The ongoing X and Elon Musk Transgressions Thread

[Ozy_Flame]

44B is bigger than the GDP of some small countries.

Imagine what that could have done to help a cause in this world rather than buy a bird app.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

44B is bigger than the GDP of some small countries.

Imagine what that could have done to help a cause in this world rather than buy a bird app.

Ya, no kidding.

How do you reach out to the people who profited from this transaction and ask them to donate?

[Ducay]

Twitter founder @jack weighs in. Echos a lot of thoughts around Twitter as a profitable business and speech platform being incompatible

[Fighting Banana Slug]

"Maximally trusted and broadly inclusive" is a laudable goal, but I haven't heard how they are going to square that circle. Getting rid of bots is a great start (and why didn't they do that under Dorsey's watch?).

If Wall Street/Ads are the issue, then it seems to me subscription is really the only other avenue. I thought Musk was generally against that model, but perhaps I am mistaken. Not sure how that fits into a public square narrative, but at least it is a different business model with a chance.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Whose consciousness? Whose reality is being represented? The one most of us live in, or the twisted one conservatives are trying to build by re-writing history and spreading some of the most vile disinformation imaginable? So long as Twitter continues to be the chosen mode of spreading disinformation it will continue to be a blight on the efforts for people to share information and establish a shared consciousness. Twitter is everything that is wrong with the world today and I don't see Musk ownership changing that one iota.

[Northendzone]

i enjoy social media and can live with the good/bad; however, I don't enjoy it enough to want to pay money for it.

Hard to imagine that there are many average working folks that would want to do this - but maybe i am wrong about that

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

i enjoy social media and can live with the good/bad; however, I don't enjoy it enough to want to pay money for it.

Hard to imagine that there are many average working folks that would want to do this - but maybe i am wrong about that

There aren't. Given that it's 'worldwide' and free right now, and only has around 200 million 'users', I doubt that number increases if you have to authenticate that you are a person, and pay for it on top of that.

I'm exactly the same, fwiw. As soon as a social media 'thing' charges, I'm gone to the next free one, as I don't need/use it enough to want to pay any money for it.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

44B is bigger than the GDP of some small countries.

Imagine what that could have done to help a cause in this world rather than buy a bird app.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of large financial transactions though. It's not like 44B dollars just appeared to be spent on programs. Musk likely barely went out of pocket on this, the majority is probably leverage financed off of other assets he owns. So musk didn't really buy Twitter, more like he put his name on as front man for a syndicate of banks who bought twitter and said he would pay them back if it goes sour. Individual shareholders profited from this and maybe you could say they should all donate a specific amount of those profits to a noble cause.

It's not the same as trying to throw 6B at global hunger, when there's no infrastructure set up at all to accommodate that spending. Yes, there are more important things on earth than Twitter, and global resources are certainly outlayed in strange ways, but I hate nitpicking about this transaction using the idea that the money could be better served. Yeah, lots of money on earth could be better served. Why doesn't the US government divert 6B of yearly military spending?

[Ozy_Flame]

I stand by what I said. 44B for one (or multiple) of the plethora of challenges that can improve people's lives is a better use of that money, no matter where (or how) the money came from.

Does it require planning and execution to invest? Sure. And there are experts out there that could help guide that 44B. But purchasing a microblogging app to service the personal preferences of an eccentric weirdo is, IMO, not the best place to lob 44B.

It really doesn't have to get more complicated than that.

[Table 5]

Jack Dorsey will get close to a billion once this goes through. Parag Agrawal will receive $39M, despite being there for half a year. Pretty good work if you can get it.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1518766741249085440

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I stand by what I said. 44B for one (or multiple) of the plethora of challenges that can improve people's lives is a better use of that money, no matter where (or how) the money came from.

Does it require planning and execution to invest? Sure. And there are experts out there that could help guide that 44B. But purchasing a microblogging app to service the personal preferences of an eccentric weirdo is, IMO, not the best place to lob 44B.

It really doesn't have to get more complicated than that.

It's the expectation. Why the #### should we expect one of the biggest known ######bags on earth to spend his personal money on altruism with no or little personal benefit when the institutions we have set up to be altruistic are incapable of doing the same, even when they have the same level of finances?

[Ozy_Flame]

Again, you're overthinking this and trying to add existential questions. 44B could have been used for more dire and important causes in this world than buying a bird app.

That's it.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Again, you're overthinking this and trying to add existential questions. 44B could have been used for more dire and important causes in this world than buying a bird app.

That's it.

I believe in his regulatory filings he earmarked 5.7 Billion for charity, which probably helped his tax bill at the time.

I don't think he's actually donated any of that money. not that I could see on a quick google search.
If anyone has gotten some of that 6B, they sure are being quiet about it. I'm sure the UN would have told us those starving people are finally getting help.

Some experts say Musk likely donated his shares to his donor-advised fund, or DAF for short. DAFs are essentially charitable investment accounts in which donors can claim a tax deduction upfront but aren’t legally required to distribute the money.

[Matata]

Elon might have made $44B when he tweeted "Doge" and dogecoin skyrocketed in value for a hot minute. He's been brilliant (and devoid of ethics) at manipulating digital coin prices and is getting away with a lot of things that'll become illegal once the law catches up to the tech. Twitter might just be free money for him.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Twitter founder @jack weighs in. Echos a lot of thoughts around Twitter as a profitable business and speech platform being incompatible

Wasn't he the guy who took it to Wall Street to begin with?

[Azure]

I think there are two issues.

The free speech angle which seems to have people angry / super happy.
The factor that Twitter probably isn't performing very well as a company in order to bring value to its shareholders.

The perspective's are interesting, and I think we really don't truly understand the role of social media or the digital space in the role of something like 'free speech.' I'm sure many will say they do, and it should be like this or like that, but even Obama, who has come out and talked about the need to regulate has made speeches saying how real change isn't found by doxing people, throwing stones at them and calling yourself 'woke.'

That being said, many seem to think Twitter isn't performing well and it will be interesting to see what Musk does, including the team he will put together.

I also find it strange that most of the board members didn't really hold that much Twitter stock. They're supposed to be there to add value to the company but they don't believe in the company enough to actually own it? Seems strange.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Again, you're overthinking this and trying to add existential questions. 44B could have been used for more dire and important causes in this world than buying a bird app.

That's it.

I'm sure it would delight you to know then that the tweet I posted earlier, where Musk was insulting Bill Gates over his physical appearance, was as a follow up to a leaked exchange between the two where Gates had reached out to Musk earlier this month to talk about philanthropy and Musk dismissed Gates because Gates has a short position open on Tesla.

[Sainters7]

I actually spend way too much time on that app, but I don't think I use it the way your average person does. I barely tweet anything (unless you count responses to other tweets), I just use it as a news/sports news source.

I'll be pretty pleased if he purges all the bots, though I'm pretty hesitant in using my real name or actually paying money to use it. That might be it for me in that case.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Sainters7

I actually spend way too much time on that app, but I don't think I use it the way your average person does. I barely tweet anything (unless you count responses to other tweets), I just use it as a news/sports news source.

I'll be pretty pleased if he purges all the bots, though I'm pretty hesitant in using my real name or actually paying money to use it. That might be in for me in that case.

the moment it costs money to use, twitter is done. I can't see him going that way.
too many other options to out there.

Musk will probably just be more aggressive in mining your data and selling it.

[photon]

Making it a verified identity provider is interesting, as is open sourcing the algorithms. You could separate out the API portion of things into a service that is open to anyone creating an app that can interface with it.