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542 points donohoe | 98 comments | | HN request time: 2.491s | source | bottom
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CyberMacGyver ◴[] No.44510796[source]
One time they let her speak publicly it turned out to be a disaster. She never had any say and worst part is she was not even a good fall guy, it was clear who’s pulling the strings. The most immaterial and inconsequential hire ever.

I love all the replies on Twitter thanking her but during her time the valuation dropped 80% and they were suing advertisers for not advertising. Remarkably inept.

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sorcerer-mar ◴[] No.44510983[source]
It's weird that you say both she had no material power and also seem to imply the valuation drop and lawsuits were due to her ineptitude?

Anyway she volunteered to be a puppet for a man who is clearly off the rails and her legacy will forever be stained.

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1. josefresco ◴[] No.44511093[source]
Both things can be true: Valuation did drop during her tenure, AND she was not to blame.

Therefore the praise is weird, because she seemingly neither helped nor hurt the business.

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2. mandmandam ◴[] No.44511682[source]
> she was not to blame.

Fall guys bear some of the blame in the fall.

My long-held [0] personal theory - borne out by everything Musk has done, and by who bought Twitter - is that it was bought to curb the possibility of large positive social movements along the lines of OWS or BLM.

Enabling that can entail being useless at your supposed job, while doing your actual job (which deserves some amount of blame, from a number of perspectives).

0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36685384

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3. steveBK123 ◴[] No.44511742[source]
Pretty good theory
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4. madeofpalk ◴[] No.44511788[source]
One would imagine that a CEO lacking power is the precise reason a company would perform poorly.
replies(3): >>44512018 #>>44512212 #>>44515626 #
5. lenkite ◴[] No.44511820[source]
> Valuation did drop during her tenure

Valuation also bounced back during her tenure.

replies(1): >>44518364 #
6. ◴[] No.44512018[source]
7. ◴[] No.44512196{3}[source]
8. harikb ◴[] No.44512208[source]
hmm... I am drawing a parallel between your theory on 'controlled opposition' from the linked thread from 2023, to the current M vs T fight. Plausible...
9. falcor84 ◴[] No.44512212[source]
Indeed. It was such a paradoxical situation from the start, with her both reporting to Musk as the chairman and owner, while at the same time "managing" him as the CTO. I'm surprised that the charade went on for as long as it did.
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10. ethbr1 ◴[] No.44512231{3}[source]
I'd imagine the paycheck helped resolve the quandary.
replies(1): >>44515714 #
11. ToucanLoucan ◴[] No.44512238[source]
See my only counterpoint to this theory is Musk has a long and well documented history of being absolutely stone desperate to be cool, which is the only thing he can't buy, and he simply revels in his ownership of Twitter even as he comprehensively runs it into the ground as a business.

Now, would he be upset about such efforts being derailed as a result, or is he even slightly bothered about his website now being packed to the tits with Nazis? Absolutely not. But I do think as unbelievably cringe as it would be if true, I really think he bought the damn thing because he just wanted to be the meme lord.

Mainly I just struggle with giving him as much credit as your theory does in terms of long term planning. He's an overgrown man-child.

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12. JohnBooty ◴[] No.44512406{3}[source]
I think you and the parent poster are doing a good job of describing the same thing from different angles. Both observations are true.

Musk wanted to steer culture toward his own ends as the parent poster described and he wanted to be seen as some kind of.... cool vanguard of that, as you say.

It's really different facets of the same thing, right?

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13. woah ◴[] No.44512516[source]
It's conspiratorial thinking to assume that everything that happens in the world is perfectly executed by omniscient villains with 20/20 hindsight. Maybe a formerly-brilliant but drug-addled rich guy just bought a social media platform with bad fundamentals at the height of its valuation and then mismanaged it while flailing around with other ventures and political adventures. Occam's razor.
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14. mandmandam ◴[] No.44512557{3}[source]
> He's an overgrown man-child.

Damn near every mega-billionaire is, almost by definition. If the best thing you can come up with to do with money is make more of it at other people's expense, then you're not even close to what I'd call mentally mature.

That doesn't stop many oligarchs from making cunning plans with layers and layers of depth, or being excellent at misdirection and media manipulation - both of which Musk also has a long and well documented history of showing. It also doesn't stop them from hiring people to make and/or refine those plans. Shit, there's probably cunning bootlickers out there, like Yarvin, just pitching this shit to them all the time.

