# Twitter: a minefield for Tesla?



## francoisp

*Please do not go after specific political personalities so this thread doesn't get locked.*

My question is how can Musk manage Twitter without jeopardizing Tesla? I can see many countries blackmailing Musk in order to obtain Twitter information about critics of their regime. If Musk were to cooperate he would risk angering a large part of Tesla's supporters. What a cluster f... he got himself into. Can he safely navigate this minefield?


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## bwilson4web

I have collaborated with brilliant people who had hobbies that did not appeal to me. But then I flew and had my own eclectic taste. Understanding Elon is not a requirement while we share some common interests. 

Bob Wilson


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## bwilson4web

Good news:

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/yg0tdn

My impression of Twitter just went up a notch.

Bob Wilson


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## francoisp

bwilson4web said:


> Good news:
> 
> __
> https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/yg0tdn
> 
> My impression of Twitter just went up a notch.
> 
> Bob Wilson


GM has a legitimate reason trusting the advertising algorithm with Musk. Twitter could shadow ban their advertisements and they'd never know. Why spend dollars that might not be effective? Plus, giving money to a competitor might not be the best business strategy. Will more automakers follow GM's lead?


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## JasonF

He posted to Twitter that there would be a committee formed to determine things like disciplinary action and bans, so decisions like that are not in the hands of one person with potentially extreme political leanings. So that’s an improvement, I hope, though even a committee might be bullied into deciding one particular way.

GM could have suspended advertising because they were concerned about the appearance of giving money directly to Tesla, or because of the backlash of Musk exposing the large number of fake accounts, or perhaps they just had a relationship with the execs that Musk fired.

I’m less concerned about them though and more concerned about other companies, like Disney for example, who are well known to be politically active, not only cancelling Twitter advertising but making a lot of noise that they did so because “Twitter’s goals no longer align with ours”. That could definitely hurt Twitter’s revenue stream as every other politically active company blindly follows suit.


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## shareef777

Time will tell, but if Twitter becomes the “free speech” haven that Elon is dreaming of, then look no further than Truth/Parler.

Add to that the fact that Jack Dorsey started up BlueSky, and anyone with half a brain cell will tell you Elon lost big (financially) on the Twitter purchase before he was even able to bring in the kitchen sink.

But according to Elon, it wasn’t about the money. He bought Twitter “to help humanity” 🙄. Similar to how he invested in Tesla to get EVs into the mass market (market being anyone making at least six figures).


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## francoisp

I don't think Musk cares that much about money. I think he sees money as a tool to execute a vision which gives him a purpose.


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## JasonF

francoisp said:


> I don't think Musk cares that much about money. I think he sees money as a tool to execute a vision which gives him a purpose.


I think his motivations are pure, but his perception has been a little bit warped by the world he lives in now. A good example of that is I think he might want to produce a $25k EV, but is convinced he won’t be able to sell enough of them to make the product profitable, because it doesn’t attract what he sees as Tesla’s core customers.

I personally believe he is completely wrong about that. Especially since he was also completely wrong about how rapidly the standard range Model 3 would sell, even though it too bordered on being outside of what he sees as Tesla’s core customers.


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## Klaus-rf

shareef777 said:


> But according to Elon, it wasn’t about the money. He bought Twitter “to help humanity” 🙄. Similar to how he invested in Tesla to get EVs into the mass market (market being anyone making *spending* at least six figures).


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## francoisp

Regarding Twitter I believe Musk truthfully wants free speech to reign. I'm also sure that he doesn't equate hateful speech with free speech. What worries me most is the leverage his owning Twitter gives to others over Tesla.


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## bwilson4web

Facebook/Meta new interface has become unusable. For example, it treats one of my technical groups as my home page. It won’t take long for Elon to make a Twitter more useful than the Meta disaster.

Bob Wilson


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## Klaus-rf

Elon should also buy Meta/face-ook.


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## JasonF

bwilson4web said:


> Facebook/Meta new interface has become unusable. For example, it treats one of my technical groups as my home page. It won’t take long for Elon to make a Twitter more useful than the Meta disaster.


No, it's actually working perfectly as intended. Facebook's goal is to keep you wandering the site aimlessly as long as possible so you can see as many ads as possible.

FB is not a social media platform, it's an ad delivery platform that features social media.


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## bwilson4web

Klaus-rf said:


> Elon should also buy Meta/face-ook.


Just rebuild Twitter right and both Facebook and YouTube will evaporate … except for the “WE HATE ELON” crowd all dozen of them.

Bob Wilson


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## Klaus-rf

I would be perfectly OK with twitter, fb, meta, gluetube, etc. all going away forever. Starting NOW.


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## Klaus-rf

JasonF said:


> FB is not a social media platform, it's an ad delivery platform that features social media.


 That started as a college student stalking platform.


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## bwilson4web

Curious there seem to be loud, extreme Elon haters and admirers. I’m somewhere in the middle.

I appreciate his accomplishments and sometimes don’t understand some actions. But I am calm enough to keep an open mind. For example, the Boring company not as a traffic congestion solution but a way to build Martian habitats and mine ore.

I am trying to suggest that extreme claims about Elon without specific incidents is not persuasive.

Bob Wilson


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## Klaus-rf

He sure knows how to make money by posting [about vaporware] on twitter - isn't that enough?


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## bwilson4web

I’ve heard reports about the App TicTak being a Chinese risk to access personal data. Then I’ve heard Musk plans new Twitter to become competition. So who do you want to be afraid of?

FYI, I am not a TicTak user and barely use Twitter. But new Facebook/Meta is driving me away too. As for YouTube, the ads make it nearly unusable unless you pay their ad-free fee.

Bob Wilson


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## francoisp

Madmolecule said:


> the Chinese are already building Teslas. Tesla is not building cars in China. The Chinese are building teslas in China. I do not fear a global economy. The privacy ship has sailed.
> 
> I thought years ago when the US tried to break up Microsoft and Apple, no one thought the competition would come from outside the United States, like we had all the smart people, ha ha
> 
> Elon has not said one negative thing about the Chinese government when it comes to Covid shut down, but he craps all over the US government. I think he is the one scared that China will take control of his plant, or shut it down. If he talks bad about their government, even on his free speech platforms, Twitter. If china was to do that, I hope we’re not under any obligation to go rescue Tesla, or their shareholders from a bad Chinese investment


Musk is a bit of a bully but in China there's a bigger meaner bully 😆


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## bwilson4web

Back to the original topic, could Twitter become an alternative to this Tesla and other car specific forums?

