this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Twitter was literally a public company. Musk bought all the stock and took it private.
The amount of stupidity in this comment is worthy of it being posted on X
Uhhh the plan plays out the same either way. Stop being a pedantic twat missing the entire point. Musk can do it no matter the mechanism through which he bought the company: He still bought it and ran it in to the ground!!
Twitter always sucked, and always will suck. Explain to me, in pornographic detail, how this is some huge conspiracy, what the end goal of that conspiracy is, and who is perpetuating it.
I absolutely love the ask on pornographic detail, though it's mostly the presence of many seperate but cohesive puzzle pieces. Between how he's gotten kicked out and silenced in most of his business positions, to his children hating his guts, to his dad calling his bluffs, to how he lies on stage making promises no one in the company has even heard, yet alone vetted the viability of, to how he's constantly liking extreme right-wing tweets and openly allowing anti-trans rhetoric...
It's just a very large set of puzzle pieces that spell out a very, very clear picture: Elon is a fascist-sympathising white supremacist, whether it be out of hate or general priviledged lack of empathy, the result is the same. It's mildly hidden in his eclectic pretending and mountain of lies. He doesn't even have an engineering degree like he loves to pretend.
Let's assume that's true.
Let's also assume Twitter collapses under its own weight within the next year.
How does that further Elon's secret goal of spreading his brand of fascism and racism.
If that was Elon's goal, rather than the goal of various other people he's closely associated with (eg Peter Thiel, Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman, to name but two of the most prominent ones), then such a goal could be fulfilled by platforms that take Twitter's place after it's gone - along with all the debt Twitter owes, including rent not being paid, state fines, lawsuits from former investors and staff, and the $13bn loan from the buyout itself.
That isn't to say this was Musk's goal all along, rather that's what it has transformed into.
I always saw it as two possible outcomes: either they make Twitter into what they always wanted from the failed startups that tried to compete against Twitter, and pay off the debt to keep it going; or they run it into the ground and write off the debt, then replace it with something more favourable. The latter seems more and more likely as time has passed.
He didn't want to crash it, that's just a consequence of his politics. He wanted to control what everyone was calling, "the new public square". Nothing more. It just turns out he's a hateful bigot and couldn't keep it in his pants enough to keep what he bought popular.
That's all it is. It's not a grand plan. It's obstinance and greed going awry. He wanted to control it TO ANY BENEFIT he could get. It dying is ALSO a benefit to him, so do not act like this is part of the main plan. It's just a viable plan B or C for a specific step.
The real plan is Project '25 or what ever, and involves A LOT more conservatives than a petulant Musk.
It’s reductive to say that it was just shit. Like any social media tool of course it had shit content. It was also the lifeblood of many journalists and intellectuals, scientists and activists. Go listen to Land of the Giants on podcast and you’ll get the full, two-sided story. (I know you won’t, that comment was for others)
Musk only took an interest in Twitter when it began trying to better manage damaging content. They did a lot in previously undefined territory - and before you tell me that moderation wasn’t new, Twitter had to face issues like whether to ban a sitting president. No forum had to face that before.
Musk’s “freedom of speech” campaign is about protecting the hate speech he loves. So while he sinks this tool that was flawed but trying hard to make itself better, it’s riddled with hate even while it sinks. I’m glad the former Twitter shareholders got a payout at Musk’s expense, but I would have preferred if they hadn’t rushed to hand the platform over to him so they could enjoy that payout.
The platform was powerful. That power worked both bad and good things. Now it’s just powerfully shitty. The shit is now unleashed, and degrading the platform’s potential for good, which was always high even if the realization of that potential was mixed.
Public company =/= publicly owned. As an American, you probably don't know what a publicly owned business is, but public schools are pretty close (again though, Americans and education...). A company in the public sector has to follow a lot more regulations than a company in the private sector. Twitter has always been in the private sector. It was publicly traded, now it is not.
Musk did not buy all the shares. Musk put up about $27 billion out of $44bn, most of which was Tesla shares (which subsequently tanked, and since then the business has been on something of a decline compared to their previous success). $5 billion came from other investors, including a Saudi prince. The remaining $13bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on Musk's behalf - this is the smoking gun that ultimately will kill the business, like most leveraged buyouts are bound to (eg Toys R Us).
But no, tell me I'm stupid while you speak in hollow hyperbole.
The fact you admit you're using your own definition of publicly owned, instead of the legal definition of that word in the country in which it applies, and then double down with a bunch of "facts" you don't understand, while really pouring on the condescension, is simply an amazing execution of trolling.