> I just struggle with giving him as much credit as your theory does in terms of long term planning

As far as plans go, "buy Twitter and destroy it because it threatens our class interests - but pretend you're doing it for free speech or whatever" isn't especially complicated. Just piss off advertisers, users, and your staff, in plausibly deniable ways. It's not like corporate media are going to call you on it.

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15. cschep ◴[] No.44512676{3}[source]
I'd love to hear why this is being downvoted? Not agreeing is one thing, but it seems like a reasonable thing to suggest?
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16. schmidtleonard ◴[] No.44512734{3}[source]
You are missing the forest for one very odd tree. Yes, the tree is wacky, but

* Every private media company has beneficial owners * Those beneficial owners are rich * Rich people who own things for a living have incentives opposed to those of most people, who work for a living

These are not conspiracies, they are just basic facts of capitalism.

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17. anigbrowl ◴[] No.44512921{4}[source]
Because Musk has provided abundant evidence of his political orientation over the last several years.
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18. psunavy03 ◴[] No.44512932{4}[source]
Better to put "facts" in quotation marks considering that is clearly a statement of opinion, and a fairly caricatured one at that.
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19. freejazz ◴[] No.44513016{4}[source]
> perfectly executed by omniscient villains with 20/20 hindsight

Is a strawman, to which the conclusion is also defied by the plain evidence of everything Musk has done on Twitter

20. Spooky23 ◴[] No.44513017[source]
She shut her mouth and didn’t cause trouble.
21. RugnirViking ◴[] No.44513056{3}[source]
I find myself suspicious of your numbers given I don't get the sense blm changed much about policing but can you cite some source numbers?
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22. thayne ◴[] No.44513089[source]
I don't think she is entirely to blame, but I think there is some blame for not standing up to Musk and leading better.
replies(1): >>44513141 #
23. dctoedt ◴[] No.44513141[source]
> I think there is some blame for not standing up to Musk and leading better.

That seems in the same category as saying there's some blame on her for not working harder on basketball in her youth and so never becoming a WNBA Finals MVP. (Narrator: Um, no, she's not nearly tall enough ....)

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24. spankalee ◴[] No.44513175{4}[source]
> It's conspiratorial thinking to assume that everything that happens in the world is perfectly executed by omniscient villains with 20/20 hindsight.

Because the original comment isn't doing this. It's not talking about everything, it's talking about one specific thing in a very plausible scenario.

It wouldn't even need to be a very complicated or widespread "conspiracy": Just Musk and a few VC guys in a Signal or Telegram thread saying

> someone should just buy Twitter and downrank all these crazy leftists

> Hmm

> I'll help line up financing.

> Ok!

This isn't flat earth, chem trails, lizard people, or weather weapons. It's not even Illuminati, Masons, or Skull and Bones. We've seen some of these chats already.

25. breppp ◴[] No.44513300[source]
My conspiracy theory was that because of Musk's involvement in OpenAI he had foreknowledge of the impeding release of ChatGPT. In that context, Twitter as a source for AI training can be far more valuable than a rage filled social network. However he still failed horribly to time the market
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26. SpicyLemonZest ◴[] No.44513658{3}[source]
I'm just not sure her complete lack of power to stand up to Musk is a defense. If a controversial rich guy offers you a CEO job that consists entirely of laundering his reputation by pretending his decisions are your own, you have a social responsibility not to take it. I'd be more sympathetic if she were some random person who couldn't otherwise dream of an executive level pay package, but she was the head of ads at NBC.
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27. ceejayoz ◴[] No.44513745{4}[source]
They're conducting some sleight of hand here. There was indeed a bit of a violent crime spike post-George Floyd in the US.

But... there was also an unprecedented global pandemic and resulting economic shutdown, and the same crime spike happened in other countries that didn't have a BLM movement to speak of.

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28. nradov ◴[] No.44513874{3}[source]
I mean I've been in a few jobs where I had to "manage" my boss in order to accomplish anything.
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29. mandmandam ◴[] No.44513879{5}[source]
Cannabis with high CBD and minimal THC isn't a psychedelic, fyi.

Amazing you didn't get that point even after it was made explicitly clear three times, but you still remember my username 10 days later.

Also, asserting that someone who expresses class awareness and media literacy is dabbling in "alternative facts" and must be on some kind of psychedelic drugs is wildly uncalled for. This is the second time you've cast such aspersions on me for some reason - stop.

