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542 points donohoe | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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Hoasi ◴[] No.44511157[source]
X has been nothing short of an exercise in brand destruction. However, despite all the drama, it still stands, it still exists, and it remains relevant.
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mrweasel ◴[] No.44511712[source]
More and more I think Musk managed to his take over of Twitter pretty successfully. X still isn't as strong a brand as Twitter where, but it's doing okay. A lot of the users who X need to stay on the platform, journalists and politicians, are still there.

The only issue is that Musk vastly overpaid for Twitter, but if he plans to keep it and use it for his political ambitions, that might not matter. Also remember that while many agree that $44B was a bit much, most did still put Twitter at 10s of billions, not the $500M I think you could justify.

The firings, which was going to tank Twitter also turned out reasonably well. Turns out they didn't need all those people.

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jbreckmckye ◴[] No.44514680[source]
I cannot see how it was a success.

1. He overpaid by tens of billions. That is a phenomenal amount of money to lose on an unforced error.

2. Enough users, who produce enough content, have left to make X increasingly a forum for porn bots, scam accounts and political activists. It's losing its appeal as the place "where the news happens" and is instead becoming more niche.

3. The firings did not go well. X has struggled to ship new features and appears nowhere closer to the "everything app" Musk promised. It posts strange UUID error codes. The remaining developers seem to implement things primarily client side, to the extent I even wonder if they have lost their ability to safely roll out backend changes.

4. The capture of X by far-right agitators has led to long term brand damage for Tesla, Musk's most important business property.

I can't see any positive outcome from it.

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makeitdouble ◴[] No.44515328[source]
Most people were betting on X going under in some way or another within a year. From that POV, it's survival in itself can be seen a success for Musk.

I'm genuinely surprised at the amount of people that stuck to it.

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davidw ◴[] No.44517058[source]
> I'm genuinely surprised at the amount of people that stuck to it.

I thought more people would see a guy doing ... that salute, or things like the antisemitism in Grok in the past few days and say "no", but a huge number of people seem to be able to rationalize things away.

I'm with Wil Wheaton https://bsky.app/profile/wilwheaton.net/post/3ltkjyzjb4k2p

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giingyui ◴[] No.44518173[source]
I profoundly dislike the politics of most “leaders” for lack of a better word in the world of tech, but here I am typing these words in an iPhone. Refusing to use something because of who created it or who benefits from it is a bit too much I think, to the point of being unworkable depending on the case.

In other words as much as I’d like to vote with my wallet that is not always practical. And that extends to everything, not only tech.

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motorest[dead post] ◴[] No.44519151[source]
[flagged]
giingyui ◴[] No.44519178[source]
>"If there's a Nazi at the table and ten other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with eleven Nazis."

Change nazi for any other adjective and you will see how absurd it is.

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CPLX ◴[] No.44519678[source]
Nazi is a noun.

Also try swapping in the word “criminal” and you’ll understand the argument being made.

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giingyui ◴[] No.44520014[source]
Swap it for vegan. Or cricketer. Or beekeeper.
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CPLX ◴[] No.44520078[source]
If anyone is in fact confused instead of being purposefully obtuse, the point being made that being a Nazi (like being a member of a criminal conspiracy) has the attribute of conveying responsibility to those who associate with the group.
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1. giingyui ◴[] No.44520390[source]
And I’m saying I disagree. I don’t need to associate with someone else’s political beliefs to sit with them. Unless you go around asking people if they are <thing you don’t like> before you share a meal. I doubt you do. And if you found out accidentally that you find their beliefs unsavoury (say, they like abortion whilst you don’t, whatever) would you not sit with them? I believe this to be an apt comparison because abortion has killed orders of magnitude more humans than nazis ever did.
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2. wrboyce ◴[] No.44520962[source]
Abortions kill _people_? Hundreds of millions of people?
3. diputsmonro ◴[] No.44521293[source]
>> And if you found out accidentally that you find their beliefs unsavoury (say, they like abortion whilst you don’t, whatever) would you not sit with them?

Yes; if I find out that someone has the firmly held belief that me or my friends should be dead (I have several trans friends for example), then I would absolutely not sit with them. And if I found out that a friend of mine sat with people who had the "political opinion" that I should be "dealt with decisively", then I would be pretty upset with them and wonder if they feel the same way about me.

You cannot just treat "being a Nazi" as some normal difference of political opinion. There is a reason that being a Nazi is verboten. Their political ideology is that some people should be removed from society, by violence if necessary. I shouldn't have to say this, but murdering people you don't like should be off the table in civilized political discourse. And if you break bread with such people, then I believe you have something to answer for. What is so valuable about their friendship that you're willing to break bread with people who want to use the power of the state to murder people?

This is all happening in the context of, just yesterday, Grok literally praising Hitler, by name, for dealing with jews decisively - which it claims strong leaders need to do "every damn time"

(https://www.npr.org/2025/07/09/nx-s1-5462609/grok-elon-musk-...)

One needs to ask why Grok continues to have these nazi outbursts while other modern chatbots don't.