“Fidelity is currently valuing X at about $9.4 billion”

I found this funny.

      • Robaque@feddit.it
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        13 hours ago

        Absolutely! He simply has a very original take on “freedom”, but we all know that’s a tricky word to pin down, so don’t think about it too much, and leave it to the big dogs to tell you when your freedom is being protected.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    My first thought is ‘I can’t wait for it to turn zero’ but then I realize that 79% decline from 44 billion still means it is worth 9.24 billion.

    And that is still a shitload of money.

  • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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    its worth comes from being able to influence world politics. Does he seem like someone who cares or needs money?

    • erenkoylu@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      Does he seem like someone who cares or needs money?

      He got a massive load to buy Twitter, so yeah, he does.

    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      The natural language dataset is worth a lot. That’s why they’re and Reddit made the sites harder to use/scrape.

    • vvvvv@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Twitter currently has $1.5 billion/year deficit which is a lot, even for Musk, to bankroll.

    • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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      True, but that power is also diminished greatly as more and more regular users abandon the site. No eyes on the propaganda makes it worth a lot less.

      • kobra@lemm.ee
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        24 hours ago

        Yeah I’m sure I’m not the norm but I’m actually shocked when I see companies advertising their talent’s twitter accounts on tv broadcasts. I truly can’t believe that site is still mainstream after everything that’s happened.

        Idk then I look over and see trump as a presidential candidate and ugh… I guess I’m just still not comfortable/accepting of how far off the rails things have gone 🙁

  • tektite@slrpnk.net
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    20 hours ago

    I used to enjoy how they always use dumb photos of Leon in these articles. Now I just hate seeing his face.

  • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    And may it continue to crash and burn. It’s just 4 chan at this point.

    • merari42@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      4chan at least had a consistent brand of being the anti-social network and being full of Nazis, weirdos, pedophiles and people who are just anti-social for the lulz. You couldn’t ruin 4chan.

      Twitter’s image was being the “internet town-square for serious thinkers” with politicians, scientists, journalists and a small but good measure of standard shitposters. Loosing that brand diminishes it’s value massively. Unfortunately neither Bluesky nor Mastodon was able to catch that clientele yet.

    • kusari@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      It’s like 4chan but it didn’t know where the line was for the amount of right wing people to be on a social media and ran a marathon

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    We knew this was going to happen before he made the purchase.

    Everyone said, the best way for Elon to keep his money was to change very little, or even take a hands-off approach.

    Masnick suggested this would happen

    It was that and so much worse. Moral of the story: Running a huge social media service is hard. Maybe don’t assume that because you’re a billionaire you’re the best at doing stuff.

    • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      “Maybe don’t assume that because you’re a billionaire you’re the best at doing stuff.”

      This is literally every second generation billionaire. They seem to have the tendency to believe that their success is solely due to their intelligence and not at all due to their parents’ connections and money.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      I mean the people at Twitter were very happy to sell it off. Remember how they actually sued to force him to go through with the deal and succeeded in stopping him from backing out?

      Even if he’d managed it as well as the prior stewards, it was always a losing business.

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        1 day ago

        If the price offered is actually a good price then I think they might have some obligation to shareholders to pursue it. (Many of the people making that decision likely also being shareholders.) Like if someone offered you more than what your stuff is worth but tried to changed their mind, wouldn’t you pursue that? I don’t think that’s any sort of indicator that they thought it was a sinking ship. It’s just in their best interest to take a good deal when they get one.

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I think you make a good point. But we don’t have to guess whether they thought Twitter was struggling. We know it was.

          Twitter never managed to develop an online ad business that matched the scale of its influence in popular culture and society at large. Twitter has lost money in six of the eight years since its IPO.

          Source: CNBC

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            1 day ago

            My point is that if someone offers you a good price for what you believe you have have, you take it. If they thought it was good and they got a good price for it they’d take it. If they thought it was bad and they got a good price for it they’d take it.

            • scarabic@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Yes I did read your comment before :)

              You’re saying that accepting his offer is not necessarily a statement of low confidence in their own business. I get you.

              But we can’t separate the notion of it being a good price apart from its being a bad business. It was a great offer in part because the business was so poor. By all estimates he vastly overpaid.

              So yes, it was a good price.

              And yes, it was a bad business and yes they knew it. With no other offers on the table, they pulled out all the stops to ensure it went through. It was their and their shareholders only chance for a payday with the business as bleak as it was.

              All of these things are true.

    • mynameisigglepiggle@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Meanwhile he is on track to become the world’s first trillionaire

      I think the purchase was more about welding power than any financial gain

      • Da Bald Eagul@feddit.nl
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        2 days ago

        He tried to back out, I don’t think any of this was about anything. He’s just a dick with a weird sense of humor.

      • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Now, call me crazy, but if I was optimizing for maximum welding power, I’d start with oxy acetylene and at least try a few other options. How would buying a website even be a good start?

        No wonder people are making fun of him!