30. quantified ◴[] No.44513893{3}[source]
You are conveniently omitting his reason to buy it. Personal megaphone and shortly thereafter LLM training data are the simplest reasons.
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31. quantified ◴[] No.44513909{5}[source]
I haven't downvoted you, I am curious. Why do you disagree? In what relevant ways are their interests aligned?
32. andrewflnr ◴[] No.44513914{5}[source]
He's provided evidence of being an impulsive fool for even longer. I defended Musk as a useful idiot for a while until be fully showed his true colors, but it has always been clear he's not a wise man.

(His vigorous and pathetic efforts to get out of the purchase also push against it being a big master plan, FWIW.)

33. xdavidliu ◴[] No.44513947{3}[source]
I wonder how this setup compares with Mira Murati and Greg Brockman.
34. ToucanLoucan ◴[] No.44513999{4}[source]
I guess what I struggle with is seeing Musk taking that kind of top-down strategic view of things? Which that could entirely be a me problem. I think there's an inherent bias in the way a lot of people think where they assign these Machiavellian motives especially to the super-privileged and those in positions of power, the 5D chess type shit, and I tend to bias in the other direction where... a lot of times these guys are just fucking losers and they don't think terribly dissimilarly from your weird uncle who doesn't come to the reuinions anymore.

Ultimately though, this is a bit of a weird aside to go on I fully admit. The "solutions" so to speak for people like this are basically the same whether they are dark-room schemers or dickheads with far too much money and not nearly enough accountability.

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35. greedo ◴[] No.44514005{4}[source]
“We have established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price.”
36. greedo ◴[] No.44514021{5}[source]
Witness his entire Boring Company being a sock puppet project to derail California's High Speed Rail system.
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37. greedo ◴[] No.44514039{5}[source]
If you don't believe that what we accepts as facts are politically influenced, I have a bridge to sell you...
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38. debugnik ◴[] No.44514152{3}[source]
> Twitter as a source for AI training can be far more valuable than a rage filled social network

Isn't Twitter the go-to example of a rage filled social network?

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39. jjfoooo4 ◴[] No.44514157[source]
I think Elon truly believed in the subscription model, which would free him from advertiser content influence. That and being terminally addicted to the platform himself, and being an impulsive gambler. I really don't think we've gotten where we are due to any (successful) master plan
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40. talentedcoin ◴[] No.44514254{6}[source]
What I don’t believe is that somebody bought Twitter only, or even primarily, to further their “class interests”. The whole framing here is bent.
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41. mandmandam ◴[] No.44514281{7}[source]
> somebody

That he's the wealthiest known man in the world seems like relevant context here.

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42. contrast ◴[] No.44514321{4}[source]
I think the GP is suggesting a simple explanation of why it went badly, since that is the subject of the thread, rather than an explanation of why Musk bought Twitter. No need for conspiratorial accusations of conveniently omitting anything.
43. mensetmanusman ◴[] No.44514689{8}[source]
Also that he tried to back out and a judge forced him to buy it.
44. mrguyorama ◴[] No.44514726{5}[source]
It's not even sleight of hand, it's just lying by omission.

"Our boat sank because you chose to go left instead of right" while not even mentioning the giant hole that opened up in the boat isn't sleight of hand.

45. JohnBooty ◴[] No.44514795{5}[source]
Yeah, I don't think it was 5D chess at all.

I think he saw a good (to him) opportunity to steer public discourse by tossing a big stack of cash at probably the most influential social media network in terms of mindshare, to push whatever ideas were careening through his mind at any given point.

He may not have even been sober, much less playing 5D chess.

46. michaelt ◴[] No.44514944{4}[source]
> If a controversial rich guy offers you a CEO job that consists entirely of laundering his reputation by pretending his decisions are your own, you have a social responsibility not to take it.

I don't think you become the CEO of any major company by believing that "social responsibility" exists. Doesn't the job pretty much select for the type of person who thinks the world owes them $20+ million a year?

With that said - it's dumb to blame the puppet for the acts of the ventriloquist.

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47. yibg ◴[] No.44514969[source]
Thing is, she failed at being the fall person. It's clear to everyone who was calling the shots, so ironically she was ineffective as the fall person.
48. woah ◴[] No.44515082{4}[source]
Maybe he just spent a lot of time shitposting on there.
49. dzhiurgis ◴[] No.44515095{4}[source]
Sorry, what money did billionaires took from you?
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50. scns ◴[] No.44515102{3}[source]
> formerly-brilliant

When?