Bob Wilson


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## Klaus-rf

bwilson4web said:


> Back to the original topic, could Twitter become an alternative to this Tesla and other car specific forums?


 Not for me. I'll be sliding down greased flagpoles made of razor blades long before I get a twitter account.


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## Klaus-rf

This just off the wire:
By Alexa Corse , Rebecca Elliott and Robert McMillan 

Elon Musk has leveraged his diverse business empire in his first week owning Twitter Inc. , blurring the line between the newly private social-media company and Tesla Inc. , the electric-car maker he also runs.
Tesla engineers were among the first outsiders to begin working on reshaping Twitter after Mr. Musk completed his $ 44 billion takeover a week ago, part of at least dozens of people added to an internal company directory, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The list included some people who appear to work for the Boring Co. , a tunneling business Mr. Musk founded.
The Tesla employees have reviewed the coding work of Twitter engineers, including how much code they had produced, according to people familiar with the matter. The evaluations of employees' work came as Mr. Musk's team was drafting plans for job cuts, the people said.
Representatives for Twitter, Tesla and the Boring Co. didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.


Looks like FSD development has slipped to third spot in the Tesla tasks behind twitter and "fixing Tesla service". Maybe the newly minted ex-Twitter employees can help with FSD?


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## Klaus-rf

Today's Wire:

Elon Musk is treating Twitter like a startup. The thing about startups is, most of them fail.

At Twitter, as is typical at tech startups, Mr. Musk is making or has promised to make a great many changes quickly. This makes a lot of sense when a company is small and burning investor cash. Few operators in tech are as familiar with this well-worn playbook as Mr. Musk , who is almost unrivaled among entrepreneurs in the total market value of all the companies he has helmed or helped found -- including SpaceX , Tesla and PayPal.
But Twitter isn't a startup, it's a mature company with a lot that Mr. Musk could squander if he moves too quickly and breaks too many things at once. Twitter has thousands of employees, even after the company announced significant layoffs on Friday, a mountain of code with all the technical debt that implies, about $5 billion in annual revenue, and nearly 240 million daily active users with strong opinions about the service. Also unlike a startup, it has more than $1 billion in annual debt payments, on top of other expenses, thanks to the money Mr. Musk borrowed to help fund his takeover.
Twitter is already threatened with what could become an existential crisis, as Mr. Musk tweeted Friday that the company has suffered "a massive drop in revenue" as advertisers pause their spending on the site, weary of what Mr. Musk will do next and how it could reflect on them.
While Mr. Musk has in the past accomplished what many deemed impossible, Twitter is a completely different sort of challenge than he has dealt with before. His often-touted "first principles" thinking is great for creating new physical products. But he has demonstrated something like the opposite of a talent for the extremely tricky diplomacy required to run a social network, where a leader must balance the needs and desires of advertisers and users, not to mention regulators and politicians. All this, while overseeing what amount to editorial decisions about what content is and isn't allowed.
Mark Zuckerberg has compared the experience of running a giant social network to waking up every day and " getting punched in the stomach."

Read more:








Why Elon Musk’s Quest to Revive Twitter Is Likely to Fail


Musk’s strategy at Twitter might work at a startup, but Twitter is a mature company in an extremely competitive market, with little prospects for growth.




www.wsj.com


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## JasonF

The thing Musk seems to be missing with Twitter most of all is that advertisers want unflinching stability. 

It's not that the advertisers particularly need Twitter to be politically aligned with one party, and its ownership and employees also aligned with that party - it's the fact that kind of embedded political alignment is an institution, and doesn't change. And that means they can buy long-term advertising packages, and expect that over the several months or a year that it's contracted for, there won't be any mass exodus of potential customers, or sudden public boycotts just because their product happened to be on the same page with something undesirable. Because they can trust that the service will uphold certain ideals, and whether they agree with them or not, they'll be somewhat consistent.

So in a way, Musk accidentally stumbled on part of what he needs to do - make all of the changes he needs to quickly - but then he also needs to build an infrastructure, lock those changes in, and present a level of stability that the old management couldn't even accomplish. If he can maintain that for a few months, the advertisers will come back.


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## shareef777

Klaus-rf said:


> This just off the wire:
> By Alexa Corse , Rebecca Elliott and Robert McMillan
> 
> Elon Musk has leveraged his diverse business empire in his first week owning Twitter Inc. , blurring the line between the newly private social-media company and Tesla Inc. , the electric-car maker he also runs.
> Tesla engineers were among the first outsiders to begin working on reshaping Twitter after Mr. Musk completed his $ 44 billion takeover a week ago, part of at least dozens of people added to an internal company directory, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The list included some people who appear to work for the Boring Co. , a tunneling business Mr. Musk founded.
> The Tesla employees have reviewed the coding work of Twitter engineers, including how much code they had produced, according to people familiar with the matter. The evaluations of employees' work came as Mr. Musk's team was drafting plans for job cuts, the people said.
> Representatives for Twitter, Tesla and the Boring Co. didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
> 
> 
> Looks like FSD development has slipped to third spot in the Tesla tasks behind twitter and "fixing Tesla service". Maybe the newly minted ex-Twitter employees can help with FSD?


Would be interesting if the reports of Tesla engineers working on Twitter code were true. There’d be legal ramifications as tesla is still a publicly traded company and I’m pretty sure shareholders would have something to say about their investment being used to support what amounts to an employee’s side business.


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## shareef777

JasonF said:


> The thing Musk seems to be missing with Twitter most of all is that advertisers want unflinching stability.
> 
> It's not that the advertisers particularly need Twitter to be politically aligned with one party, and its ownership and employees also aligned with that party - it's the fact that kind of embedded political alignment is an institution, and doesn't change. And that means they can buy long-term advertising packages, and expect that over the several months or a year that it's contracted for, there won't be any mass exodus of potential customers, or sudden public boycotts just because their product happened to be on the same page with something undesirable. Because they can trust that the service will uphold certain ideals, and whether they agree with them or not, they'll be somewhat consistent.
> 
> So in a way, Musk accidentally stumbled on part of what he needs to do - make all of the changes he needs to quickly - but then he also needs to build an infrastructure, lock those changes in, and present a level of stability that the old management couldn't even accomplish. If he can maintain that for a few months, the advertisers will come back.


