Twitter likely to take idiots offer to buy them for $43 billion

[Jimmy Higgins]

The trouble with bankruptcy is that most of the debt was leveraged by him to buy Twitter. I’d have to think such a path would nuke Musk’s ability to get money in the future.

 

[ZiprHead]

But does he? Tesla was started by other people. Under him they announced self driving cars, which are little more that upgraded cruise control. Use it for anything else and you are asking for a collision. He announced electric trucks, which never materialized. SpaceX had big asperations, but is not going anywhere, and no where near profitable. Plus all his other vaporware projects.

It's like all his big plans are looking into old sci-fi stories, says they are going to make that, get money from investors, and when the project stalls because of reality he moves onto the next big thing that they will have available in "2 years".

Not going anywhere? That's all they do is go somewhere and they do it a hell of a lot cheaper than anyone else can.
And how do you know if this privately held company is profitable or not?

Well, when Musk tells his employees there is a risk of bankruptcy I tend to think the business might not be as profitable as they would like.

What gets me is he's now making the employees pay for his foolhardy notion.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I don't think Twitter will fail. Advertisers and marketeers see giant potential in using it to get their word out. So do governments and propagandists. Musk also can keep changing tactics, perhaps focusing more on ads in some way rather than charging people. His first ideas may have sucked, but he is set up to not fail.

 

[marc]

Yea, for all its problems Twitter has been too useful to let go away. Either someone will have to come up with a viable, competently run alternative, or Musk will have to sell it some point at a big loss to people who can run it. I suppose he could stumble into gettin it running that won’t pay off his loans, so it is either sell off Twitter, or sacrifice some of his other business holdings

 

[Jayjay]

I don't think Twitter will go bankrupt. The service it provides is entirely digital, and probably doesn't cost much to maintain because the users themselves produce all the content. Twitter itself just provides a platform and slight moderation.

The real issue is that twitter isn't worth anywhere near $40 billion. The only revenue is ads and paid checkmarks, and will it can keep the lights on, it's never going to be a money maker that would justify that valuation. But who cares? That's Musk's problem now.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't think Twitter will go bankrupt. The service it provides is entirely digital, and probably doesn't cost much to maintain because the users themselves produce all the content. Twitter itself just provides a platform and slight moderation.

The real issue is that twitter isn't worth anywhere near $40 billion. The only revenue is ads and paid checkmarks, and will it can keep the lights on, it's never going to be a money maker that would justify that valuation. But who cares? That's Musk's problem now.

Twitter needs to make $1 billion to just pay off the debt Musk made it inherit. He is demanding his content providers pay to have the privilege and has put his advertisers at arms length.

He wants another YouTube, but he went too deep in debt to get to this shitty starting point. He has wealth, but monetizing it is harder after the first $15 billion.

He paid a fortune for the skeleton of a social media company, and has ideas on where he wants it to go, but no idea how to get it there. And lacks cash flow within it to do anything meaningful. He gas to pump $20+ billion more of his own money to get anywhere. This all could be possible, but really, this seems the wrong way to have gotten into this.

 

[Swammerdami]

Ford created a car company and he had one or two key people he hired to create the assembly line.

But in the long run he was not a good businessman.

Henry Ford has been called the most influential businessman of all time. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but another list ranks him as one of the ten wealthiest humans in all of history (relative to the total wealth of his era), placing him ahead of Bill Gates, Cornelius Vanderbilt amf John of Gaunt.

 

[steve_bank]

Ford created a car company and he had one or two key people he hired to create the assembly line.

But in the long run he was not a good businessman.

Henry Ford has been called the most influential businessman of all time. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but another list ranks him as one of the ten wealthiest humans in all of history (relative to the total wealth of his era), placing him ahead of Bill Gates, Cornelius Vanderbilt amf John of Gaunt.

Walter Chrysler was the innovator. New body styles and marketing. Ford clung to the Model T, and emotionally brutalized his son whenver he argued for innovation.