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51. dzhiurgis ◴[] No.44515114{5}[source]
It's pretty depressing such derangement infiltrated HN. Psychedelics are really a fine line. Looking at SF as an outsider - it either mints billionaires or completely destroys people.
52. JohnMakin ◴[] No.44515115{4}[source]
were those jobs fun? Certainly havent been for me
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53. larkost ◴[] No.44515137{6}[source]
Can you provide more about this idea? I see the Boring company as being pretty feckless, and at the same time extremely boastful. They have gotten hopes up in a number of places about solving city traffic problems, only to go dark when the rubber (should have) met the road.

But I don't see any of those having impacted the California High Speed Rail. Rather that has been harmed by lots of different groups throwing roadblocks up, sometime for ideological reasons (lots of this from State and National Republicans, sometimes with reasons, but often more political), and a whole lot of NIMBY (see: Palo Alto). What do you see the Boring Company having to do with that?

As a side note: there are some really poorly thought through parts of the project, for example they don't have a plan for actually making it over the mountains into Los Angeles. I still want it to happen, but...

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54. teyc ◴[] No.44515268{3}[source]
On Acquired podcast, Ballmer spoke of his experience as CEO with Gates as CTO. It was hell.
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55. stephen_g ◴[] No.44515303{7}[source]
It was the silly and obviously unworkable Hyperloop idea that was pushed as an attempt to stop CAHSR, according to Musk’s biographer [1].

1. https://www.disconnect.blog/p/the-hyperloop-was-always-a-sca...

56. greedo ◴[] No.44515366{7}[source]
Hyperloop was a stunt Musk spun up to mess with the HSR, and the Boring company to fight against subway type systems. I mixed the two up.
57. majewsky ◴[] No.44515370{5}[source]
To a certain extent, you always have to manage your boss, whether as an individual contributor or as a subordinate manager. A boss managing multiple people does not have the same mental bandwidth as all the people in their team combined, so the employees cannot bring every matter to the boss's attention. Choosing which matters to bring (and how to present them) is precisely what managing upwards means.

(In fact, if you're being praised

When someone says that they need to manage their boss, what they usually mean is that the boss reacts poorly or unproductively to bad news, or that they like to interfere in parts of the work process that would best be left to the employees, and so this normal part of everyone's job turns into a constant walk on eggshells.

58. greedo ◴[] No.44515386{7}[source]
No one, not even the cringiest, wanna-be edge lord from 4chan spends $44B to buy Twitter unless they think there's value there. Even paying a big premium for Twitter. So what value does Musk see in Twitter? He's not going to make money off it. He bought a huge megaphone to push his social/class interests.
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59. Aeolun ◴[] No.44515439{3}[source]
I mean, you are hired as a CEO by Elon Musk, there must be some certain expectations on the capabilities of a CEO, and I think one of the first one is being able to stand up for yourself, if nothing else.
60. XorNot ◴[] No.44515518{5}[source]
"just following orders" has been well established as no defense, and is more relevant than usual.
replies(1): >>44515656 #
61. PaulHoule ◴[] No.44515551[source]
Nothing positive can come out of Twitter for McLuhanite reasons.

Zohran Mamdami's greatest attribute in media is that if you see him in video you see him listening to people. Even people who aren't inclined to agree with him talk to him and say "he was so nice, he listened to me." High-D [1] billionaires who support High-D candidates such as Clinton, Cuomo and Adams are driven crazy by this. [2]

Even though Twitter does provide a back channel and a Twitter user may really be a nice guy who listens and replies, the structure of the thing is such that you don't see that user listening and in fact the user interface on Twitter makes it really hard to see that conversation for outsiders in the way that the heavy Twitter user doesn't get. Not least because the heavy Twitter user might not realize that people who aren't logged in don't see anything at all (pro tip: just don't post links to Twitter on HN, you might see a great discussion with a lot of context, the rest of us just see a single sentence floating in space without any context)

On video though, the person who listens listens visibly, you see the microexpressions in real time as they react to what the other person is saying. It's a thing of beauty. (Coalition leaders such as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Peloci do a lot of listening as part of their job but constituents only see them talking!)

The above is a second order concern compared to the general compression of discourse in Twitter which is talked about in [2]. Twitter addicts spend 4-5 hours a day traversing graphs to follow discussions and understand (or think they understand?) context, the rest of us just see "white farmers" which means one thing if you're racist, another if you're "anti-racist", and just means "move along folks, nothing more to see here" for the great silent majority. When Twitter is at equilibrium every movement creates and equal and opposite amount of backlash, nothing actually changes except polarization increases, there is more and more talking and less and less listening, and the possibility of real social change diminishes.

