• Endorkend@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      Most valuations by actual economists and the like was in the 20-25B range. So it still lost a 5x in value, which is only marginally worse than 10x.

      Meanwhile, you have the Elon fanboys still pretending Twitter is doing better than it ever has.

    • fubo@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      The point of acquiring Twitter wasn’t to make money; it was to take away something that woke lefty journalists like and give it to fascists.

      • grte@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        Have you considered that Elon Musk is a dumbass rather than a super genius?

        The guy didn’t plan on buying twitter. He was made to after he tried gaming the system and fucked it up.

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            10 months ago

            Incredibly inflated ego and self-image combined with poor emotional maturity and self-control after a life of entitlement. He said it to piss people off and then came back to eat shit, but unfortunately is also so rich he can throw his money away and have it barely matter.

        • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Yea it’s this. If he was smart he wouldn’t make himself look like a total idiot every week.

        • fubo@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          And? I seem to recall that he fantasized about doing it loudly enough and in enough detail, that he was legally obligated to follow through to avoid being charged with securities fraud. The reason he wanted to do it was to take a communications medium away from the liberals and give it to the Nazis.

          • grte@lemmy.ca
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            10 months ago

            This is marvel-brained fantasy. The guy played games and ended up with a business he doesn’t understand and never should have been in charge of. He’s not a super-villain, he’s an ordinary villain, dumbass nepotism case.

      • Uncle_Bagel@midwest.social
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        10 months ago

        Honestly, i think he wanted to oump and dump the stock and was flabbergasted when Twitter forced him to purchase it for the full price he states.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        To see him explain it on Xitter or with a cartoon meme or whatever, he was in the “center”, and the radical left was so extreme that they brought the Overton window to the left and ruined his day, and were super mean to him, too, I guess. In other words, look at what you made him do, all normal Americans!

        Or something. I guess the super-mean liberals also stole his hair, too.

  • Clown_Tempura@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    It astounds and amazes me that there was a time Elon could have feasibly been considered a smart, level-headed entrepreneur. The whole submarine thing with the trapped kids really was the beginning of his unraveling. I for one thank Elon Musk for proving once and for all to even the most shameless corpo-apologists that having a ton of money doesn’t magically make you smart or cool. The dude’s an idiot, and I love watching him self-destruct.

      • phillaholic@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        If he stayed off Twitter he’d have a pretty impressive CV. Mainstream electric cars, actually usable Satellite Internet, Major Solar Panels etc. Even weird shit like Hyperloop would just be random neat things.

        • sushibowl@feddit.nl
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          10 months ago

          Same with JK Rowling, Kanye West, Notch, etc. It’s literally so fucking easy for people like this to remain loved by everyone. Just keep your fucking mouth shut. Give nice polite interviews about your job, stay out of politics, let a boring publicity agent manage your social media for you, and enjoy your billions of dollars in peace.

          Why is it so hard?

          • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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            10 months ago

            I would have a think tank. I would pay a hundred or so smart people obscene amounts of money to tell me my ideas are daft and come up with really great ideas for me.

            The mind boggles as to why someone like musk doesn’t do this. It would be like achieving global eternal financial domination on easy mode. A world hack if you will. It would cost a mere fraction of his wealth.

            Imagine if every descision you made was well informed and well reasoned instead of just shit.

          • RekcuffuckeR@feddit.de
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            10 months ago

            Why should they care about being loved by people they don’t care about? It’s normal to have the desire to express your political opinion.

            • instamat@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Or, you know, you could keep it to yourself and wait until someone asks for it.

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        10 months ago

        They put him on Rick and Morty in the most cringe inducing fashions and it was like watching a cartoon suck off a guy.

        • 100@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Putting aside that that whole show is pretty rough and I’ve mentally decanonized it, the guy who said it is technically a mega space nazi from the space nazi dimension so I choose to believe he just thought that Musk being an aspiring space nazi was as cool in our universe as it was in his.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          I prefer to pretend that they’re talking about another person named Musk, one of his many kids perhaps…

    • bobman@unilem.org
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      10 months ago

      and I love watching him self-destruct.

      I guarantee he’d rather be in his position than yours.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        10 months ago

        Yeah, can lose all this wealth and still be fucking wealthy in a way that literally dozens of people only know.

