"on the left?" Why is everything politicized? It's not like the Democratic party is pushing for the collapse of Twitter. How is saying the moves Elon is making are risky a "left" position? Why does everything need to turn into politics? Why can't people just be criticizing the way Elon executed the acquisition? Is the "right" so obsessed with billionaires that any criticism has to come from "the left?"
I say this with no animus whatsoever, but I would be shocked to learn that's the reason Musk bought Twitter.
I have no private insight to his motives, but profitability / vanity / dozens of other motives seem a lot more likely to me than spending $44 billion to fix a censorship problem, even if that does make for (selectively) good marketing.
It seemed like a PR move that went horribly wrong. He got trapped by the offer that he probably thought he could back out of. I am sure he's all for free speech, but he tried so hard to kill the deal it makes me think he never really wanted it.
I suspect that both the "this is the backout penalty" and the SEC looking closely at him for trying to manipulate the price of Twitter discouraged him from backing out.
He was able to use it as an opportunity to sell some other significant amounts of stock as part of the "I am going to buy Twitter" that he would likely have been able to keep as cash if he was able to successfully back out of buying Twitter (though he's containing to sell stock).
All of his business associates in this are right-wing activists. Why did right-wing activist and non-tweeter Larry Ellison offer Musk a blank check to finance the Twitter deal?
No, I asked the specific question: Why did Larry Ellison invest in Twitter?
It was a terrible business deal if your concern was profit. Even Musk says he overpaid, and the previous investors of Twitter were clearly eager to get out of that investment, going to court to force Musk to buy it.
If you read the text messages between Musk and Ellison, which came out as part of the trial, Ellison was offering Musk basically any amount of money, a blank check. Why?
I don't know the answer to the questions you asked, but it's worth pointing out that "overpaid" can just as likely mean "I could have gotten it for cheaper" as it could "I paid more than it is worth."
The point is that Musk didn't acquire Twitter for business reasons. Nobody thought Twitter was a great financial opportunity. He acquired Twitter in order to change Twitter, for whatever his actual goals may be: "save humanity", "free speech", shits and giggles, etc.
But no one was talking about "the left" or "the right" until you brought it up. The predictions from "the left" is something you feel adds to the conversation. Why? Why do you feel criticisms of the way Elon is running the company are associated to the "left," when plenty of neutral and non-partisan sources have called into question the way he is running the company?
The fact is some of the criticism of him is legit and I personally don't like the way Elon has promoted Tesla (bordering on fraud). But it's obvious the outrage is mostly selective. So Elon firing his well paid staff is worse than Apples hordes of child labor for years? Compare the reaction.
Nobody here was until you did. I would hope that HN would be above that stuff. We always complain that the MSM gets engineering work wrong. We value our own understanding of technical stuff better than the MSM's understanding. As such, I'd be curious how many were referencing laypeople or the MSM when they talk about Twitter's technical capabilities and risks here. I certainly would have assumed that we're all just talking about technical stuff as technical people, forget the laypeople and the MSM.
> I am not on the 'right', but it's clear the left and media have been using twitter as it's coordination and messaging infrastructure
You are not on the 'right' but calling out the 'left' while omitting the GOP (Trump, MTG, et al) and associates (Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, et al) from your assertion.
If those on the right have not used Twitter for coordination and messaging, then they are far behind the zeitgeist. If they are, then you are likely not aware of that, or if you are, intentionally omitted that fact to make a point.
The difference between Zuckerberg “wasting” $100B is that Meta is still a cash generating machine and has been since before it went public. Twitter has been a listless barely profitable shit show and now has to service more debt per year than it has cash flow.
> it's clear the left and media have been using twitter as it's coordination and messaging infrastructure
I don’t tweet/have an account and I browse only in private mode. Why do I see so many right-wing trolls? Kirk, Owens, Boebert, Sorbo, etc, a whole cadre of extremists intent on creating an angry mob, and countless other anti-social, lying, and hateful lunatics… they’re all there, they frequently appear in the “you might like” tweets after the linked tweet’s thread.
If you see twitter as “the left,” I suggest that may well be a result of the personalized engagement algorithm, because the untracked user is seeing a much broader range of tweets.
