Elon Musk's X is now worth less than a quarter of its $44 billion purchase price, according to a new estimate from investor Fidelity. The asset manager, Elon Musk's X is now valued at less than a quarter of its $44 billion purchase price, according to Fidelity.
"Fidelity is currently valuing X at about $9.4 billion"
It was that and so much worse. Moral of the story: Running a huge social media service is hard. Maybe don't assume that because you're a billionaire you're the best at doing stuff.
Now, call me crazy, but if I was optimizing for maximum welding power, I'd start with oxy acetylene and at least try a few other options. How would buying a website even be a good start?
Would you not agree that he has a tool of influence with X? I see that as the main aspect of why you'd still buy twitter, even though he knew he wouldn't earn money with that.
I mean the people at Twitter were very happy to sell it off. Remember how they actually sued to force him to go through with the deal and succeeded in stopping him from backing out?
Even if he’d managed it as well as the prior stewards, it was always a losing business.
If the price offered is actually a good price then I think they might have some obligation to shareholders to pursue it. (Many of the people making that decision likely also being shareholders.) Like if someone offered you more than what your stuff is worth but tried to changed their mind, wouldn't you pursue that? I don't think that's any sort of indicator that they thought it was a sinking ship. It's just in their best interest to take a good deal when they get one.
I think you make a good point. But we don’t have to guess whether they thought Twitter was struggling. We know it was.
Twitter never managed to develop an online ad business that matched the scale of its influence in popular culture and society at large. Twitter has lost money in six of the eight years since its IPO.
My point is that if someone offers you a good price for what you believe you have have, you take it. If they thought it was good and they got a good price for it they'd take it. If they thought it was bad and they got a good price for it they'd take it.
You’re saying that accepting his offer is not necessarily a statement of low confidence in their own business. I get you.
But we can’t separate the notion of it being a good price apart from its being a bad business. It was a great offer in part because the business was so poor. By all estimates he vastly overpaid.
So yes, it was a good price.
And yes, it was a bad business and yes they knew it. With no other offers on the table, they pulled out all the stops to ensure it went through. It was their and their shareholders only chance for a payday with the business as bleak as it was.
"Maybe don't assume that because you're a billionaire you're the best at doing stuff."
This is literally every second generation billionaire. They seem to have the tendency to believe that their success is solely due to their intelligence and not at all due to their parents' connections and money.
Masnick gives 20 levels of development. Elon stopped here:
Level Two: “We’re the free speech platform! But no CSAM!”
And that's about it. Ex-Twitter has copyright infringement, hate speech and doesn't give a fuck about local laws unless the law actually has teeth (Brasil, anybody?).