    • hypnotoad__@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Please stop attacking my character based on terrible purchase decisions

      What a beautiful car

      Until I owned it

      • Nerdulous@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        I’ll never forget my Sweet 3 series… Because I’m still paying for it’s repairs years later.

        • Saneless@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          It’s a fascinating car and I’m always on awe any time one pulls up next to me

          With trim and doors and shit so poorly aligned, I can’t believe it left the factory

          • ditty@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Are you talking about the poor quality control on the Tesla Model 3? OP was talking about the BMW 3-Series, which typically have excellent fit and finish.

    • just_change_it@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Nah, he just donated 40B to the former ownership. Keeping the big bucks in the hands of the ultra wealthy.

    • Dojan@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Him buying twitter was just some sort of narcissistic flex on his daughter.

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        10 months ago

        Worse. Killing a main means of communication across the world where people can group up to fight our corrupt govts, PTBs and ultra rich, is much worse. I honestly feel it’s that. What’s 44b to quell the spreading of the revolution that will bring him and his ilk down? Nothing in comparison. And it was all set up for him by his army of RWNJs. If it weren’t so horrid it would’ve been a beautiful thing.

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        10 months ago

        I don’t think he ever intended to buy it. He was forced to buy it due to his own stupid actions.

    • TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      Put another rich guy in charge of spacex first please! I don’t want to be stuck on this rock forever 🥲

      • Zeragamba@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        luckily, he has minimal influence over SpaceX, and only really provide high level direction. Same with Tesla.

        Twitter, though… the turnaround time on his whims is staggering

        • gregorum@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Considering the fuckupery at Tesla (especially as of late), this may not entirely be true. It seems that he has slightly more influence at Tesla than he does at SpaceX, which has been doing a pretty great job.

      • QHC@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Glenn Shotwell runs SpaceX and is a competent adult. Nothing to worry about on that front, thankfully.

        • TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 months ago

          Ah ok i thought it was musk boy. Tbh I don’t look too much into who the ceo of a company is. Mostly just what they do which i why i love spacex. I take it all my downvotes are the musk haters lol. I’m neutral on that whole thing with him. Can’t say anything about the whole twitter situation as i have never used it.

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        10 months ago

        I don’t want to be stuck on this rock forever

        I have some sad news…

        • you’re stuck on this rock forever
        • anyone alive today who sets foot on mars will likely regret it before they die
        • robots will conduct all worth while exploration and discovery this millennium
        • TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 months ago

          This guy must be from the future. Oh wise one tell us all your secrets.

          Ever heard of having some hope my guy? Hate to break it to you but I hope humanity leaves this rock and isn’t stuck here forever. If humanity stays on this planet forever we will 100% go extinct either by war, virus, or the most obvious asteroid impacts or the guaranteed one the sun expanding over a few billion years. If we want to live till the end of time and space itself we HAVE to leave.

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            10 months ago

            The tech we will rely on for interplanetary travel is pretty much settled science, it just takes time and money to implement.

            Hoping for unexpected breakthroughs isn’t going to help much.

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    10 months ago

    When no-one was looking, Elon Musk lost forty billion. He lost 40 billion. That’s as many as four tens billions. And that’s terrible.

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      10 months ago

      I never would have guessed that Musk is a billion times worse than Lex Luthor, but the math is right there. Terrible.

    • gregorum@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Terrible for him. Great for everyone else that that 40 billion is now in the hands of other people. 

      It’s also ironic, that he is single-handedly the greatest redistributor of his own wealth. 

      • superkret@feddit.de
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        10 months ago

        Terrible for him

        Not really, and that’s the obscene part. Literally absolutely nothing changed about his standard of living by losing $40B.
        He could have solved world hunger for years with that money, and wouldn’t even have had to give anything up for it.

      • qaz@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        40 billion going into the bank accounts of investors that previously owned Twitter stock certainly is a redistribution of wealth, but I doubt it’s the kind you’re referring to.

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    10 months ago

    I could be remembering wrong but Twitter was only worth $15B at best, and Elon bought it for $44B because he’s that smart.

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      How are you defining worth? It’s value was probably in the 20Bs and it’s market value was well in the 30Bs. By value I am saying a world where owners just dumped all their shares until they were no longer owners, by market value I mean what another entity might pay to buyout twitter.

    • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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      10 months ago

      Almost. He said that if anyone could present a plan on how to end world hunger for $6B, he’d sell Tesla stock to pay for it.

      The U.N. publicly presented a plan on how they’d use that $6B, but it fell way short of that goal. Which isn’t surprising, since they never claimed they could solve world hunger permanently for $6B. Musk’s challenge was rhetorical because the bar was impossibly high. He was really just trying to make the point that he does not have the money to truly end world hunger.

      The U.N.'s plan for that $6B would “feed 42 million people for one year, and avert the risk of famine”. That’s nothing to sneeze at, obviously, but it’s not a permanent solution.

      Friendly reminder, for context, that the U.S. military budget is $842B. For one year.

  • Tilgare@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    For that to be true, it would have needed to be worth $44B in the first place, which it absolutely was not. But there is no doubt that his mismanagement has tanked the value of the investment. He’s a narcissist so never see it that way, but the whole rest of the world knows that.

    • Kage520@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      As a business? Probably not worth that valuation. As a propaganda machine to be able to influence a decent percentage of the population? I think it was.

      • ozymandias117@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Only because larger media outlets use it as “news”

        Twitter has always been one of the smaller “social media” giants

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        10 months ago

        AFAIK he had to be sued into buying it once he tried to weasel out of the deal. So it wasn’t for lack of trying definitely 😂😂😂

        • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          There was a clause in the contract that said if he backed out he would have to pay $1 billion. Who knew that would actually have saved him way more to exercise that clause.

    • Trashcan@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      This is the quote:

      “I don’t see any scenario where they’re responsible for less than 10% of the value destruction, so around $4 billion.”

      In my head, he is comparing the minimum size of ADLs value reduction to be 10% or 4 billion. 10% of 44 billion is 4,4 billion. In this comment he is not saying anything about the current value except that 10% of 44 is around 4.

      How else can you read it?

      • RekcuffuckeR@feddit.de
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        10 months ago

        He’s saying that 10% of the value reduction is 4 billion so the total value reduction is 40 billion (of the 44 billion he bought it for).

        But you’re right, he probably meant it like you read it and just failed to express himself properly.

        • PaleRider@feddit.uk
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          10 months ago

          Are you saying that real life “Tony Stark genius, billionaire” is a bit thick and incapable of expressing his thoughts coherently?

          I’m shocked I tell you. Shocked…

      • Sovereign_13@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        You can read it as “being responsible for 10% of the [total] value destruction, equal to $4B”.

        So if they’re responsible for 10% of the total value loss, and that’s equivalent to $4B, then 100% of the total value lost would be $40B.

        Otherwise you would say “they’re responsible for destroying 10% of the value”.

        • Trashcan@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Right. So it’s a Schroedinger’s quote…😑

          But thanks for pointing out what was obvious for others

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    10 months ago

    Imagine having so much wealth that he can walk away from his utter failure at Xitter and remain completely unaffected. For him, this is like some side-hustle vanity project a bored trophy wife runs.

    • Globulart@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Losing 40b is a pretty big deal even for Musk to be fair. It’d be more like a bored housewife remortgaging the house to pay for their vanity project.

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        10 months ago

        I mean not really, he knows he’ll always have a roof over his head, food on his table, doctors when he’s ill, it is a rather big deal but that doesn’t really affect his daily life in any significant way.

        He’ll still be able to afford anything he may ever want, what he really lost is financial power and social respect.

        In short I think it’s more like a bored housewife getting thrown out from the homeowners association.

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          10 months ago

          He’ll still be able to afford anything he may ever want, what he really lost is financial power and social respect.

          That’s like the worst for a person like Musk.

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    10 months ago

    When you have a net worth measured in the billions of dollars, it’s genuinely impressive to be able to lose money. With that kind of sum behind your name, you could just do nothing and out-earn most people on the planet with just interest alone. To actually be able to lose money? Now that takes work!

    • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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      Since Elon is just flushing money down the toilet do you think he might do me a solid and slice me off like 50k? Brah, that’s like if I dropped a penny on you from my last paycheck, right? I ain’t even getting greedy.

      Like he could do that for 800,000 people and it would just be buying twitter, right?