A while back, I floated the hypothesis that Twitter might be slated for controlled demolition b/c its propaganda functions cannot remain viable if the US Empire starts taking massive L's. I am not saying this is going to be the case, but it still tracks...— American Exception (@Aaron_Good_) November 11, 2022
This is why leftists should at least make some attempt at learning about stonks and business. Yeah it's boring and unfulfilling but it offers insight into how capitalists think and why they behave the way they do.
Tesla was shitting the bed. You have to start there. Elon, like a lot of other dipshits, put a factory in China so he could have cheaper labor and sell directly to the Chinese market. China actually attempts to stop covid so they shut down his factory. When the same thing happened in the US, he moved out of California and into Texas. He moved from regulation to deregulation. He can't do that with China. If he wants a billion people to buy his shitty car he has to play their game.
On top of that the competition is outperforming him. Everyone's EVs are surpassing Tesla's and they're also getting actual contracts. Tesla lost out on a huge contract just before all this Twitter shit started.
Tesla has been propped up for a while. It's been way over valued by any stretch of the imagination. He's basically been doing a legal ponzi scheme with orders. Use new orders to pay off old orders. Use new loans to pay off old loans. Raising prices on orders that haven't even been filled so he can buy more time. The government helped him out and allowed him to manipulate EV credits. Because the neoliberal government loves wonky policy and private-public partnerships.
It also came out that Tesla had about $800M in crypto holdings. What happened to crypto in the months before this Twitter shit? Crypto continues to reach lows it hasn't seen for years. Tesla is holding a pile of shit for an investment that will never return anything even if crypto prices doubles tomorrow.
With all that came the sexual exploitation, which is what it was even if nobody else calls it that. He's been fucking his staff and having kids with everyone. He tried to pay for a handy with a horse. Exchanging material goods for sex. That's when his opportunistic "I'm republican now because cancel culture is out of control" shit came about. Which was also right before the twitter thing.
He offers to buy twitter, the price of the stock jumps up. He says he has to raise money for it so he sells off a chunk Tesla options which are definitely taking away more money than they'll be worth ever again. He then tries to back out by claiming bots. Twitter's price is now so inflated that it can't be profitable. Meaning if he bought it at that price, it doesn't generate enough real money to justify the stock price. He wouldn't be able to pay back the loans.
Then comes a court case where a lot of private texts leaked. Turns out he's not very smart at all. He never had a problem with the bots. So he caves and buys twitter to push that out of the news and make it look intentional. But now he's bought twitter at a huge price that can never be justified with current cashflows.
When he gets the company he does a bunch of stupid media shit to please his online fans rather than think like a business owner or investor. Because he is that ignorant and arrogant. We watched what happened since then. Mass layoffs, people quitting. Advertisers pull out.
Firing people is smart (from a capitalist view) because it reduces cost. But it only works if you can maintain production or shrink your other expenses to compensate for the reduction in production. He didn't do that. He just fired people and hoped it would work out somehow. Since it's not a public company there is no bump in the stock price. Revenue drops while it's still overvalued from the sale. Meaning he's even worse off than he was at the $44B sale.
The only way out is he leaves and hopes things settle out enough to start making money again. Or he sells at a loss just to get out from under it and twitter starts rebuilding. Other than that, it's going to go bankrupt and be sold anyways to repay investors.
Then we go back to watching Tesla slowly crumble because none of that has been solved. In fact it's worse because since all this started his cars have killed people and been publicly shown to hunt down toddlers like a goddamn T-800.
I think the real take here is that the intelligence state has spent so much time and money outsourcing their cointelpro and other programs to these social media companies. Now that they've done that it can only end in tears. By trying to get away from the big government spending and privatize everything, the created their own demise. Capitalists love doing that kind of thing.
Now we have to go back to some psycho from Yale trying to trick some 4channer into shooting demsucc politicians to stop communism.