Burn it down.

[1] https://darkfactor.org/

[2] for once good NYT content that isn't paywalled: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/opinion/ezra-klein-show-c...

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62. fpia ◴[] No.44515603{4}[source]
nah, that's 4chan
63. frdnurd ◴[] No.44515626[source]
Elizabeth Holmes had all the power. Also being competent matters.
64. BurningFrog ◴[] No.44515656{6}[source]
In a genocide context, sure. I don't think that applies here.
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65. prepend ◴[] No.44515699{4}[source]
I just listened to that episode yesterday and that’s not how I perceived it all. Ballmer barely described it as much as I remember.
replies(1): >>44516824 #
66. jazzyjackson ◴[] No.44515705{7}[source]
The CHSR thing is a bit apocryphal (no evidence, just according to his biographer) since hyperloop never really competed in any way with CHSR. He did, however, play a very big role in fucking up a potential Chicago connection between downtown and O'hare, as the Boring company actually did win the bid to use the abandoned cavern below the Washington Red/Blue line stop, promising to run a hyperloop up to the airport. It never went anywhere, and the cavern below block 37 remains abandoned.

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/elon-musk-ohare-airport...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Express_Loop

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67. ◴[] No.44515716{4}[source]
68. ◴[] No.44515751{5}[source]
69. Zigurd ◴[] No.44515795{4}[source]
TBF going from the cobbled together roadster to actually mass producing cars was an accomplishment, as was giving his engineers the latitude to keep trying to land a Falcon 9 booster.

Then he started to think it was his brilliance that made those things successful. Cybertruck is his baby. So is Starship. He's telling his people to make it work with a little or no moderation of his concepts.

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70. Zigurd ◴[] No.44515845{3}[source]
He is an overgrown manchild in a playground full of overgrown Randian Straussian manchilds. They are lucky 90% of the normies don't care, yet.
71. selcuka ◴[] No.44515866[source]
It is possible that people think that the valuation would be even worse if she wasn't the CEO. Unlikely, but possible.
72. evan_ ◴[] No.44515916{5}[source]
It’s not clear to me that he had any hand in the actual successes of Tesla and SpaceX. Stories abound of the lengths to which each company went to to manage his whims. He’s apparently burned through all of those firewalls and now both companies are exploding, figuratively and in literally.
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73. evan_ ◴[] No.44515930{8}[source]
He sued to try to get out of buying it!
74. qhiliq ◴[] No.44516140{5}[source]
That there are a select few who own the capital, and that those people generally do not overlap with the people who work, is more or less the original definition of capitalism. And I don't think its controversial or a caricature to imply that those two groups will have different incentives.

From Wikipedia [0]: `The initial use of the term "capitalism" in its modern sense is attributed to Louis Blanc in 1850 ("What I call 'capitalism' that is to say the appropriation of capital by some to the exclusion of others") and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in 1861 ("Economic and social regime in which capital, the source of income, does not generally belong to those who make it work through their labor")`

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Etymology

75. claytonjy ◴[] No.44516204{3}[source]
how would you explain how hard he fought to NOT buy twitter?

people seem to forget he was legally forced to buy Twitter after he tried for months to get out of his joke bid, primarily through claiming he was misled about the extent of bots on the platform

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76. Lu2025 ◴[] No.44516324{4}[source]
> a social responsibility not to take it

She was paid $6M a year + undisclosed stock package. A lot of people will set aside their morals for this amount of money.

replies(1): >>44533308 #
77. zone411 ◴[] No.44516393{8}[source]
It never went anywhere because of the politicians. The Boring Company is opening new tunnels in Vegas without spending public money.
replies(2): >>44516533 #>>44526821 #
78. rgreek42 ◴[] No.44516417{4}[source]
He did not want to buy it. He took an arrogant joke far enough that the Delaware Court of Chancery forced him to do it. He never wanted it earnestly.
replies(1): >>44518749 #
79. saagarjha ◴[] No.44516431{6}[source]
That's what the comment you're replying to said.
80. foobarchu ◴[] No.44516531{4}[source]
I took them to mean it can be both things at once, and one is more valuable than the other. Not that being an ai training source would make it a rage filled social network.
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81. ceejayoz ◴[] No.44516533{9}[source]
Those tunnels are, like other Musk projects, using plenty of public money.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-29/las-vegas...

