Musk's Twitter deal math is sketchy -- he's going to saddle it with billions of dollars of debt, possibly suffocating it.
More important: He isn't up to the task of running a social media company in an era of dangerous and divisive viral propaganda.
Twitter will have about $1 billion in interest payments due annually after this buyout -- and its cash flows are projected to be about $1.43 billion this year and $1.85 billion in 2023. So debt payments will consume a huge chunk of Twitter’s cash.
Seems bad!
Man that's so bad I wonder if Bain capitol was involved.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
Buying out a company then having the company pay the loan seems so fucking gross at this scale.
Yeah people kept reporting this as Musk’s money but he was always going to use other people’s money for this- I guess it tracks that most of the “other people” and “money” were Twitter and their cash flow
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is to lesser billionaires what lesser billionaires are to millionaires. Musk having the capacity to engage in leveraged buyouts or hostile takeovers of major companies to wield as he wants, apparently regardless of profit, is worse than those same companies being at least kind of publicly accountable and run by people with lesser but still absurd amounts of money.
That said, Elon Musk also couldn't cure world hunger, although that entire debacle was a clusterfuck kicked off by Musk and reporters maliciously failing to understand that "$6 billion to save 42 million lives from a short term famine crisis" is not the same thing as fixing world hunger. If it really only cost $6 billion to solve world hunger, I'm pretty sure either some country would have done it or the US's foreign aid budget wouldn't be several times that amount.
Buying out a company then having the company pay the loan seems so fucking gross at this scale.
Yeah people kept reporting this as Musk’s money but he was always going to use other people’s money for this- I guess it tracks that most of the “other people” and “money” were Twitter and their cash flow
Leveraged buyouts are some real wizardry
That's actually the insane thing about this: The deal is 75% Musk's money! It's about 50% cash (probably selling Tesla shares), 25% loans backed by Tesla shares, and 25% leveraged buyout loans. The net effect is that both Twitter the company and Musk have loan costs of nearly a billion dollars a year each, for a company that makes 1.X billion dollars a year! Even for a leveraged buyout it's a pretty insane deal that genuinely suggests Musk is willing to burn a lot of money on getting a shiny new toy.
the fact that powerful people in media killed my original headline, "Elon Musk Becomes King Shit of Turd Mountain," is exactly why we need more free speech
I once upon a time lurked in 4chan's /b/ back when it was still young. It was definitely a place for free speech, to the point where you were free to say whatever you wanted and a shitload of disgusting individuals were free to relentlessly dogpile you on and off the site. Only if someone tried to push back on he depraved stuff though, however small a pushback it was, until they were silenced beneath the cretins.
That's what a "free speech" absolutist Twitter is going to resemble.
A combination of the previous options, arranged to fit my lifestyle and level of desired engagement
A lot of autonomous collectives, advocacy groups and activists use Twitter a lot, so it would suck to lose that. I suppose I’ll have to learn Signal and Mastodon but I’m OLD and I’m TIRED
A lot of autonomous collectives, advocacy groups and activists use Twitter a lot, so it would suck to lose that. I suppose I’ll have to learn Signal and Mastodon but I’m OLD and I’m TIRED
signal's a messaging app, not a social media, but I guess you could use instead of twitter DMs
A combination of the previous options, arranged to fit my lifestyle and level of desired engagement
My life has significantly improved since my tweeting account was suspended and I refuse to get it unsuspended because they want my personal cell phone number for it. I now just use my non-tweeting account that I made for "official" business (like keeping in touch with my university professors) that has my given name on it. I still don't tweet with it (except for that one retweet of a text by a trans man about the affectional famine prevalent in US?/UK? masculine interpersonal relationships relative to feminine interpersonal relationships, but I've undone the retweet just now), but I do catch up on my feed often, and there are some tweets I've read recently that have been of benefit to my psychological well-being. Others, not so much.
I once upon a time lurked in 4chan's /b/ back when it was still young. It was definitely a place for free speech, to the point where you were free to say whatever you wanted and a shitload of disgusting individuals were free to relentlessly dogpile you on and off the site. Only if someone tried to push back on he depraved stuff though, however small a pushback it was, until they were silenced beneath the cretins.
That's what a "free speech" absolutist Twitter is going to resemble.
as a minority on twitter a lot of reactions to this have looked very "oh you have no idea what this hellsite is actually like huh"
:P
Yeah, that's basically what I was pointing to. People who think Twitter as it is even comes close to matching the vile cesspit it's going to become.