The sad thing, though, is I don't think you're trolling. I think you believe what you just said is true.
The sad thing is, even after I explained there are two definitions (public sector/private sector and publicly traded/privately traded), and after I clarified exactly which I was referring to, you still think your correction holds water.
Twitter was private sector publicly traded, then Musk took it off the public stock market. However it is and always was private sector, meaning that it's "Twitter's house" and they get to set the rules of entry. If it was public sector, then it would be obligated be open to all members of the public equally.
The fiduciary and reporting responsibilities of public companies are drastically different than private.
Musk bought all of the shares, then took the company private, meaning all of those fiduciary and reporting responsibilities are no longer required.
Your understanding how public and private companies in the United States work is lacking.
What is public? A 501c3? c6? A government run organization like the post office? What legal and compliance frameworks did Twitter have to follow when it was publicly traded vs now when it's not publicly traded. In your terms it was "private" in both instances. So please, educate me. How is Twitter different now
Yes, public sector refers to government run entities like the post office, also anything staffed by civil servants, and to a far lesser extent businesses contracted to the state.
Publicly traded businesses do have a lot of reporting responsibilities, also the CEO is essentially obligated to pursue profits over all else on behalf of the shareholders. A privately traded business does not have these obligations. Musk made this change with the purchase of the company (but again, he did not "buy all the shares", he bought most of them, $5bn was paid by other parties compared to his ~$26bn [plus a couple bn in fees]) however Twitter as a business was always and still is private sector. This means they absolutely could have censored Trump any time they liked - or anyone else for that matter - and they still can. It's just Musk has skewed the business to one political side, and now Musk doesn't really have to answer to anyone. Even the lawsuits against him and Twitter he'll likely be able to weasle out, because it's a limited company - although I hope they do manage to make it stick, he personally made promises that the purchase was conditional upon, which he has since broken.
So, like I've said from the beginning, it has always been private sector. However, even as a private sector business, it serves as a public forum - it was always a "private business cum public forum" - but now Musk has ruined the public forum part by making it very apparently biased towards right wing extemism.
A better analogy of what Twitter was is a public house. A private sector business, but open to the public (although Twitter never had the licencing regulations that pubs have). Musk has taken over the pub and is running it into the ground, driving out the peaceful regulars in favour of unsavoury people that spill out on to the residential streets and vomit everywhere.
I never actually wanted to talk about publicly traded vs privately traded, you brought that up.
Great. So we agree. Twitter was a pubic company that is now a private company.
Glad we worked through that
Yes, the point you made was completely irrelevant to the conversation. I'm glad that's established. Maybe if you were a little smarter, we could've reached that conclusion in fewer words.
Yes it was totally irrelevant. He made a pointless, irrelevant comment and then called someone stupid. The irony!
It really wasn't.
What’s your point about it being publicly owned anyway? That didn’t address anything in the comment you were responding to, unless you were nitpicking the use of “limited liability company.” In which case I’ll nitpick you back that it didn’t use capital letters. And even S Corporations do limit the personal liability of their owners, and are in fact companies.
You’ve behaved like a real ass here generally. Go do your homework or something.
OP was spouting a bunch of nonsense implying that Elon tanking Twitter's value somehow was going to end up with him profiting.
In the United States, publicly traded companies have responsibilities to timely and accurately report their financials. By Elon taking the company private, Twitter no longer has those fiduciary requirements.
That's why I was pointing out how stupid OP was being, and banging on so hard on the public vs private company thing. Elon has, by all accounts, lost tens of billions of dollars in this whole ordeal.
Because he's lost so much money I find it incredibly ridiculous people think this is some kind of conspiracy. Less people use it, the company is looked upon less and less favorably, and it's reputation is in tatters. If you're trying to make a platform to brainwash people into being racist the last thing you'd want is LESS people using it
Where did I say Musk was going to profit?? All I said is that he took a private (sector) business that was serving as a public forum and is running it into the ground.
You then deviated off, talking about the difference between privately traded and publicly traded businesses, as if that was some salient point I had overlooked.
Musk had to make the purchase, he was forced to, thanks to his dumbassery. I'm not saying he planned this all along, but that doesn't mean he isn't trying to make something of the loss by running it into the ground and seeing what kind of dodgy precedents he can set along the way. Such precedents pave the way for new platforms that take its place after it's gone.
Mark my words, Twitter/X is going to die. To be more specific, bankruptcy within 5 years, probably far fewer.