You kind of nailed it though. I’m shocked (but not really) about the constant yelling of how Twitter is left leaning and liberal. It’s not a news organization, why does it matter how it’s run? No one questions which way Fox News leans and why they heavily advertise pillows 😂


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## francoisp

JasonF said:


> So in a way, Musk accidentally stumbled on part of what he needs to do - make all of the changes he needs to quickly - but then he also needs to build an infrastructure, lock those changes in, and present a level of stability that the old management couldn't even accomplish. If he can maintain that for a few months, the advertisers will come back.


And he needs to remember that hate speech isn't free speech.


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## garsh

francoisp said:


> And he needs to remember that hate speech isn't free speech.




__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1588666105023041536


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## francoisp

garsh said:


> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1588666105023041536


That's what I meant by "minefield". Musk is wasting his time and talent with this "stuff". Nothing good will come out of this. And Musk becoming a polarizing public figure can adversely affect Tesla. I read many comments by people that say they are no longer considering Tesla for their next EV. It's like finding out that one of your favorite actor is a sexual deviant and from that point forward you can't watch his movies anymore.


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## bwilson4web

In one respect it is like what Microsoft did to their Office suite. Just as I had mastered the current version including the defaults, Microsoft would release a new version that broke everything. That is what is happening to Twitter, a new release that is subsequently different.

Given how little value I could get from _classic _ Twitter it has a chance to be less bad.

Bob Wilson


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## JasonF

shareef777 said:


> Would be interesting if the reports of Tesla engineers working on Twitter code were true. There’d be legal ramifications as tesla is still a publicly traded company and I’m pretty sure shareholders would have something to say about their investment being used to support what amounts to an employee’s side business.


That’s less of a legal problem than you’d think, since Facebook/Meta does it all the time. They very recently started pulling FB coders and assigning them to work on Metaverse instead. Legally they are different corporate entities.

What is a _real _problem with Tesla though is Elon Musk’s actions at Twitter are 1000% going to affect Tesla’s stock price and credit rating. If it looks too much like Musk is going to run Twitter into the ground, and/or even give the appearance he might borrow money from Tesla to stabilize it…the Tesla board might have no choice but to fire him from the Tesla board to stabilize its own financials, similar to the Great Steve Jobs Coup at Apple.




francoisp said:


> And he needs to remember that hate speech isn't free speech.


That’s not even related in this case. Musk could repeat that catch phrase daily but it’s not going to make the advertisers feel like the platform is more stable. What makes it look stable is the appearance (even if it’s not real) that the staff, ownership, and those who post content are in philosophical agreement.

To explain that a little better, imagine a row of billboard next to a busy highway. Each advertiser who rents space on one of them wants to make sure that besides not allowing competing products in neighboring spaces, that also the quality of ads next to theirs meets a certain standard. For example, so GM doesn’t put a Cadillac Lyric ad next to one for “escort services” or vicious political ads. What the big advertisers would prefer is for the entire row to be owned by one advertiser that has a permanent policy that does not allow sleazy or political ads, because that guarantees their ads will never be seen in a ridiculous or controversial setting.

Musk can still accomplish that somewhat by wrapping up his changes quickly, basically letting this new content committee take over operations, and then stop changing things that are not new products or features. Then the advertisers will feel like his “row of billboards” is safe.


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## francoisp

bwilson4web said:


> In one respect it is like what Microsoft did to their Office suite. Just as I had mastered the current version including the defaults, Microsoft would release a new version that broke everything. That is what is happening to Twitter, a new release that is subsequently different.
> 
> Given how little value I could get from _classic _ Twitter it has a chance to be less bad.
> 
> Bob Wilson


Lol, I was still using Office 2007 until I recently switched to the Google's version of Free Office. I'm not regretting it.


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## Klaus-rf

francoisp said:


> And he needs to remember that hate speech isn't free speech.


 How about Paid Hate Speech??


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## SimonMatthews

JasonF said:


> That’s less of a legal problem than you’d think, since Facebook/Meta does it all the time. They very recently started pulling FB coders and assigning them to work on Metaverse instead. Legally they are different corporate entities.


They are different legal entities, but Facebook and Metaverse are all under one common owner: Meta. That's not the case for Tesla and Twitter.


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## JasonF

SimonMatthews said:


> They are different legal entities, but Facebook and Metaverse are all under one common owner: Meta. That's not the case for Tesla and Twitter.


Technically yes, but then the argument could also be made that Tesla and Twitter share a CEO and some board members, so it's okay that they share coders. Legally though either is not really the case. But also, in general there really aren't consequences for it unless one of the employees decides to sue.


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## bwilson4web

Klaus-rf said:


> How about Paid Hate Speech??


If the filters work, I’ll never see it.

Bob Wilson


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## shareef777

JasonF said:


> Technically yes, but then the argument could also be made that Tesla and Twitter share a CEO and some board members, so it's okay that they share coders. Legally though either is not really the case. But also, in general there really aren't consequences for it unless one of the employees decides to sue.


Doesn’t matter about the CEO position as his compensation is performance based. Using Tesla assets to improve Twitter provides zero incentive to Tesla shareholders. Even if Twitter‘s value shoots up to a trillion dollars, what benefit does that provide to Tesla and its shareholders. What makes it even more suspicious is that there IS financial benefit to Elon. It’s still too early to tell, but if this continues I can def see the SEC or a class action lawsuit brought up.


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## FRC

shareef777 said:


> Using Tesla assets to improve Twitter


Am I missing something or is there evidence to support this?


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## SimonMatthews

JasonF said:


> Technically yes, but then the argument could also be made that Tesla and Twitter share a CEO and some board members, so it's okay that they share coders. Legally though either is not really the case. But also, in general there really aren't consequences for it unless one of the employees decides to sue.


