Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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They had such a huge amount of brand recognition and vocabulary associated with their site and Elon just decided to kill that
No one will convince me he isn't doing this on purpose to tank the brand.
He and his buddies were mad that they couldn't compete. So he made the offer in a manic moment, and then was forced to go through with it. Now that he's got it, he's going to destroy it, and use the loss to reduce his taxes from all his government contracts.
And he simultaneously gets to platform fascists and silence people calling out the powerful. Wins all around.
For a normal person, this looks like failing. I totally get that. But rich people can derive massive benefits from stuff that would ruin us, and every single thing Musk is doing benefits him in some way.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
This phrase doesn't really work if someone is trying to be malicious in the first place. I usually see it used when someone's intentions were good but they were just stupid about it. That's not really the case here
It's possible that Elon tried to do something malicious, and failed because of stupid choices. It's also true that the outcome also benefits him.
I will attribute it to malice regardless
That assumes all things are equal.
They rely on you repeating this adage to get away with this shit. It's too consistent. If he were actually stupid, he'd face negative consequences, which is something these folks very rarely have to do.
If you're rich enough you can just buy your way out of most consequences.
America™; as much freedom (and justice!) as you can afford.
Land of the Free*
^*some^ ^conditions^ ^apply^
That's you assuming all things are equal.
That's assigning a level of intelligence to Elon that I'm not comfortable with. Plus I'm sure he and his buddies are getting some value out of killing Twitter, but certainly not 44 billion.
He does not have to do it himself. He has accountants and lawyers who can take his stupid decisions and turn them into money.
At a certain point the economies of scale of being a billionaire just keep you rich. What I've said is pretty standard tax bullshit that they grow up pulling.
just spitballing here, but what happens if accountants band together and tell him to do his own damn taxes? he's fucked then, isn't he? the real revolution of the future won't be fought in the streets, but in the accounting departments /s
I mean, you're kind of seeing this with Donald Trump's legal issues. He can't get anyone with real clout, so he's actually facing consequences in that arena now.
See, a total fuckwit would at least make 1 or 2 good calls by accident. Nobody rolls a 1 EVERY DAMN TIME.
Exactly. A broken clock is right twice a day. If "idiot" rich people can monetize their mistakes, consistently do so, and manage to do it almost as if by using the same playbook as each other...they're not idiots, it is on purpose, and they just want enough plausible deniability that they don't get strung up from a Michelin star restaurant.
I don't think he's just throwing out random ideas and they suck, he's clout chasing with the radical right wing. A long time ago he was the face of tesla and spacex, two very functional companies. Basically everyone thought he war brilliant, or competent at the very least. Then he started a downward spiral of negative publicity but the alt-right loving his bizarre antics, starting with calling the diver that rescued a bunch of kids a pedo all because his idea of a submersible in that tiny cave was patently retarded and he was upset nobody was praising his genius.
Skip ahead and here we are. Letting open racists, antisemites, and CSAM posters do whatever they want because it makes the libs mad. Sabotaging Ukrainian starlink because he gave it to them for the clout but realizes the right hates that we help Ukraine.
Since Elmo isn't playing with his own money, the investors and banks who gave him that money are going to be mad if all he did is run the company into the ground.
He got like 13 billion from banks.
Only a small part came from his own Tesla stocks.