My quick estimate was 1/4 to 1/3 but 1/2 or whatever. The point is that he is still stinking rich and the twitter thing won't really hurt him, except emotionally.
He was ultra rich when he was born, he was never at risk of going hungry.
He's actually lost about half of it this year. He's no longer the richest person in the world, dropped to #2. What really hurts is that he's being forced to take more and more of his upside off the table to support his Twitter addiction. Yesterday he sold $3.6B in Tesla stock, but he's only going to get less than half of that after taxes. I'm pretty sure he's paid more to the US and California in taxes this year than any living person has ever paid before.
It's not just about the money. The reputational damage he's done to himself bugs the crap out of him.
I heard a theory that his move to the right is possibly an attempt to out-fox Fox. If an Aussie can come to get rich here by destroying media, why not a South African? The thought is that he's trying to out Murdoch Rupert. Not sure I buy it, but who knows?
My quick estimate was 1/4 to 1/3 but 1/2 or whatever. The point is that he is still stinking rich and the twitter thing won't really hurt him, except emotionally.
Some of the journalists whose accounts were suspended had written about the accounts that tracked the private planes or had tweeted about those accounts. Some have also written articles that have been critical of Mr. Musk and his ownership of Twitter. Many of them had tens of thousands of followers on the platform.
No one here cared when the other side was cut off from Twitter and it was also a publicly held company then. In fact the cheering was rather loud in here over all of the censorship, banishments and suspensions.
Just heard that these accounts were suspended because of "doxxing".
This is where all you woke progressives will learn that what you can do to others may be done to you. A weakness in progressive thinking is that they will stay in power and control of all their tools and don't believe that they can be taken away and untoward activities can be exposed in that process. Twitter was one of the biggest tools in the progressive tool box.
As mentioned below, it is now his company to do as he sees fit. I am sure that there is a steep learning curve involved as well as going through all the records to find out exactly WTF was going on previously. Musk has the resources to make it through this process in one piece. I am pretty sure Twitter will survive once everyone has got their ya ya's out and the dust settles.
Twitter Suspends Accounts of Half a Dozen Journalists
The social media service, which is owned by Elon Musk, said that it suspends accounts that âviolate the Twitter rulesâ but did not provide details.
Some of the journalists whose accounts were suspended had written about the accounts that tracked the private planes or had tweeted about those accounts. Some have also written articles that have been critical of Mr. Musk and his ownership of Twitter. Many of them had tens of thousands of followers on the platform.
Twitter Suspends Accounts of Half a Dozen Journalists
The social media service, which is owned by Elon Musk, said that it suspends accounts that âviolate the Twitter rulesâ but did not provide details.
Some of the journalists whose accounts were suspended had written about the accounts that tracked the private planes or had tweeted about those accounts. Some have also written articles that have been critical of Mr. Musk and his ownership of Twitter. Many of them had tens of thousands of followers on the platform.
i implore everyone that currently bags on him to watch this
see don't you feel better about him already?
It's a bit like saying "that guy was super nice and volunteered to help the homeless, so maybe we should ignore the fact that he just intentionally drove through the Christmas parade and killed a dozen people".
Ignoring that the video is 7 years old, Elon has done some amazing things. Beyond the genius of some of his inventions, he has surely helped a lot of people. That doesn't mean he gets a pass when he embraces conspiracy theories and puts people's lives at risk. In 2015, he was tied as the 100th richest person on the planet ($12B). He still had more to prove. He was worth $219B last year. That level of wealth and the idea that you have more than anyone else on the planet can change a person, and Elon seems to have migrated from focusing on creating things to focusing on Elon.
Regarding Twitter, he's acting irrationally and irresponsibly now, primarily (IMO) because he was forced to pay $42B for a company worth about $10B. In the process, he offended everyone and is destroying what's left of Twitter. As I noted somewhere, he sold another $3.6B of Tesla stock yesterday to fund his tweets. It's an unsustainable model.
As for all of the Tesla's in your blue town... they were the cool car to have until he joined Qanon and the Republican party. It takes time to flip out of a car, and there aren't a ton of options for the EV crowd, but over time the prestige of driving one will fall in the communities that currently own them.
I'd love to see Elon hire a President to run Twitter, or take himself off the platform so much...but he doesn't seem interested. Maybe he has a plan, but it sure feels like he's flailing to create relevance and revenue for a historically bad acquisition.
FWIW - I think Bill Gates eradicating malaria from the planet is a pretty generous gift. If he decides that his nuclear research would be better-served making weapons instead of generating power, I can't imagine I'll give him a pass for all of the good he's done with his money.
