Elon Musk and Twitter Reach Deal for Sale (Update: WSJ report details Musk’s relationship with Putin) (1 Viewer)

[SaintForLife]

Elon Musk struck a deal on Monday to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion, in a victory by the world’s richest man to take over the influential social network frequented by world leaders, celebrities and cultural trendsetters.

Twitter agreed to sell itself to Mr. Musk for $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the company’s share price this month before he revealed he was the firm’s single largest shareholder. It would be the largest deal to take a company private — something Mr. Musk has said he will do with Twitter — in at least two decades, according to data compiled by Dealogic.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Mr. Musk said in a statement announcing the deal. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

The deal, which has been unanimously approved by Twitter’s board, is expected to close this year, subject to a vote of Twitter shareholders and certain regulatory approvals.

The blockbuster agreement caps what had seemed an improbable attempt by the famously mercurial Mr. Musk, 50, to buy the social media company — and immediately raises questions about what he will do with the platform and how his actions will affect online speech globally.

Elon Musk and Twitter Reach Deal for Sale

Twitter agreed to be taken over at $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the share price before it was revealed that Mr. Musk had been buying up the company’s stock.

www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org

If Musk does what he claims he wants to do it will be a big improvement and good for free speech.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Kanye West returns to Twitter after Elon Musk lifts bans on Trump and others

‘Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked,’ the rapper wrote on Sunday

www.independent.co.uk

Elsewhere, Parler is like, "but boss..."

 

[MT15]

The “poll” Musk did about Trump was estimated to be around 70% bots. He doesn’t give a shirt about free speech. The only thing he cares about is making Twitter into 4chan or some other alt-right hellscape.

He has lied about everything he has said he would do for Twitter. I have personally seen the huge increase in really horrible anti-Semitic posts. He is a truly horrible person.

 

[DaveXA]

The “poll” Musk did about Trump was estimated to be around 70% bots. He doesn’t give a shirt about free speech. The only thing he cares about is making Twitter into 4chan or some other alt-right hellscape.

He has lied about everything he has said he would do for Twitter. I have personally seen the huge increase in really horrible anti-Semitic posts. He is a truly horrible person.

Maybe it's how I use Twitter, but I haven't really noticed a big difference yet.

 

[MT15]

Maybe it's how I use Twitter, but I haven't really noticed a big difference yet.

I also saw some of the worst anti-vax stuff today as well. I don’t know why I’m seeing them now, but it’s noticeable. I’m also seeing a few glitches. Tweets not loading, sometimes all the tweets on my timeline are from yesterday. Closing and re-opening seems to help but they used to update automatically.

 

[DaveXA]

I also saw some of the worst anti-vax stuff today as well. I don’t know why I’m seeing them now, but it’s noticeable. I’m also seeing a few glitches. Tweets not loading, sometimes all the tweets on my timeline are from yesterday. Closing and re-opening seems to help but they used to update automatically.

I have noticed some of the tweets on the tomeline being a little older than normal, but not anything else. I haven't used it a lot the last several days tho. Just a few threads here and there.

 

[MT15]

I have been checking out the trends, which is something I have generally done. The difference is palpable.

 

[DaveXA]

I have been checking out the trends, which is something I have generally done. The difference is palpable.

Yeah, I wouldn't know about that since I never look at that tab. I only read stuff from people or organizations I'm following.

 

[UriUT]

I’m seeing more and more people positing that the aim of Musk and the Saudis is to make Twitter into a right wing echo chamber and failing that, to shut Twitter down. They will not abide with the ability for pro-democracy forces to spread their message world-wide.

Ever since his Twitter take over, I tend to view his actions as more reactionary than as some concerted plan to destroy a pro democracy platform. He doesn't seem to possess the intelligence, discipline or patience for it. I would think someone with a clear vision would buy time to understand the platform and subvert the platform slowly. My early fears is clearly wrong.

 

[Taurus]

The thing about blue-checks that Elon seems to be ignoring is that a lot of governmental bodies use Twitter to deliver current-moment disaster information.

The last thing I need is to follow some Russian troll's directions to evacuate into a wildfire because he wanted the lulz.

 

[MT15]

This is Musk’s Twitter. lol. And whoever made this could have a blue check mark for $8. What a shirt show.

 

[MT15]

This is evidently making Musk upset:

 

[J-DONK]

This is evidently making Musk upset:

I said this in the SR thread. I'm waiting on the equivalent of the Digg exodus to Reddit. Digg was the most popular social media platform, and in less then a month it wasn't. The only question is there a good enough alternative out there.

Generally these things happen like the quote about going broke "At first you go bankrupt slowly, then all at once."

I'm sure celebrities leaving would bother him greatly. He stands a good chance of having paid 44 billion for a slightly better Truth Social.