> Last week, the Boring Company won a $48.6 million bid to design and build a “people mover” beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center. The payout represents the first actual contract for Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tunneling venture. And Las Vegas, a tourist city that wants to be seen as a technology hub, will get a new mobility attraction with the imprimatur of America’s leading disruptor.

> “Las Vegas is known for disruption and for reinventing itself,” Tina Quigley, the chief executive officer of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, said when the partnership between the Boring Company and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) was announced in March. “So it’s very appropriate that this new technology is introduced and being tested here.”

https://assets.simpleviewcms.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1/...

82. squeaky-clean ◴[] No.44516570{3}[source]
This analogy would work if she actually was the WNBA Finals MVP but didn't score a single point.
83. sleepybrett ◴[] No.44516650{4}[source]
He just had to pay what 1/50th of his bid to exit the buy. He'd make that bill back in what a month?
84. reactordev ◴[] No.44516658{3}[source]
This. He was addicted to Twitter. He saw value in it and thought he could run it better. He wanted to be “The Place” where things were talked about. Where he could control the narrative.

History has shown us, the more you try to control it, the more it slips through your fingers. The best surfers know, you ride the wave, not fight it.

85. numpad0 ◴[] No.44516694{4}[source]
Wasn't elonjet the turning point? There are some arguments around that he might not have clear cognitive distinction between verbal accusations and physical violence. Maybe that was the missed shot from rooftop for him. Elon before those events was a Steve Jobs Junior figure, that is to say, he was not problematic enough for the rest of the world including myself to focus on the crazy side.
86. prng2021 ◴[] No.44516824{5}[source]
What’s there to perceive? Ballmer talked at length about how challenging it was and how often they disagreed on things.

“That's where I moved back to be president of the company and then CEO, and Bill and I went through a year where we didn't speak”

“Basically our wives were the ones who pushed us back together. We had a very awkward dinner at a health club down the street here, but we get back together. But we never really got the right mojo.”

87. sorokod ◴[] No.44516932{7}[source]
In general "just following orders" implies being morally bankrupt.
88. rendaw ◴[] No.44517082[source]
GP is specifically responding to

> Remarkably inept.

She did exactly what she was hired for. The plan was terrible, but she executed it as well as expected. It's hard to see any ineptitude.

89. gsf_emergency_2 ◴[] No.44517560{3}[source]
Style: Manhattan

Generation: Zohran

https://indianexpress.com/article/fresh-take/zohran-mamdani-...

High time the left reinvented memes their own way, "mutability over machismo" (& not a shred of maudlin)

Better link for dark factors imho https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=9935796152480174745...

90. breppp ◴[] No.44517661{4}[source]
The entire idea is to buy an undervalued platform using insider information, if the stock price plunges after he committed to a price then it's no longer undervalued. This has happened between his bid and termination announcements.

I also roughly remember he had his Tesla holdings as collateral creating some liquidity crisis for him.

This elaborate explanation does not mean it isn't wrong and the original theory of idiot-with-money does not hold

91. chgs ◴[] No.44517949{7}[source]
It’s Facebook that causes genocide, not Twitter. Funny how the left gives sick a far easier pass.
92. lenkite ◴[] No.44518364[source]
No idea why the truth is being downvoted so heavily ? X is valued at $44 billion by the financial times as of March 2025.
93. ◴[] No.44518464{5}[source]
94. debugnik ◴[] No.44518490{5}[source]
> I took them to mean it can be both things at once

Thanks, now I get the intended reading.

> Not that being an ai training source would make it a rage filled social network.

I clearly didn't mean that would be the cause, though. Twitter's current state had been cooking for a decade.

95. stephen_g ◴[] No.44518749{5}[source]
Buying a 9.1% stake in a company before making an unsolicited (but formal) offer to buy out the rest of it is weird behaviour for somebody who didn’t actually ever want to buy it…
96. mandmandam ◴[] No.44520167{5}[source]
If you're serious, I recommend you take a look at this [0] and really have a good long think about it.

0 - https://www.oxfam.org/en/takers-not-makers-unjust-poverty-an...

97. ◴[] No.44526821{9}[source]
98. SpicyLemonZest ◴[] No.44533308{5}[source]
She was making $4M at NBC! Again, I can imagine and be sympathetic towards a story where a billionaire gives you otherwise unimaginable wealth if only you'll sit in a comfy CEO office while they run the company around you. That isn't what happened here, and not because of some tactical mistake by Musk - her experience and connections as an ads executive for a major media company were at least a big part of why Musk wanted her, if not the entirety of it.