There is a huge difference. In the case of Meta, the net effect is neutral for shareholders. Since Tesla is a publicly traded company and Twitter is not and has different owners, it is an entirely different situation and I doubt that Tesla shareholders would take this lightly. Sharing a CEO is meaningless legally and meaningless to shareholders. Actually, no, using Tesla resources to help Twitter would be corrupt management, unless Tesla was fully compensated by Twitter.

However, having said that, there is nothing illegal in someone having another job and it would be probably be OK for Tesla employees to take on a second job at Twitter. For this to be OK, any work at Twitter would have to be managed in such a way that it did not affect their work at Tesla.


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## JasonF

shareef777 said:


> What makes it even more suspicious is that there IS financial benefit to Elon. It’s still too early to tell, but if this continues I can def see the SEC or a class action lawsuit brought up.


Like I said though, there is no actual law against it. The employees could sue claiming they were not compensated extra for being required to effectively take a 2nd job, but there aren't really consequences if they don't really care.

At the same time though, if Tesla goes into self defense mode to protect itself from Twitter, they might use that as grounds to kick Elon off the board, that he's using Tesla resources to benefit Twitter without the Tesla stockholders getting anything from it.

In any case, there is really nothing where government regulators will file criminal charges against Elon Musk for asking Tesla coders to look at Twitter code. Unless somehow parts of Twitter code was government classified, then he could be prosecuted for exposing Tesla employees to government secrets without proper clearance.




SimonMatthews said:


> However, having said that, there is nothing illegal in someone having another job and it would be probably be OK for Tesla employees to take on a second job at Twitter. For this to be OK, any work at Twitter would have to be managed in such a way that it did not affect their work at Tesla.


That's as simple as asking the coders to sign another NDA. And still, as long as the coders themselves don't make an issue out of taking on extra work without extra pay, nothing will really happen because of it.


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## shareef777

FRC said:


> Am I missing something or is there evidence to support this?


There were reports of it on Twitter, ironically. Not sure if it’s true or not.


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## shareef777

JasonF said:


> Like I said though, there is no actual law against it. The employees could sue claiming they were not compensated extra for being required to effectively take a 2nd job, but there aren't really consequences if they don't really care.
> 
> At the same time though, if Tesla goes into self defense mode to protect itself from Twitter, they might use that as grounds to kick Elon off the board, that he's using Tesla resources to benefit Twitter without the Tesla stockholders getting anything from it.
> 
> In any case, there is really nothing where government regulators will file criminal charges against Elon Musk for asking Tesla coders to look at Twitter code. Unless somehow parts of Twitter code was government classified, then he could be prosecuted for exposing Tesla employees to government secrets without proper clearance.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's as simple as asking the coders to sign another NDA. And still, as long as the coders themselves don't make an issue out of taking on extra work without extra pay, nothing will really happen because of it.


Have you worked for a publicly traded company? We take annual training that states we can’t use company resources/time for unrelated personal benefits. IANAL, but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to use a companies resources to benefit yourself personally.


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## FRC

We like to accuse everyone of fake news but have no compunction about reporting fake news ourselves.


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## JasonF

shareef777 said:


> Have you worked for a publicly traded company? We take annual training that states we can’t use company resources/time for unrelated personal benefits. IANAL, but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to use a companies resources to benefit yourself personally.


It's not illegal, it's a violation of contract terms. The company can fire you for it, and sue you for damages if it cost them in any way. But they can't have the police arrest you for it and take you to jail (though they might have them escort you out of the building).

I'm not a lawyer, but since I worked as a contractor-to-a-contractor for a few years I had to familiarize myself with what kind of side work it was safe to do.

I should say though that's just the way things are done in the U.S. - there might be countries in the world where the police would enforce the terms of your employment contract, or at least where the employer might have enough clout with the police to have them intimidate you.


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## garsh

FRC said:


> Am I missing something or is there evidence to support this?


I've been wondering that as well.

I've only seen articles that cite unnamed sources for this information. I've seen nothing concrete.


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## Madmolecule

We clearly have our answer now. The acquisition of Twitter will have no effect on Tesla or its Stock. The synergy between the programmers has been amazing and they should be harvesting the fruits of their efforts soon


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## Madmolecule

It is just sad now.

By charging for verification, Elon has taken on a tremendous amount of liability by misinformation posted by someone verified by Twitter. It is one thing to allow some impersonate me, but when it is the president, a pharmaceutical company, a defense contractor or gaming company it’s a different level of liability. Section 230 protects companies from misinformation on their site, but the fact that the company is verifying the people for $ changes everything

The employees left at twitter and tesla are not powerless sheep. Passive aggressive employees that dislike the management and the company they are working at, can cause tremendous harm. employees will bend the space-time continuum in the direction they want if they are not behind the leadership or if they feel they are taken for granted and expendable.


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## Madmolecule

I have wondered where Elon has been getting his ideas. If you want the best and the brightest to work extremely long hours and jell as a team, the better perks and work environment you can provide can help make that happen. Stock options can only motivate so far. Many of the younger employees also wear their culture on their sleeve. They want to believe In the company they work for in and the leadership of that company. This is a big change from when I started working. If you are an amazing, talented engineer and/or programmer You are already working long hours because you cannot help yourself. You realize you have a built-in cash register and that there will always be a demand for talented engineers and programmers. Also there might be a few motivated ex-twitter and Tesla employees that will work long hours to prove Elon wrong, some might have even headed up AI. I heard rumors that the perks were so lavish at Tesla, you could take a four months sabbatical with full support from management. Or maternity leave if you’re having one of the boss’s children

years ago, I worked for a company across the street from SAS. I don’t know much about the company, but I always was jealous of the employees. They had an unbelievable lunch room with someone playing a grand piano. They had a K-12 school on the property. This encouraged their employees to work long hours because their kids were near by and part of the group.

this is just my experience, but I’m not sure Elon is the best at getting the most out of people, over a long period of time












Elons behavior will continue to spill over into Tesla and SpaceX


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## francoisp

Tesla stock 1-year


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## Klaus-rf

francoisp said:


> Tesla stock 1-year


 Yep - a 55%+ drop in last 12 months. Great investor return.