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        Hasn’t his wealth kinda flatlined lately though? X is doing terribly, Tesla is struggling a bit, I think SpaceX is at least doing well.

        I don’t think he’s going to be a trillionaire any time soon.

      • Another_earthling@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Would you not agree that he has a tool of influence with X? I see that as the main aspect of why you’d still buy twitter, even though he knew he wouldn’t earn money with that.

    • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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      Masnick gives 20 levels of development. Elon stopped here:

      Level Two: “We’re the free speech platform! But no CSAM!”

      And that’s about it. Ex-Twitter has copyright infringement, hate speech and doesn’t give a fuck about local laws unless the law actually has teeth (Brasil, anybody?).

    • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      I mean, yeah we all knew he overpaid, but losing over 75%? I didn’t expect that.

      • Da Bald Eagul@feddit.nl
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        2 days ago

        Twitter wasn’t profitable right? So most of the “value” is in the name of the product. Elon changed the name and added his signature to everything the platform was doing, completely changing the platform Twitter is. So yeah, I do get why 75% of the money is gone now.

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

          Changing the name of one of the most valuable brands isn’t something I’d expect even him to do.

    • deathbird@mander.xyz
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      Masnick’s post is well put, but also a disturbing reminder of how much power nation-states can exert over the Internet.

  • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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    Musk did not buy this as an investment. He bought it to flip elections and manipulate public opinion.

    Tesla is writing him a check that will cover the entire purchase price, and Saudi Arabia and Russia will pay the operating costs.

    Active users are what matters; if they lost 75% of their users then I’m paying attention.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      I think it’s even pettier than that. He’s the loud guy on the forum who literally bought the site so he could be admin.

      • reka@lemmy.world
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        Honestly, everyone needs to listen to the episode of Search Engine about Elon. It’s such a clear narrative of what happened between the Iron Man cameo and now. It’s pure hubris - someone who is very unlikable desperately hungry for love to the point where his brain bust a fuse.

    • deathbird@mander.xyz
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      I think you’re giving the guy too much credit. Sometimes things are as they seen. He just didn’t like the moderation scheme on Twitter, made a gesture buying it, fumbled a little bit and overbid, then after having been forced to acquire it tried to turn it into something closer to what he wanted it to be.

    • Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure he gave an outlandish bid for Twitter to manipulate it’s stock prices when he pulled put, but he was sued into following through.

      I don’t think he ever wanted to buy it, or at least he wanted to crash it’s value to come back and buy it on the cheap.

      • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Given his unlimited resources, and the world’s worst people on speed dial, do you not think that the powers that be could have orchestrated that?

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          then why not buy it normally like a human from earth and instead involve this lawsuit to make himself look like an absolute moron

        • Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          If he was that competent why would he resort to openly pumping and dumping meme coins in public just prior to this stunt.

          He has some dangerous strings he can pull, but that doesn’t make him a good puppet master.

    • fluxion@lemmy.world
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      We’ll never know since Musk is nurturing a state-funded “user”-base that will always keep their numbers inflated

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      If he’s trying to flip elections, he needs to at least pretend it’s being operated in good faith.

    • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
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      He is a net loss for humanity is the currency is moralistic.

      We be deep in the red between Trump, Bezos, this clown and many other “captains of industry”.

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      If someone were to buy it, ban the Nazis and get advertisers to come back it’s still salvageable, I guess. The longer Musk owns it, the bigger the chance is that it’ll become the next MySpace.

      • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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        At least the MySpace guy was able to run a fun site, cash out before social media became crazy, and spend the rest of his life having fun with that money.

        Trump will lose, and Musk will be holding on to a useless site that serves nothing. He’ll probably sell for a fraction of what he paid (not that it was his money in the first place), but by that point it’ll be too late. Twitter will be long dead.

        • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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          I doubt the saudis will be very happy if Musk doesn’t repay them their investment. I’m surprised they haven’t threatened him into stepping down and handing their investment to someone who can properly manage a social media platform already

          • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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            That’ll probably be what happens if Trump loses. Musk didn’t spend “his” money so it’s no loss, and many from the Middle East have wanted control of Twitter ever since the Arab Spring.

    • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      It’s only worth as much as anyone’s willing to pay for it. Take a look at any of these tech start ups that do something very insignificant slightly differently than their competitor. VALUATION 100 BILLION DOLLARS!

    • sqibkw@lemmy.world
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      I wouldn’t be surprised if part of this remaining value is because the Japanese internet still heavily relies on it as a platform, even if the west has begun moving elsewhere.

    • Artyom@lemm.ee
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      This is the stock market, the value is set by what investors think the value could be. Mostly, they’re probably assuming people would come back if he sold it. Literally everyone knows the name Twitter.

        • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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          Just because it’s not publicly traded, doesn’t mean that there isn’t stock nor that there’s no market. Usually, you can technically still buy/sell the stock, just not as a random member of the public on a public stock exchange like the NYSE or FTSE.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            There’s usually defined periods for sales as well. Gives employees and other stock holders a way to cash out and get new investors in.