 

[RobF]

I said this in the SR thread. I'm waiting on the equivalent of the Digg exodus to Reddit. Digg was the most popular social media platform, and in less then a month it wasn't. The only question is there a good enough alternative out there.

Generally these things happen like the quote about going broke "At first you go bankrupt slowly, then all at once."

I'm sure celebrities leaving would bother him greatly. He stands a good chance of having paid 44 billion for a slightly better Truth Social.

It's fascinating to watch. It's like if the Wizard of Oz had deliberately pulled down his own curtain and started mooning everyone. Not so much, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," as, "Hey, everyone, get a load of me, the numpty behind the curtain!"

I think right now the thing keeping Twitter going is mainly inertia. I'm seeing clusters of people moving to Mastodon, e.g. a good number of 'UK legal twitter' has migrated to there, along with quite a few 'science twitter' people, but a lot of them are on Mastodon as well as Twitter, rather than instead of. I think Instagram may be seeing an uptick as well, but that's even further from a like-for-like alternative. There isn't really a drop-in replacement for Twitter at the scale Twitter runs at, although alternatives can develop quickly when there's something driving the development. But while Twitter keeps enough of the users posting things that other users are there to see and remains usable, it'll keep staggering on and, while celebrities and other users leaving remains a trickle, that overall migration will remain somewhat limited.

But that could change quite quickly. There's a whole bunch of looming potential problems that could actively drive users elsewhere, from Twitter crashing, or becoming less or entirely unusable, to everything that comes from less effective moderation, and that in itself is a whole can of worms, from the obvious problem of users being driven away by abuse - with higher profile users being more exposed to it - to varying legal implications in different jurisdictions, and implications for Twitter's relationship with advertisers, or even Apple and Google.

Even if Twitter can manage to remain otherwise reasonably stable and usable - which could be a big 'if' - advertising in particular looks like a problem. Advertisers have choices about where to advertise, and the more toxic Twitter looks, the less likely they are to advertise there. On that principle, there's inherently a balance there between how much is spent on moderation, and how much advertisers spend; the less spent on moderating, the more toxic Twitter is likely to be, the less comes in from advertising. If that balance is wrong, even with the lower costs of less moderation, there'll be a shortfall, and not one $8 subscriptions can make up.

I get the impression Musk's aspiration is to keep Twitter ticking over while he creates a workforce of ultra-efficient super-genius code monkeys who (despite being highly skilled and smart) somehow don't need or desire things like sleep, perks, or a life in general outside of coding for Musk, who then create Musk's 'everything' app, X, which he then rolls Twitter's users into. And that he seems to think that having subscribers and prioritising their posts will sufficiently address toxic content in spite of lower spending on moderation, sales, etc., that advertisers will ultimately just return regardless of any remaining unaddressed toxicity, and that'll be enough to keep things running.

There's a lot of problems with that, but one is that even if we were to assume, very generously, that it could even work, it's not something that would happen quickly, and in the meantime, Twitter could still be making losses. Potentially big losses. Then it becomes a question of how long Twitter can run like that. There's inherently a limit to the cuts that can be made while maintaining Twitter at the scale it is, and Musk has probably already gone well past it, so he'd either have to just suck it up, make more cuts anyway which would only exacerbate the underlying problems, or increase spending to address the problems keeping advertisers away, which he'd presumably be reluctant to do.

It could still, somehow, survive, but I think the most likely outcome is that Twitter falls out of the sky. Question is whether it's a death by a thousand cuts, or a sudden collapse.

 

[coldseat]

The meltdown is moving full speed ahead.

===========
More than a third of Twitter’s top 100 marketers have not advertised on the social media network in the past two weeks, a Washington Post analysis of marketing data found — an indication of the extent of skittishness among advertisers about billionaire Elon Musk’s control of the company.

Dozens of top Twitter advertisers, including 14 of the top 50, have stopped advertising in the few weeks since Musk’s chaotic acquisition of the social media company, according to The Post’s analysis of data from Pathmatics, which offers brand analysis on digital marketing trends.

Ads for blue-chip brands including Jeep and Mars candy, whose corporate parents were among the top 100 U.S. advertisers on the site in the six months before Musk’s purchase, haven’t appeared there since at least Nov. 7, the analysis found. Musk assumed ownership of the site Oct. 27.

“Mars started suspending advertising activities on Twitter in late September when we learned of some significant brand safety and suitability incidents that impacted our brand,” said a statement to The Post from Mars, which, in addition to its namesake candy, makes other foods and pet products.

Pharmaceutical company Merck, cereal maker Kellogg, Verizon and Samuel Adams brewer Boston Beer also have stopped their advertising in recent weeks, the Pathmatics data shows. The companies didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Post.
============

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/22/twitter-advertiser-exodus-musk/

 

[UriUT]

It's fascinating to watch. It's like if the Wizard of Oz had deliberately pulled down his own curtain and started mooning everyone. Not so much, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," as, "Hey, everyone, get a load of me, the numpty behind the curtain!"