Yeah, Twitter currently doesn't have great moderation or tools to prevent harassment. It's still better than the thought of what a revived 4chan /b/ board version of Twitter, with a depraved user base all grown up with new technologies and a unified push to the hard right, is going to look like.
I once upon a time lurked in 4chan's /b/ back when it was still young. It was definitely a place for free speech, to the point where you were free to say whatever you wanted and a shitload of disgusting individuals were free to relentlessly dogpile you on and off the site. Only if someone tried to push back on he depraved stuff though, however small a pushback it was, until they were silenced beneath the cretins.
That's what a "free speech" absolutist Twitter is going to resemble.
as a minority on twitter a lot of reactions to this have looked very "oh you have no idea what this hellsite is actually like huh"
:P
Yeah, that's basically what I was pointing to. People who think Twitter as it is even comes close to matching the vile cesspit it's going to become.
Yeah, Twitter currently doesn't have great moderation or tools to prevent harassment. It's still better than the thought of what a revived 4chan /b/ board version of Twitter, with a depraved user base all grown up with new technologies and a unified push to the hard right, is going to look like.
Yeah it sucks right now, it's going to get worse with Musk on board and him trying to make it truth social part 2 but this time it needs to make him money right away edition.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
A lot of autonomous collectives, advocacy groups and activists use Twitter a lot, so it would suck to lose that. I suppose I’ll have to learn Signal and Mastodon but I’m OLD and I’m TIRED
signal's a messaging app, not a social media, but I guess you could use instead of twitter DMs
The way I’ve seen it used is folks just have big group chats, where most people are just reading stuff posted by the group’s organisers. A bit like a mailer
I only use Twitter to obtain proof of life when a few youtube personalities I follow get COVID or whatever, and that can really be done on any public facing social media platform
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
Maybe?
I haven't decided yet but I've been meaning to cut back on my twitter intake lately anyway
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
A combination of the previous options, arranged to fit my lifestyle and level of desired engagement
I have written like 7 tweets in 10 years, and they're all terrible, so I think the path of least resistance here is just keep doing what I've been doing.
A combination of the previous options, arranged to fit my lifestyle and level of desired engagement
Twitter is a read-only enterprise for me these days, so I shall continue to read it on the toilet for so long as it remains interesting to read while on the toilet.
Buying out a company then having the company pay the loan seems so fucking gross at this scale.
Yeah people kept reporting this as Musk’s money but he was always going to use other people’s money for this- I guess it tracks that most of the “other people” and “money” were Twitter and their cash flow
Leveraged buyouts are some real wizardry
That's actually the insane thing about this: The deal is 75% Musk's money! It's about 50% cash (probably selling Tesla shares), 25% loans backed by Tesla shares, and 25% leveraged buyout loans. The net effect is that both Twitter the company and Musk have loan costs of nearly a billion dollars a year each, for a company that makes 1.X billion dollars a year! Even for a leveraged buyout it's a pretty insane deal that genuinely suggests Musk is willing to burn a lot of money on getting a shiny new toy.
If I was an evil billionaire and I wanted to destroy twitter, I would either do this or champerty like that hulk hogan / Thiel thing
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I see this as one more example of rightwing assholes and corporate billionaires taking control of public discourse, and driving out any progressives or lefty resistance. Same as vulture hedge funds buying Pulitzer prize winning papers and shutting them down, same as Facebook flooding out fascist talking points and Russian propaganda.
It will be harder for progressive opposition to talk amongst themselves and figure out how to think and communicate about what they see happening. It will be harder for people who care about injustice to find each other. And this will make it harder for righteous protests to exist. Probably not immediately, but soon.
I see this as one more example of rightwing assholes and corporate billionaires taking control of public discourse, and driving out any progressives or lefty resistance. Same as vulture hedge funds buying Pulitzer prize winning papers and shutting them down, same as Facebook flooding out fascist talking points and Russian propaganda.
It will be harder for progressive opposition to talk amongst themselves and figure out how to think and communicate about what they see happening. It will be harder for people who care about injustice to find each other. And this will make it harder for righteous protests to exist. Probably not immediately, but soon.