He also had a paramilitary style security force to keep labor in line.

Influential yes, but IMO not a great businessman. But then Trump is an influential businessman, fading now.

Ford almost bankrupted his company.

He had a few talented people he hired that created the iconic automobile assembly line, the model for mass production.

 

[blastula]

The new owner's messaging is going great.

 

[Elixir]

A rare gem from FB:

 

[steve_bank]

Now that I ink about, Twitter was pretty eager to hold Nusk to his agreement to buy it.

Maybe they knew something Musk didn't see.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I don't think Twitter will go bankrupt. The service it provides is entirely digital, and probably doesn't cost much to maintain because the users themselves produce all the content. Twitter itself just provides a platform and slight moderation.

The real issue is that twitter isn't worth anywhere near $40 billion. The only revenue is ads and paid checkmarks, and will it can keep the lights on, it's never going to be a money maker that would justify that valuation. But who cares? That's Musk's problem now.

Bankrupt v no cash flow. Musk needs to stop the hemorrhaging of ad bucks. He hacked off staff to save money, which also restricts earning capacity.

 

[Metaphor]

Now that I ink about, Twitter was pretty eager to hold Nusk to his agreement to buy it.

Maybe they knew something Musk didn't see.

The Twitter executives were certainly keen, since no doubt their compensation was tied partly to stock price, and the price Musk offered was above market.

 

[TomC]

Now that I ink about, Twitter was pretty eager to hold Nusk to his agreement to buy it.

Maybe they knew something Musk didn't see.

I don't see that as hard to understand.
Musk offered them multiples of what Twitter was worth. They said "Hell Yeah!".

It'd be like some dumbass offering you $50K for your 25y/o Pontiac. You know it's barely worth $8K and needs work. Of course you're gonna say yes. Take the money and run, if they signed anything.
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

Now that I ink about, Twitter was pretty eager to hold Nusk to his agreement to buy it.

Maybe they knew something Musk didn't see.

I don't see that as hard to understand.
Musk offered them multiples of what Twitter was worth. They said "Hell Yeah!".

It'd be like some dumbass offering you $50K for your 25y/o Pontiac. You know it's barely worth $8K and needs work. Of course you're gonna say yes. Take the money and run, if they signed anything.
Tom

Nice analogy.....

 

[blastula]

Another day of smooth sailing for the bird app.

 

[crazyfingers]

Another day of smooth sailing for the bird app.

A business school case study on this could read as a comedy.

 

[ZiprHead]

I just saw a report Musk fired a bunch of Space X employees because they criticised him.

 

[crazyfingers]

I just saw a report he fired a bunch of Space X employees because they criticised Musk.

I can't decide if Musk more resembles the leadership style of Trump or Putin.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Another day of smooth sailing for the bird app.

A business school case study on this could read as a comedy.

Musk is a genius, I mean, he thinks he is a genius. The hell he put Tesla workers under seems to be what he thinks works everywhere, especially new employee groups who've worked in a different system.

When you fire half of the staff... and then tell the remaining that he wants them at 200%... you are sending a signal that "I demand everything of you... and owe you nothing". I've worked real hard, too hard at times for the company I work for, but there has been an understanding that such work is noticed. Turnover due to layoffs at our place isn't remotely high. You work hard, they take notice and remember. That is crucial to those working those 1 AM nights. Musk doesn't care. He wants to create Twitter 2.0, but most likely has absolutely no idea what exactly he wants and how to enact on whatever his vision is today, especially when the people who code this stuff up have been laid off, fired, or completely demoralized. "Hey, I need the survivors to work very hard and be 1000% dedicated to me... you have 24 hours to determine whether you want to be a viable parent in your child's life."

To make things worse, as a reminder, this is fucking Twitter. This isn't some major public works project or development of a product that'll revolutionize the world. It is Twitter. At best, it can become a clone of YouTube and Amazon... both of which already exist.