I think right now the thing keeping Twitter going is mainly inertia. I'm seeing clusters of people moving to Mastodon, e.g. a good number of 'UK legal twitter' has migrated to there, along with quite a few 'science twitter' people, but a lot of them are on Mastodon as well as Twitter, rather than instead of. I think Instagram may be seeing an uptick as well, but that's even further from a like-for-like alternative. There isn't really a drop-in replacement for Twitter at the scale Twitter runs at, although alternatives can develop quickly when there's something driving the development. But while Twitter keeps enough of the users posting things that other users are there to see and remains usable, it'll keep staggering on and, while celebrities and other users leaving remains a trickle, that overall migration will remain somewhat limited.

But that could change quite quickly. There's a whole bunch of looming potential problems that could actively drive users elsewhere, from Twitter crashing, or becoming less or entirely unusable, to everything that comes from less effective moderation, and that in itself is a whole can of worms, from the obvious problem of users being driven away by abuse - with higher profile users being more exposed to it - to varying legal implications in different jurisdictions, and implications for Twitter's relationship with advertisers, or even Apple and Google.

Even if Twitter can manage to remain otherwise reasonably stable and usable - which could be a big 'if' - advertising in particular looks like a problem. Advertisers have choices about where to advertise, and the more toxic Twitter looks, the less likely they are to advertise there. On that principle, there's inherently a balance there between how much is spent on moderation, and how much advertisers spend; the less spent on moderating, the more toxic Twitter is likely to be, the less comes in from advertising. If that balance is wrong, even with the lower costs of less moderation, there'll be a shortfall, and not one $8 subscriptions can make up.

I get the impression Musk's aspiration is to keep Twitter ticking over while he creates a workforce of ultra-efficient super-genius code monkeys who (despite being highly skilled and smart) somehow don't need or desire things like sleep, perks, or a life in general outside of coding for Musk, who then create Musk's 'everything' app, X, which he then rolls Twitter's users into. And that he seems to think that having subscribers and prioritising their posts will sufficiently address toxic content in spite of lower spending on moderation, sales, etc., that advertisers will ultimately just return regardless of any remaining unaddressed toxicity, and that'll be enough to keep things running.

There's a lot of problems with that, but one is that even if we were to assume, very generously, that it could even work, it's not something that would happen quickly, and in the meantime, Twitter could still be making losses. Potentially big losses. Then it becomes a question of how long Twitter can run like that. There's inherently a limit to the cuts that can be made while maintaining Twitter at the scale it is, and Musk has probably already gone well past it, so he'd either have to just suck it up, make more cuts anyway which would only exacerbate the underlying problems, or increase spending to address the problems keeping advertisers away, which he'd presumably be reluctant to do.

It could still, somehow, survive, but I think the most likely outcome is that Twitter falls out of the sky. Question is whether it's a death by a thousand cuts, or a sudden collapse.

A friend of mine has a niche web site. Traffic was good and to compete he charged a bottom of the barrel prices to his advertisers. Along came a mutual friend of ours telling him he has the wrong strategy. Advertisers arent interpreting web traffic like they were. To them the quality of the site matters more as their spending budget has been predetermined, sometimes years in advanced. So if a site offers premium dollars, they would interpret that as quality advertising. And that's what this niche website owner did. Paradoxically raising prices on the same product increased both the number of advertisers and the revenue. What's further amazing is that this friend of ours took this same concept: that quality product attracts more customers, and grew a web hosting company from scratch to a multi-hundred million dollar company. His company offers worry free hosting for premium prices. And it works.

Ironically, Musks used this same concept with Tesla, albeit buoyed by government subsidies and tax breaks. He just can't translate that concept to Twitter. Web traffic is meaningless if the advertisers deem their product will be harmed if they advertise there. Further the advertisers he attracts with a low quality product would inevitably produce lower revenue. That isn't conducive for him to make up for the premium price he paid for Twitter. I just dont see how he makes his money back.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

There's always that phat MyPillow advertisement contract!

 

[SaintForLife]

Maybe it's how I use Twitter, but I haven't really noticed a big difference yet.

I haven't noticed any difference either.

 

[SaintForLife]

I’m seeing more and more people positing that the aim of Musk and the Saudis is to make Twitter into a right wing echo chamber and failing that, to shut Twitter down. They will not abide with the ability for pro-democracy forces to spread their message world-wide.

Translation: left wingers are mad that people on the right aren't shadowbanned anymore, people who they disagree with are being let back on Twitter(have they not heard of the mute and block?) and they lost control of their biggest censorship tool.

Ben Collins a great example of that.



Perfect description of Ben Collins...Hall monitor