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## Madmolecule

Well, it sounds like many didn’t click on the button last night. The key cards aren’t working for most employees and rumored he has reduced staff by up to 88%. It appears the majority of the people who stay are because of H1B status,

The Tesla and SpaceX employees have had to fear this was really Elon style. Now they all Have all their questions about their boss answered. This will be devastating. I don’t care how good the car is or if they are super chargers available who wants to be part of this dumpster fire. But the market for talented employees is extremely hot. If you has on your résumé you work for a crazy person for a couple years, but still has success it’s got to look good.

The employees that are on loan from Tesla, who is paying their salary? I’m sure the employees that still have to do these peoples work while they’re gone are really happy.

it probably won’t be that bad as I heard the 50 employees are pretty much made up of the catquest development team. We might not see the new release of Catquest 2000 for Christmas but it will be amazing whenever it comes out and I also heard there was a handful of programmers that were working on windshield wipers and automatic bright lights. I think they’re the ones in charge of the key cards at Twitter now.


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## bwilson4web

Elon owns the domain name and the coders don’t own sh*t. Sometimes a ‘wipe and load’ is the best approach.

I did not understand before what Elon wanted with Twitter but now I do. I would work for Elon just for Twitter stock.

Bob Wilson


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## Madmolecule

Good luck on that. I wish you and Elon well. Maybe you could start by figuring out how to work the key cards programming but above all good luck, you and Elon will need it. However, you will need to move to San Francisco. No more free lunches, but the weed is amazing. Enjoy the left coast.


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## francoisp

bwilson4web said:


> Elon owns the domain name and the coders don’t own sh*t. Sometimes a ‘wipe and load’ is the best approach.
> 
> I did not understand before what Elon wanted with Twitter but now I do. I would work for Elon just for Twitter stock.
> 
> Bob Wilson


Work for Elon but not for stock. I have a friend who works for Amazon and who's pay is part stock options part salary. He's crying 😭 now.


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## Madmolecule

bwilson4web said:


> Elon owns the domain name and the coders don’t own sh*t. Sometimes a ‘wipe and load’ is the best approach.
> 
> I did not understand before what Elon wanted with Twitter but now I do. I would work for Elon just for Twitter stock.
> 
> Bob Wilson


Wipe and load, haha
The coders do own thier knowledge , education and experience, Elon did not purchase that
44 billion to start from scratch
that sounds stupid as sh*t
Tesla stock heading to 140 very quickly
how can I get some of that Twitter phantom stock

Jim Hardcore


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## shareef777

I'm not against the new Twitter, and to be honest have enjoyed it tremendously after Elon has taken over. Though I've moved away from using it to purely as informational/news and now use it as a comedy show.

On Topic (personal opinion) : I don't think Elon/Twitter has any bearing/impact to Tesla. The real issue Tesla has is demand drying up. The bucket of people willing to buy an overpriced vehicle solely for the "prestige" of owning a Tesla is not as big as Tesla thinks. I don't think demand had much to do with lack of alternative EVs, price of gas, or anything else. Everyone I knew (including myself) got a Tesla solely because it's different. As in different from everything else. The "lure" of owning a Tesla, a vehicle unlike any other. Akin to how people see owning a Mercedes/BMW/Lexus... Difference is that Tesla's aren't luxury vehicles outside their price and people are wising up. And it also lost that "different" status seeing that you can see them practically on every corner.


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## JasonF

My fear in all of this is that the Twitter issues will continue affecting Tesla until its board of directors is forced to remove Elon Musk as CEO to keep its stock price stable. It wouldn't be the end of Elon at Tesla, they would just keep him around as a "special consultant" or something, but he wouldn't be on the board anymore.

Short term that would cause the stock price to spike, but it might hurt it in the long run. It also might have a much more negative effect on Twitter - without Tesla backing, even more of them might jump ship.

Secondarily, if Twitter can no longer be supported by advertisers, that means two things: a) Shrinking the size of the company, possibly even relocating it - and I don't mean Texas, I mean moving its HQ to someplace like Bangalore where coders are cheap and plentiful; And b) Twitter becoming a pay service with no more free tier.


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## francoisp

After Musk's ultimatum, employees are leaving in drove. Sure, he can find Indians coders in Bangalore ready to work for 80 hours per week for a third of the salary of a US based coder but I worked with Indian coders and I wasn't impressed.


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## Klaus-rf

I think Elon's lost $44Billion faster with twitter than he could have done at a roulette table.


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## garsh

francoisp said:


> After Musk's ultimatum, employees are leaving in drove. I'm sure he'll find a bunch of Indians in Bangalore ready to work for 80 hours per week for a third of the salary of a US based coder. But I worked with Indian coders and they weren't that good.


That's a strange thing to say. Elon doesn't even like having remote workers.


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## JasonF

garsh said:


> That's a strange thing to say. Elon doesn't even like having remote workers.


That's true, but he may not have a choice if he wants to get advertisers back. They aren't going to wait for him to rebuild Twitter over the next few months, and if he needs an instant staff, he might have to hire one of those companies in India that have coders on staff.


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## JasonF

shareef777 said:


> The real issue Tesla has is demand drying up. The bucket of people willing to buy an overpriced vehicle solely for the "prestige" of owning a Tesla is not as big as Tesla thinks.


The fault with detecting how large that bucket is, is that it also includes current Tesla owners who trade up to a newer Tesla. That kind of thing sneaks up on you, because it could mean you're not really increasing your customer base, it's just the same few people with a lot of money buying cars over and over again.


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## garsh

JasonF said:


> They aren't going to wait for him to rebuild Twitter over the next few months,


They're not throwing out the current system and starting over.



> and if he needs an instant staff


Why would he need "instant staff"? He believes twitter has too many employees.

Also, I suggest reading this book. It explains how throwing employees at a software problem results in delays.









Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition: Brooks Jr., Frederick: 8580001065793: Amazon.com: Books


Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition [Brooks Jr., Frederick] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition



www.amazon.com


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## Madmolecule

programmers can be more artists that scientists at time. Community code is usually not the best way even in AI (One stack)This is probably the most obvious in game development mode. To come into rockstar and take over the code of an existing game with all new programmers without the opportunity to meet, and understand the history and weaknesses of the on the existing code to me would be a recipe for failure. The simple truth is most programmers would never write the code the same rate twice. After writing it, you can always think of a more efficient better way to do it if you had to do it again. These are the best guys to know where are the problems and potential pitfalls, as well as the best way to fix it. If there was the desire to do so. They were probably tired of patching it. There is no doubt Twitter had a tremendous amount of fat as all big fast growing companies do. But trying to determine where the deadwood is in three weeks with a team of outsiders is hilarious.

