I find it really difficult to believe there is any benefit to him buying and killing Twitter for billions of dollars. It would have to be extremely contrived and possibly a really well kept conspiracy.
We know there's no benefit to him here because a court forced him to go through with the purchase after he tried to back out. He did not want this mess.
The benefit is controlling the public narrative. Think about it, how many news media companies get business from Twitter? And now he has the power to suppress their reach or to even kick them off the platform altogether.
I agree that is a really valuable position to be in, but you would still need to maintain your reputation or else they could all leave. The website itself is mostly insignificant and its popularity has everything to do with its reputation and userbase.
Even before Twitter was purchased it was in a really delicate balancing act of profitability. Any misstep that seemed slightly too much had advertisers and users leaving and the opposite meant Twitter couldn't make a profit. Perhaps anyone purchasing Twitter would tip that scale with anything they tried, but Elon here instead of walking back his decisions when they don't work keeps doubling down.
Twitter has been operating at a massive loss for years, failing to book an annual profit since 2019 (Mauer, 2022). For eight out of the last ten years, the company has posted a loss.
If anyone wants to nitpick over the 2/10 years when they reported profitability, consider the real value of getting in the black twice in company history in an environment where you're gearing up for a an IPO. The long-term trend is clearly that this is not a viable business model.
I find it really difficult to believe there is any benefit to him buying and killing Twitter for billions of dollars. It would have to be extremely contrived and possibly a really well kept conspiracy.
We know there's no benefit to him here because a court forced him to go through with the purchase after he tried to back out. He did not want this mess.
The benefit is controlling the public narrative. Think about it, how many news media companies get business from Twitter? And now he has the power to suppress their reach or to even kick them off the platform altogether.
I agree that is a really valuable position to be in, but you would still need to maintain your reputation or else they could all leave. The website itself is mostly insignificant and its popularity has everything to do with its reputation and userbase.
Yeah at first it appears it was a major screw up but the screw ups keep coming so i wonder.
Even before Twitter was purchased it was in a really delicate balancing act of profitability. Any misstep that seemed slightly too much had advertisers and users leaving and the opposite meant Twitter couldn't make a profit. Perhaps anyone purchasing Twitter would tip that scale with anything they tried, but Elon here instead of walking back his decisions when they don't work keeps doubling down.
Twitter doesn't generate profits:
If anyone wants to nitpick over the 2/10 years when they reported profitability, consider the real value of getting in the black twice in company history in an environment where you're gearing up for a an IPO. The long-term trend is clearly that this is not a viable business model.