This is why leftists should at least make some attempt at learning about stonks and business. Yeah it's boring and unfulfilling but it offers insight into how capitalists think and why they behave the way they do.
Tesla was shitting the bed. You have to start there. Elon, like a lot of other dipshits, put a factory in China so he could have cheaper labor and sell directly to the Chinese market. China actually attempts to stop covid so they shut down his factory. When the same thing happened in the US, he moved out of California and into Texas. He moved from regulation to deregulation. He can't do that with China. If he wants a billion people to buy his shitty car he has to play their game.
On top of that the competition is outperforming him. Everyone's EVs are surpassing Tesla's and they're also getting actual contracts. Tesla lost out on a huge contract just before all this Twitter shit started.
Tesla has been propped up for a while. It's been way over valued by any stretch of the imagination. He's basically been doing a legal ponzi scheme with orders. Use new orders to pay off old orders. Use new loans to pay off old loans. Raising prices on orders that haven't even been filled so he can buy more time. The government helped him out and allowed him to manipulate EV credits. Because the neoliberal government loves wonky policy and private-public partnerships.
It also came out that Tesla had about $800M in crypto holdings. What happened to crypto in the months before this Twitter shit? Crypto continues to reach lows it hasn't seen for years. Tesla is holding a pile of shit for an investment that will never return anything even if crypto prices doubles tomorrow.
With all that came the sexual exploitation, which is what it was even if nobody else calls it that. He's been fucking his staff and having kids with everyone. He tried to pay for a handy with a horse. Exchanging material goods for sex. That's when his opportunistic "I'm republican now because cancel culture is out of control" shit came about. Which was also right before the twitter thing.
He offers to buy twitter, the price of the stock jumps up. He says he has to raise money for it so he sells off a chunk Tesla options which are definitely taking away more money than they'll be worth ever again. He then tries to back out by claiming bots. Twitter's price is now so inflated that it can't be profitable. Meaning if he bought it at that price, it doesn't generate enough real money to justify the stock price. He wouldn't be able to pay back the loans.
Then comes a court case where a lot of private texts leaked. Turns out he's not very smart at all. He never had a problem with the bots. So he caves and buys twitter to push that out of the news and make it look intentional. But now he's bought twitter at a huge price that can never be justified with current cashflows.
When he gets the company he does a bunch of stupid media shit to please his online fans rather than think like a business owner or investor. Because he is that ignorant and arrogant. We watched what happened since then. Mass layoffs, people quitting. Advertisers pull out.
Firing people is smart (from a capitalist view) because it reduces cost. But it only works if you can maintain production or shrink your other expenses to compensate for the reduction in production. He didn't do that. He just fired people and hoped it would work out somehow. Since it's not a public company there is no bump in the stock price. Revenue drops while it's still overvalued from the sale. Meaning he's even worse off than he was at the $44B sale.
The only way out is he leaves and hopes things settle out enough to start making money again. Or he sells at a loss just to get out from under it and twitter starts rebuilding. Other than that, it's going to go bankrupt and be sold anyways to repay investors.
Then we go back to watching Tesla slowly crumble because none of that has been solved. In fact it's worse because since all this started his cars have killed people and been publicly shown to hunt down toddlers like a goddamn T-800.
I think the real take here is that the intelligence state has spent so much time and money outsourcing their cointelpro and other programs to these social media companies. Now that they've done that it can only end in tears. By trying to get away from the big government spending and privatize everything, the created their own demise. Capitalists love doing that kind of thing.
Now we have to go back to some psycho from Yale trying to trick some 4channer into shooting demsucc politicians to stop communism.
Had to re-read this bit a couple of times before I realized what you meant.
:volcel-kamala:
good run down, and there's also been the Starlink Ukraine drama as @BynarsAreOk pointed out
Yes this is the key part being speculated on here, what shape those efforts might take next
"Controlled demolition" implies too much. Must keep in mind the factionalism and brokering etc that goes on, as in @Awoo's reply
Good take