I would also like to know, what is currently like at Tesla after the office ultimatum Months ago. My guess it is like when I was in C level manager and gave employees and ultimatum. Some of the more savvy ones were to not argue with me but instead agree with me and the continue the way they were doing it before. Programmers are extremely valuable at all tech companies, but I have found the people that can successfully manage and inspire these crazy programmers are gold. the very worst is when you have a bad manager prematurely forcing a bad code push! 

his actions as a manager and owner are actually causing to organize labor at the various companies. Historically there is not a big push for this at companies where the management believe the employees are an asset. For someone who is pro bot. anti labor, he might find a sudden interest in unions growing at his various companies


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## JasonF

garsh said:


> Why would he need "instant staff"? He believes twitter has too many employees.


Not anymore, because they all walked out! I read last night that there aren’t even enough people to do regular maintenance on the servers, or fix something if it breaks. The whole service is waiting for some calamity to take it down now. (and don’t anyone dare say “it’s hosted in the cloud, it doesn’t need maintenance!”)

Which means there might not be time to interview people and get replacements to handle all of that before something bad happens - and the advertisers know it. The quickest way to solve that and give the appearance of stability, attracting advertisers back, without bleeding Twitter of more money would be to contract with one of those firms in India that have coders, DBA‘s, and server managers at the ready instantly to keep things running.

But then a question comes up - do you let the same firm do upgrades/new coding as well since you’re already paying them, or treat them as temporary until you can rebuild a good team for that? The answer to that question might just come down to what Twitter can afford for the next year or two.

To give another perspective on this, I’m not sure Twitter’s own former coders really did much anyway. The service outwardly has changed at a pace where less than a dozen coders could have actively been working on the code to fix bugs and support advertisers, but not really do much else. So the issue I’m talking about isn’t that they _need_ a huge staff of coders, but that time really isn’t on their side in terms of keeping the service up and projecting stability to advertisers.

The changes Elon Musk wants are initially going to need a lot more coders working on it, but once those new features are stabilized again, the coders will once again not be doing a lot. That’s why he was warning them of hard work and long hours - but since they rejected that, contracting to a firm in India would be a lot more tempting since he doesn’t need them long term. Or possibly offering Tesla and SpaceX coders massive overtime to work on Twitter too, but that brings the risk of scaring them off too.


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## garsh

JasonF said:


> Not anymore, because they all walked out! I read last night that there aren’t even enough people to do regular maintenance on the servers, or fix something if it breaks.


Haven't you noticed that articles tend to be wrong when the media reports on a topic with which you're familiar? The same is often true for topics with which you're not familiar too. Why would random reporters have _any_ clue what's required to keep twitter running?

Twitter still has thousands of employees. They'll be able to keep the lights on.


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## francoisp

garsh said:


> Haven't you noticed that articles tend to be wrong when the media reports on a topic with which you're familiar? The same is often true for topics with which you're not familiar too. Why would random reporters have _any_ clue what's required to keep twitter running?
> 
> Twitter still has thousands of employees. They'll be able to keep the lights on.


Twitter went from 13,000 employees and subcontractors to 2500 after layoffs and resignations. Do you really think that the 10,500 people that quit were doing nothing?

Musk couldn't get into the head office building because the person in charge of card access had been let go. Musk had to ask that person to come back so he could get in.


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## Klaus-rf

garsh said:


> That's a strange thing to say. Elon doesn't even like having remote workers.


 FIFY.


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## garsh

francoisp said:


> Do you really think that the 10,500 people that quit were doing nothing?


Do you really think that 2500 people aren't enough to keep a website up and running, regardless of how popular it is?

Google only had 2,292 employees when they had their IPO in 2004.



Final Prospectus


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## francoisp

garsh said:


> Do you really think that 2500 people aren't enough to keep a website up and running, regardless of how popular it is?
> 
> Google only had 2,292 employees when they had their IPO in 2004.
> 
> 
> 
> Final Prospectus


Lol. I wonder how many it had a couple of years later: that would be 9000.


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## JasonF

garsh said:


> Twitter still has thousands of employees. They'll be able to keep the lights on.


That depends, because some of those articles specifically mentioned that the people with specific disciplines to keep the service running like DBA's and server management have all left. I suppose coders can learn to do that, but there would be a learning curve during which the servers may or may not be running on borrowed time, and if anything really extreme happens they might struggle. But if a lot of the people left are from the sales team, that's going to be a much harder transition.

Which is why I said the enemy is _time_. All of Twitter can probably stay afloat (not necessarily upgrade or expand, but stay afloat) with less than 100 people - but if anything bad happens before Twitter's operation team realigns to be able to do so, it could bring down the service possibly for days. If it looks like the team isn't realigning fast enough, that's when Elon Musk might have no choice but to outsource the operations team, at least until the internal one can be rebuilt.


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## SimonMatthews

garsh said:


> That's a strange thing to say. Elon doesn't even like having remote workers.


We wants employees to be in the office. It's not clear if he cares where the office is.


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## SimonMatthews

JasonF said:


> DBA's and server management have all left. I suppose coders can learn to do that, but there would be a learning curve


In my experience, most coders know very little about server and database management. It would be a very steep learning curve.


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## Madmolecule

could controversial reinstatements remove twitter from phones? Turns out elon does not hold all the power or money


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## garsh

garsh said:


> Google only had 2,292 employees when they had their IPO in 2004.





francoisp said:


> Lol. I wonder how many it had a couple of years later: that would be 9000.


And now Google has 157,000 employees. Do you think it actually _requires _that many employees?

If the economy takes a large downturn, they could easily keep a core search/ads engineering group, fire the other 98% of workers, and stay quite comfortably afloat.


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## Madmolecule

A lot of fat for sure, but they also have a lot of AI and the most valuable asset is their data that they have successfully converted to knowledge. Tesla was not that big of a threat to apple or google even though Tesla has not been a supporter of either with as limited compatibility as possible. Elons attitude towards these companies will hurt Tesla and its value and tier shareholders.