He's also losing cross-selling synergies, as lefties avoid Tesla, and there are not many "righwingnutjobz" that would every buy an electric.
he lost about one third of his net worth (on paper) not too long ago
but then it came back
it is blue here and there are teslas out the wazoo
go figure
from what i've read starlink is a big deal
he is giving away a lot of access to the less fortunate now
china is currently the largest co2 emitter and he's literally giving them technology to help them bring that down esp long term
at this moment, it is hard to think of anyone off the top of my head that is doing more good
i implore everyone that currently bags on him to watch this
He's actually lost about half of it this year. He's no longer the richest person in the world, dropped to #2. What really hurts is that he's being forced to take more and more of his upside off the table to support his Twitter addiction. Yesterday he sold $3.6B in Tesla stock, but he's only going to get less than half of that after taxes. I'm pretty sure he's paid more to the US and California in taxes this year than any living person has ever paid before.
It's not just about the money. The reputational damage he's done to himself bugs the crap out of him.
I heard a theory that his move to the right is possibly an attempt to out-fox Fox. If an Aussie can come to get rich here by destroying media, why not a South African? The thought is that he's trying to out Murdoch Rupert. Not sure I buy it, but who knows?
He's also losing cross-selling synergies, as lefties avoid Tesla, and there are not many "righwingnutjobz" that would every buy an electric.
The frenzy is a bit baffling. I think his falling down the conspiracy rat-hole is dangerous and I don't have much respect for him as a person but some seem to be grabbing on every little thing to show the world is ending.
People have a poor concept of scale when it comes to serious money. Even with a worst case scenario that Musk loses, what, a quarter of his net worth, he still has a shit-ton of money. It would be devastating for most of us to lose that big a percent of our money but I doubt he will go hungry. And he certainly will have enough left to make a lot more.
He's actually lost about half of it this year. He's no longer the richest person in the world, dropped to #2. What really hurts is that he's being forced to take more and more of his upside off the table to support his Twitter addiction. Yesterday he sold $3.6B in Tesla stock, but he's only going to get less than half of that after taxes. I'm pretty sure he's paid more to the US and California in taxes this year than any living person has ever paid before.
It's not just about the money. The reputational damage he's done to himself bugs the crap out of him.
I heard a theory that his move to the right is possibly an attempt to out-fox Fox. If an Aussie can come to get rich here by destroying media, why not a South African? The thought is that he's trying to out Murdoch Rupert. Not sure I buy it, but who knows?
The frenzy is a bit baffling. I think his falling down the conspiracy rat-hole is dangerous and I don't have much respect for him as a person but some seem to be grabbing on every little thing to show the world is ending.
People have a poor concept of scale when it comes to serious money. Even with a worst case scenario that Musk loses, what, a quarter of his net worth, he still has a shit-ton of money. It would be devastating for most of us to lose that big a percent of our money but I doubt he will go hungry. And he certainly will have enough left to make a lot more.
The two factor was more tongue and cheek, but he clearly has no allegiance to Ukraine (or anyone else really) as he also threatened to cut them off.
The last bit wasn't about being partisan, it was a jab at his brilliant business man bit. I'll throw in a transparency and hypocrisy chit now too with his recent (today?) ban of elonjet - the one that posted publicly available info about his plane flights, just a few weeks after he bragged about not banning them.
Starlink and Twitter are businesses. Elon musk shouldn't be expected to support a struggling government for free forever. Ukraine is still using Starlink, BTW.
There is a good bit of chaos at Twitter right now, with half the previous staff gone. They weren't all dead weight. That some aspects of the business aren't running well (and I have no idea what's going on with office rent) isn't surprising. It is, however, great fodder for Musk Derangement Syndrome. Every utterance, action, misstep, or awkward dance video is getting interpreted as incompetence at best, if not sinister intent.
I don't know how much of MDS is just envy and how much of it is the usual gutter politics—anyone who disagrees on some topic is purely evil and must be destroyed by any means necessary. Everybody needs to chill a bit. Musk is risking his own money. If he fails he bears the cost. Twitter is a private enterprise that no one has a human right to use. There is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from competing with it—and indeed there are already competitors.
Or you could just wait for Twitter to collapse—as it must, since it doesn't incorporate the precise level of draconian censorship or partisan bias you prefer—and buy it yourself. Then you get to find out (like Musk) that running something like Twitter is harder than it looks from the armchair.
As for the partisan content...are you referring to the outage (which affected a lot of users in a lot of places) or the conspiracy theories that popped up immediately after people started reporting this? Should we assume that the man who provided Starlink internet service (and hardware) to Ukraine and it's military for free for months is now trying to make the country disappear from the world conversation?
Clearly a partisan act. No other possible explanation. This clearly shows his bias against...um...
The two factor was more tongue and cheek, but he clearly has no allegiance to Ukraine (or anyone else really) as he also threatened to cut them off.
The last bit wasn't about being partisan, it was a jab at his brilliant business man bit. I'll throw in a transparency and hypocrisy chit now too with his recent (today?) ban of elonjet - the one that posted publicly available info about his plane flights, just a few weeks after he bragged about not banning them.