A combination of the previous options, arranged to fit my lifestyle and level of desired engagement
I heavily curated my twitter so that basically the only content I got was from VTubers and some internet funny people I enjoyed and barely ventured out of my own timeline, so twitter hasn't bothered me a lot. But I understand that it's an edge case, if only because those brief bouts out of my timeline were always met with "Wow, that's fucking terrible" as an instant reaction. I ended up reporting a lot of people for blatant, obvious attacks and I think only once did I ever get an email saying "yeah, okay, they definitely broke ToS, good job", with my other reports either being "No, they didn't actually" (they did) or, more often, just not getting any sort of follow-up whatsoever. I honestly just think reports get ignored if you do them often. I also just use it to upload my screenshots/videos directly from my PS5/Switch to share them around, so that's something I kinda want to keep doing (especially since I use a lot of screenshots/videos as reference for things).
Still, this is fucking garbage and is pretty much the inspiration I need to figure out what the hell Mastodon is. If it's less bad, I'll probably migrate there entirely eventually.
I'll follow the people I follow, both in the sense of subscribing to their posts and in the sense of leaving when they leave, which is also why I have an account. I don't have any special interest in like the pavement or wallpaper at twitter.
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GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
edited April 2022
Yes
Oh I’m not particularly panicked about it. Just don’t think it’s a factor in worrying about Elon or some board of lesser known dudes being in charge.
Posts
Man that's so bad I wonder if Bain capitol was involved.
pleasepaypreacher.net
So I mean, I guess I could probably just drop it and download a CNN widget or whatever.
Yeah people kept reporting this as Musk’s money but he was always going to use other people’s money for this- I guess it tracks that most of the “other people” and “money” were Twitter and their cash flow
Leveraged buyouts are some real wizardry
To be Very Annoying about these two things:
Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is to lesser billionaires what lesser billionaires are to millionaires. Musk having the capacity to engage in leveraged buyouts or hostile takeovers of major companies to wield as he wants, apparently regardless of profit, is worse than those same companies being at least kind of publicly accountable and run by people with lesser but still absurd amounts of money.
That said, Elon Musk also couldn't cure world hunger, although that entire debacle was a clusterfuck kicked off by Musk and reporters maliciously failing to understand that "$6 billion to save 42 million lives from a short term famine crisis" is not the same thing as fixing world hunger. If it really only cost $6 billion to solve world hunger, I'm pretty sure either some country would have done it or the US's foreign aid budget wouldn't be several times that amount.
That's actually the insane thing about this: The deal is 75% Musk's money! It's about 50% cash (probably selling Tesla shares), 25% loans backed by Tesla shares, and 25% leveraged buyout loans. The net effect is that both Twitter the company and Musk have loan costs of nearly a billion dollars a year each, for a company that makes 1.X billion dollars a year! Even for a leveraged buyout it's a pretty insane deal that genuinely suggests Musk is willing to burn a lot of money on getting a shiny new toy.
HEY!
That’s FIRE Turd mountain thank you very much
I would say this is Tim Rogers using Twitter for good, but it's just someone posting clips. It's still correct.
:P
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Folks I opened my wallet the other day and you wouldnt believe it but its true, it was full of blood
signal's a messaging app, not a social media, but I guess you could use instead of twitter DMs
Capitalism, baybee!
Yeah, that's basically what I was pointing to. People who think Twitter as it is even comes close to matching the vile cesspit it's going to become.
Yeah, Twitter currently doesn't have great moderation or tools to prevent harassment. It's still better than the thought of what a revived 4chan /b/ board version of Twitter, with a depraved user base all grown up with new technologies and a unified push to the hard right, is going to look like.
Yeah it sucks right now, it's going to get worse with Musk on board and him trying to make it truth social part 2 but this time it needs to make him money right away edition.
pleasepaypreacher.net
The way I’ve seen it used is folks just have big group chats, where most people are just reading stuff posted by the group’s organisers. A bit like a mailer
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Perhaps this is the excuse I was looking for
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The resurgence of blogs!
pleasepaypreacher.net
pleasepaypreacher.net
If I was an evil billionaire and I wanted to destroy twitter, I would either do this or champerty like that hulk hogan / Thiel thing
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
https://penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/04/23/le-twittre
I logged on to Twitter when all it was doing was making me upset
It will be harder for progressive opposition to talk amongst themselves and figure out how to think and communicate about what they see happening. It will be harder for people who care about injustice to find each other. And this will make it harder for righteous protests to exist. Probably not immediately, but soon.
Just as the Emperor of Mars demands
Still, this is fucking garbage and is pretty much the inspiration I need to figure out what the hell Mastodon is. If it's less bad, I'll probably migrate there entirely eventually.
funny story I'm seeing them live in like 30 minutes