A year after he bought Twitter for $44 billion, Musk thinks the company is now worth $19 billion, a 55 percent drop.

Let’s recap what he did to Twitter, I will go first:

  • Changed the original name Twitter to X.
    • yata@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      A lot of journalists, politicians and influencers are really reluctant to let it go. I guess those are the ones still keeping it somewhat afloat.

      It should be more publicly shamed if you keep being a part of his insanity.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Yep. I mean in the end it has no product. It’s just billboard/ad space, in the world of commerce. Sure, it’s a lot of ad space, but ad space in the digital world is also effectively endless, so the percentage still isn’t actually that relevant as it can shift in a moment’s notice.

      Say… if a neonazi buys the platform and brings all his friends with him.

      But beyond an office he’s not even paying for and so on, Xitter got… nothing. They have no actual product that can be liquidated, no supply chains worth any money, nothing to rent/sell out beyond said adspace. Like many digital companies they rely entirely on hype for all their perceived value.

    • donuts@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Honestly it’s probably not… Estimates aside, who would even want to buy Twitter in its current incarnation?

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It was never about the money. Musk is turning a once-valuable information space into a fascist shithole. That was always the goal.

    • MostlyHarmless@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Yeah, I don’t believe that. Turning it into a fascist shit hole might have been a goal, but losing billions doing it isn’t.

      He’s an arrogant fuck who wants everyone to believe he’s a genius. Blowing that much money makes him look like a moron.

      • lingh0e@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        He is rich enough that it literally doesn’t matter. This was “expensive” for him on paper, but hardly life changing.

        • xts@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Yeah it’s definitely life changing. The public sentiment over the last couple of years has gone from

          “wow Elon musk is a genius who will electrify the world and get us to mars”

          to

          “Wow Elon Musk is a massive moron who clearly isn’t anywhere near as smart as he thinks he is”

          and the more he spreads right wing conspiracy shit the worse it’s getting for him.

          Let’s not even talk about the public image but the private one now- he borrowed something like $20b? from several banks to make the deal who are now saddled with the debt. They have also been discussing (publicly) selling it at a loss because they’re done with Elon. Other banks will not lend him money, ESPECIALLY with interest rates being what they are and what he’s done this last year. The time of free money (which is how he built all of his companies) and unlimited government subsidies is done and that’s the only way he’s been successful- when there’s virtually no risk.

          He cannot pay his interest payments because he’s only rich on paper. He’s likely cash poor and hasn’t even been paying normal Twitter bills let alone interest payments for his $20b loan, which IIRC gains like a billion in interest every year. Dude dug himself into a hole with no way out

            • xts@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              lol that would never happen, the GOP would NEVER allow anyone but natural born citizens to serve

              • ArtVandelay@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Both of you to assume they wouldn’t change the rules to serve their purpose before changing it right back, if they even bothered at all.

      • ScreaminOctopus@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Even people I know who use Twitter a lot don’t think this, I’d hate to meet someone with this level of Twitter brain.

    • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Once valuable? Fuck that. Twitter has always been and always will be Jerry Springer for the Internet. It’s fun to watch some toothless hooker throw a shoe at a priest until Grandma finds out you are on their as 4chan gaslighting the priest and the hooker.

      The value is pure entertainment. Anyone that takes it more seriously has not seen it for what it is.

      • jaybone@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        This is why it bothers me that so many government agencies and officials use it to communicate with the public.

        It’s almost as if there should be an official government service / platform specifically for that purpose. A state run Twitter. (Maybe they could use mastodon under the hood.)

        • kadu@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          If I recall correctly, some EU government bodies are doing just that! They host their own Mastodon instance.

  • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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    11 months ago

    It’s obscene that someone can destroy so much value and not go bankrupt. It should not be possible.

    • alcamtar@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The value only exists on paper. He halved it, he can double it. Happens all the time.

      • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        he can double it.

        You must be buying all the shares you can then!

        Narrator: he wasn’t

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          He absolutely paid an inflated price. It was hovering around $40/share before he put in the offer of $54/share. So he and the other investors overpaid by quite a bit.

  • SeedyOne@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Let’s put this another way.

    That ~25 billion, heavily absorbed by foreign investors, has bought influence on worldwide events/elections and allowed those that previously hated the platform to sabotage it internally, likely to a post-election failure.

    Makes you wonder to what degree we have a “useful idiot billionaire” situation, with other interests (countries?) steering the out of control train to their benefit.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I’m sure the value will come back. Valuing X at $19B puts the value of the whole alphabet at $500B, which seems low for an established technology which has been in continuous use since before the time of the Roman Empire.

    The US GDP is $24 trillion, and all the financial reports supporting that valuation use the Roman Alphabet. The Alphabet is essential to justifying the value of the entire US Economy. I think it’s reasonable to value the worth of the alphabet at 8% of GDP, which would give X a fair value of $74B.

    See, haters? Elon really is a financial genius. Numbers don’t lie.

  • shoxer@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Bring back shadowbanning.
    Uses user data to train AI models.
    Limits replies to verified users only…

    Elon has made so many terrible changes to Twitter. I’m happy to be out and migrate to Mastodon and WireMin since last December. Using Mastodon to track up to date news and WireMin to stay connected with a few friends who also left Twitter.

    Now I just look at Twitter like it’s the house burning down across the street.

    • Wothe@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      ‘Freedom of Speech Not Reach’, I was like isn’t the same thing with Shadowbanning? It’s so disgusting that he keeps claiming Twitter is the place for online Freedom of Speech but look at what he did.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Controlling the narrative is why he bought it.

        44 billion is chump change to him. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find his sole motive was to silence critics now that he got outed as a massive douche.

        I rememy when i could call him a massive douche and a faux-engineer and people would pile on as though he actually built the cars himself. (Fact: he’s not a Tesla founder. He bought Tesla. And made them call him a founder.)

        • 4am@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          He didn’t want to buy it, remember? A court forced him after he set wheels in motion as “le epic trolololo” and now that he was forced to buy it, he and his authoritarian backers figure they might as well tank it in order to combat the “woke mind virus” aka people waking up to the feudal lords of late-stage capitalism keeping the scales tipped in their favor eternally.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            A court forced him to honor his offer.

            The court never made him offer, just to honor his contract

  • aeternum@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    The worst thing he did was change the name. I mean, everyone knew twitter. Now you have to qualify it with “Musk’s X”

  • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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    11 months ago

    You forgot quite a significant thing when it comes to Twitter’s devalutation. Musk delisted Twitter on Nov 8 as part of his acquisition. The worth of a private company is a bit more difficult to figure out compared to the worth of a public company.

  • elbucho@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I don’t think it was even worth half of what he paid for it when he paid for it. Musk is a complete god damned moron. I’d be surprised if the company was even worth $19 billion when he bought it for $44 bn. And there’s no way in fuck that it’s worth $19 bn now. Absolute dogshit assessment. Not that I’m surprised, mind. It’s Musk’s assessment, after all.

  • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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    11 months ago

    He could have just donated all of that to the Signal foundation if he wanted to protect free speech.

  • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I just read the news somewhere that they introduced two payment tiers for monthly subscription. Good luck keeping users. There’s not a single social network that charges people use. No matter how cheap.