              • Chthonic@slrpnk.net
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                1 year ago

                If he were smarter and/or not a walking ego then yeah, that would have been the move. Though if he were smart he probably wouldn’t be in this mess.

          • prole@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            This is what has been making me wonder if Putin has dirt on him like he probably does on just about every Republican politician.

    • fubo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Taking something away from the woke journalists & tech activists and giving it to the Nazis? Yeah, if that wasn’t the entire point, it certainly was a “nice to have” for Elon.

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think it was the point, and I think he assumed that doing so would make it much better, so he’d also enjoy business success in the doing.

        He really is the guy who didn’t like the mods so he bought the fucking forum. I don’t know if it’s ever gone down that way before, but this was a public company + world’s richest man situation and boy howdy did it go down that way.

        But the enormous sums of money involved don’t change the fact that he didn’t like the mods so he bought the forum, and he was gleeful to suddenly be “the admin” of his favorite forum.

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      Well, if by “destroying” you mean “turning into a haven for right wing hatespeech”, he was pretty open about that. I don’t know that he understood that connection though.

    • Fades@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      He absolutely did not buy it to kill it, he just wanted something he could control after he entered into the “disgusting ultra rich fascist” stage, as previously he pretended to lean liberal. Also why the saudis donated so much of the purchase price

      If that’s what you mean by “destroy”, then no, no doubt at all.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been starting to wonder if Russia has kompromat on him too, and his charge is to just cause general chaos, and yes, as you said, probably eventually shut down Twitter altogether.

      • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My conspiracy theory is he used Russian bots to hype his pump and dump Twitter scheems, which would explain why he and Putin have open contacts and had a meeting. Also then you can view the purchasing of twitter as control over the evidence.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I hate this meme it just so stupid, it gives him an out for being a shit business man.

      Reality is he sucks and wants attention, he also owes money to people it would benefit to have Twitter sow seeds of shit in an election year.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s no question that he chose to end “Twitter as it was.”

      Did he arrogantly think he could turn it into something better? Yeah he probably did.

      Did he deliberately lead a billionaire’s club into a $46 billion boondoggle? Probably not.

      Does he really hurt at all, in the end, if that’s what it turns out to be? Sadly, no.

    • CileTheSane
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      1 year ago

      So instead of buying Twitter, not touching it for a year, and then shutting it down because it’s “not profitable” he would rather people think he’s incompetent?

      Either he’s an idiot man-child who shouldn’t be allowed to be put in charge of anything, or he wants people to think he’s an idiot man-child who shouldn’t be allowed to be put in charge of anything. Either way I’m happy to oblige.

    • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Really? I think it was much simpler than this. Twitter suspended Elon’s account because of his rants and so he decided to buy twitter to show them who is boss.

      • Cranakis @lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        This is it. He’s a fucking man child with obscene wealth. It isn’t complicated.