Economy might die, ads might dry up, but I don’t see cell phones being replaced anytime soon. there will be an apple car before a Tesla phone.

Elon could have made Tesla so great. This is all heartbreaking. He could have gone the Humanitarian route but he went the ego route, sad

Elon please don't Electrify Cuba, you have done enough


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## francoisp

garsh said:


> And now Google has 157,000 employees. Do you think it actually _requires _that many employees?
> 
> If the economy takes a large downturn, they could easily keep a core search/ads engineering group, fire the other 98% of workers, and stay quite comfortably afloat.


Many companies may get by with a 20% reduction of their workforce. But an 80% reduction is mostly seen with companies on chapter 11.


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## garsh

JasonF said:


> That depends, because some of those articles specifically mentioned that the people with specific disciplines to keep the service running like DBA's and server management have all left.


I think it's a bad idea to take information coming from disgruntled ex-workers, filtered through journalists that don't really understand the subject matter, and accept it as truth.



SimonMatthews said:


> We wants employees to be in the office. It's not clear if he cares where the office is.


Look, there's lots to discuss and guess about how this huge twitter transition is going to go. But there's been no indication that Elon is planning on moving the twitter office, or that he is planning to outsource twitter engineering to another country. Furthermore, he has NO history of this kind of behavior. Indeed, he started two companies in California, and those offices/factories continue to exist in those locales.



JasonF said:


> Which is why I said the enemy is _time_.


I agree that the issue is time. Twitter is bleeding money right now. The quickest way to reduce operating cost is to cut staff. That will buy them more time.


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## francoisp

Madmolecule said:


> A lot of fat for sure, but they also have a lot of AI and the most valuable asset is their data that they have successfully converted to knowledge. Tesla was not that big of a threat to apple or google even though Tesla has not been a supporter of either with as limited compatibility as possible. Elons attitude towards these companies will hurt Tesla and its value and tier shareholders.
> 
> Economy might die, ads might dry up, but I don’t see cell phones being replaced anytime soon. there will be an apple car before a Tesla phone.
> 
> Elon could have made Tesla so great. This is all heartbreaking. He could have gone the Humanitarian route but he went the ego route, sad
> 
> Elon please don't Electrify Cuba, you have done enough


Narcissism: the billionaire disease.


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## francoisp

garsh said:


> And now Google has 157,000 employees. Do you think it actually _requires _that many employees?
> 
> If the economy takes a large downturn, they could easily keep a core search/ads engineering group, fire the other 98% of workers, and stay quite comfortably afloat.


Google is present in over 200 countries with that many cultural differences that require local people to make things work. So you really think that 3000 employees, 15 per country, is enough to keep the lights on?


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## Klaus-rf

garsh said:


> I think it's a bad idea to take information coming from disgruntled ex-workers, filtered through journalists that don't really understand the subject matter, and accept it as truth.


 Fake News???


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## garsh

francoisp said:


> Google is present in over 200 countries...


If you believe Google has (or requires) 15 employees present in every country (or even just familiar with every country), I'm not sure what I can do to convince you that's incorrect.  But yes, I think that 3000 people could easily keep Google's core search and ads business running successfully.


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## Madmolecule

I don’t see how Tesla’s board of directors can continue to allow Elon, and his actions to continually hurt the brand and the value. I thought they had some responsibility to do what’s best for the stockholders other than Elon. Elon’s behavior, and purchase of Twitter has been more than a minefield, but an actually drone strike on the stock value of Tesla.


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## Madmolecule

garsh said:


> If you believe Google has (or requires) 15 employees present in every country (or even just familiar with every country), I'm not sure what I can do to convince you that's incorrect.  But yes, I think that 3000 people could easily keep Google's core search and ads business running successfully.


The search is one thing. YouTube is a a different situation were it requiresplenty of monitoring to ensure they don’t lose their advertisers or copyright infringement. They also need to be developing the next version, which takes a tremendous amount of R&D. But they could certainly get by with a minimal cruise for a small period of time driving it into the ground Like twitter

I’m sure they have people in countries where they don’t have physical offices









Office locations


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## JasonF

Madmolecule said:


> The search is one thing. YouTube is a a different situation were it requiresplenty of monitoring to ensure they don’t lose their advertisers or copyright infringement. They also need to be developing the next version, which takes a tremendous amount of R&D. But they could certainly get by with a minimal cruise for a small period of time driving it into the ground


A lot of those advertiser supported services, unsurprisingly, dedicate the majority of their "offices" to sales. Since sales departments tend to "generate revenue" from the point of view of the business, they end up with the majority of the cushy locations and nice private offices.

If you cull out the sales locations, there would be a handful of coder and management offices, and a few offices in specific countries that require a compliance officer located within their borders (like China).


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## garsh

Madmolecule said:


> The search is one thing. YouTube is a a different situation...


If the economy ever takes a HUGE downturn, Google can simply end-of-life everything except search & ads to stay in the black.
Sure, if they want to keep more products operational, they'd need to keep more employees.
But their ads business is what generates the cash that allows them to keep trying new things at a loss.









Google Revenue Breakdown - FourWeekMBA


Alphabet’s Google Revenues (2021) Google Search & other $148.95B Google Network Members’ $31.7B YouTube ads $28.85B Google other $28B Google Cloud $19.2B Other Bets $0.75B Alphabet made $148.95B from Google search and others, $31.7 billion from the Network members, £28.8 billion from YouTube...




fourweekmba.com


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## Madmolecule

strong numbers. I thought YouTube was bigger. odd that Elon is going after that next on Twitter. There are 9 billion searches a day on Google. If you want to brag about interactions, I think they are the big dog.


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## bwilson4web

Other content generators have observed that Titter is used by them to get clicks in revenue generating web sites. If Elon can make Twitter into a revenue generator, a lot of middlemen will disappear.

Bob Wilson


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## bwilson4web

Duplicate


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## bwilson4web

It appears the former Twitter management left poison pills behind.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/technology/elon-musk-twitter-cost-cutting.html

Mr. Musk’s actions reflect the financial pressure that Twitter is under. The company took on $13 billion in loans for his buyout of the social network. The interest payments for that debt totals more than $1 billion annually. And Twitter has long faced financial difficulties, often losing money and struggling to keep up with rivals like Facebook and Google that effectively monetized their advertising products. Some advertisers have paused spending on Twitter as they evaluate Mr. Musk’s ownership.​
Mr. Musk, 51, has told Twitter employeesthat “the economic picture ahead is dire” and that bankruptcy might be in the cards for the company.​


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## francoisp

bwilson4web said:


> It appears the former Twitter management left poison pills behind.
> 
> Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/technology/elon-musk-twitter-cost-cutting.html
> 
> Mr. Musk’s actions reflect the financial pressure that Twitter is under. The company took on $13 billion in loans for his buyout of the social network. The interest payments for that debt totals more than $1 billion annually. And Twitter has long faced financial difficulties, often losing money and struggling to keep up with rivals like Facebook and Google that effectively monetized their advertising products. Some advertisers have paused spending on Twitter as they evaluate Mr. Musk’s ownership.​
> Mr. Musk, 51, has told Twitter employeesthat “the economic picture ahead is dire” and that bankruptcy might be in the cards for the company.​


The whole of Twitter is a poison pill. Musk stupidity was to not do any due diligence. After just a few weeks of ownership he's already considering bankruptcy protection? I wonder how his fellow investors, Larry Ellison, the banks and the Saudis feel about all this. Musk was worried about Russian hitmen after supplying starlink terminals to Ukraine: now he can add a few more.


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## JasonF

francoisp said:


> The whole of Twitter is a poison pill. Musk stupidity was to not do any due diligence. After just a few weeks of ownership he's already considering bankruptcy protection? I wonder how his fellow investors, Larry Ellison, the banks and the Saudis feel about all this. Musk was worried about Russian hitmen after supplying starlink terminals to Ukraine: now he can add a few more.


The way the company is structured, I strongly suspect that one day, when the new money supply (venture capital and loans) dried up, they were going to simply file for bankruptcy, sell the shambles of the company off, and walk away with wads of cash. Musk simply gave them the opportunity to execute their plan much earlier than they anticipated, and paid even better.

Except the structure of the company remains, with its dependency on loans and venture capital, and cheating and lying to advertisers, banks, and its own users. Without some serious luck, Musk will likely have no choice but to follow through on the original boards' plan, but with a much smaller payoff than they would have gotten.

Yes, that does mean Twitter is entirely a pyramid scheme.

And also yes, his investors are already grumbling, and there is some pressure on Tesla's board to fire Elon Musk (he wouldn't be gone, just not CEO anymore) and replace him with another CEO to appease stockholders.


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## Klaus-rf

Where the Fun Never Ends!!


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## shareef777

JasonF said:


> The way the company is structured, I strongly suspect that one day, when the new money supply (venture capital and loans) dried up, they were going to simply file for bankruptcy, sell the shambles of the company off, and walk away with wads of cash. Musk simply gave them the opportunity to execute their plan much earlier than they anticipated, and paid even better.
> 
> Except the structure of the company remains, with its dependency on loans and venture capital, and cheating and lying to advertisers, banks, and its own users. Without some serious luck, Musk will likely have no choice but to follow through on the original boards' plan, but with a much smaller payoff than they would have gotten.
> 
> Yes, that does mean Twitter is entirely a pyramid scheme.
> 
> And also yes, his investors are already grumbling, and there is some pressure on Tesla's board to fire Elon Musk (he wouldn't be gone, just not CEO anymore) and replace him with another CEO to appease stockholders.



I wouldn’t call it a pyramid scheme. What’s the diff between Twitter (or any business up for sale) and a used car (or any material object for sale)? The seller will try to sell it for more than it’s worth and the buyer will try to buy it for as little as possible. It’s up to the buyer to do their due diligence.

And as the saying goes… there’s a sucker born every minute.


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## Klaus-rf

shareef777 said:


> And as the saying goes… there’s a sucker born every minute.


 I thought the saying was
"Never give a sucker an even break."
-JC Fields


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## JasonF

shareef777 said:


> I wouldn’t call it a pyramid scheme. What’s the diff between Twitter (or any business up for sale) and a used car (or any material object for sale)? The seller will try to sell it for more than it’s worth and the buyer will try to buy it for as little as possible. It’s up to the buyer to do their due diligence.


Oh it's not the sale of it that makes it a pyramid scheme, it's how they had many levels of scams going on to make sure that when it all collapses (in the abscence of a sale), only the people at the bottom and the customers would suffer, and everyone at the top would make wads of cash either way.


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## Madmolecule

just another spoiled kid that bought a 44 billion dollar toy, and broke it his first day.


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## Rub"Y"

Like I tweeted to Elon. Even a fish won't get caught if he keeps his mouth shut. I believe this will be his worst financial decision ever. JMO. But he seems to turn everything he touches to gold, so time will tell. He's a genius and his brain works differently than ours.


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## JasonF

Rub"Y" said:


> Like I tweeted to Elon. Even a fish won't get caught if he keeps his mouth shut. I believe this will be his worst financial decision ever. JMO. But he seems to turn everything he touches to gold, so time will tell. He's a genius and his brain works differently than ours.


Even so, I can see _how_ it works a lot of the time. He goes a few dozen steps ahead and sees the inevitable conclusion, and then takes a shortcut so we can all see it _now_, without having to wait. It's similar to the kind of genius Steve Jobs had, except Jobs had less money to play with and was more focused on consumer products and not worldwide changes.

Unfortunately that's also his failing - because he doesn't seem to understand that the majority of people have their own pace of getting to that inevitable conclusion, and they are not grateful at all for the shortcut. They fight tooth and nail, and go kicking and screaming. And he always seems to be surprised when it happens.

I don't think his undoing will be the _purchase_ of Twitter. I think it will be because he'll make pretty cool features to Twitter so it can really make some money - but in the end it will scare the end users and advertisers, who will just demand he put everything back the way it was.


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## Madmolecule

it there was any doubt, we now have the Cramer kiss of death


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## Madmolecule

I don’t see you have a Twitter could effect Tesla at all. 
I trust in the leadership. 
I know my hundred dollar cybertruck investment is doing well, Elon has left all his money in there.


----------

