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Elon Musk hopes Trump victory will help his $44bn Twitter bet pay off (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The platform’s billionaire owner has seen its value plunge as advertisers run shy, revenues drop and user numbers fall

Two years ago, there was some trepidation among advertisers, anti-hate-speech groups and staff about Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter.

Those concerns have been borne out: advertisers have sharply reduced spending on the platform, Musk has sued nonprofits over their coverage of a rise in controversial content and about eight out of 10 employees have been sacked.

The service, now rebranded as X, is not worth the $44bn Musk paid for it on 27 October 2022 -- later tweeting "the bird is freed" in a reference to its corporate logo. The plunge in value reflects the damage done to its advertising-dependent business model.

But its continued influence as a news source and its role as an outlet for broadcasting its owner's rightwing views to his 200 million-plus followers, means the benefit to the world's richest person does not need to be measured in financial benchmarks alone.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

It makes no sense because most of Twitter's business is outside the US - even if Trump wins, which would be indicative of of a majority of American voters chosing him (maybe not even that given how the US voting system works), that would still only strengthen Nazi-bar Twitter amongst about 100 million people and do very little about the rest, plus those 100 million not being in average the very educated or afluent probably means that it wouldn't attract most of the biggest and higher spending advertisers.

In other words, strengthening it's Nazi-bar nature isn't exactly a strategically sound thing for a business that tries to cater for a large proportion of the people online all over the World and then make money by selling access to them to advertisers.

Also, as we seen with Truth Social, targetting the MAGA crowd can't really sustain a big online business even with the endorsment of the MAGA-in-chief.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

strengthening its* Nazi-bar nature

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Bloody Grammar Nazis coming over here and correcting my writtings about Nazi bars ... ;)

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Will people please stop calling Twitter a fucking news source!? At best it’s a news aggregator, and even that’s a stretch. It does not create news content that isn’t about itself. It is not, and has never been a news organization.

ETA: just because a disturbing number of people think what they get from twitter (or Meta, Google, Insta, TikTok, etc.) is news doesn’t make it so. It’s like saying creationism is science because someone added “theory of” to the name.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago

No shit? Thought he was just throwing money at Trump because he thought he was the most qualified person to run the country? This is mind bending to hear it might not have been all for altruistic reasons!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

The world is my expense

The cost of my desire

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

What, my pillow type sites not paying the ad bills after you told advertisers to fuck off?

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

His Twitter bet always paid off because it was a big ego boost regardless of the financial hit.

He has a place where he can totally control the message to fit his own wishes and he knows he has an army of sycophants to back him up while they media pays attention.

Sure, he got attention on Twitter before. But now he controls the messaging on Twitter, bans whoever he wants on a whim, etc.

Meanwhile, he gets to continue to tell his "hilarious" juvenile attempts at jokes and all the suck-ups tell him what a great comedian is.

I really hope he thinks he can do a comedy special eventually. Because it will be hilarious. And not for the reason he would want it to be.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

He still sounds like a twelve year old... and looking at how the "manosphere" appeals to young men, I worry about how many actually do somehow think his edgelord antics are hilarious.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh I'm sure they do, sadly. Look how many of them idolized (and probably still idolize) Andrew Tate.

There are just not enough healthy role models for boys and young men right now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

There's plenty of good men out there. Society as a whole just seems largely uninterested in men's problems. They're expected to always have their shit together in a world designed to make that as difficult as possible to achieve.

I'm sure some people reading that will have strong reactions to the sentiment but it shouldn't be controversial to say that everybody has problems. If we don't listen to them then the Andrew Tate's of the world will step in and make them feel heard. That's just how people work.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

Immigrant hopes funding a felon - who is also descended from immigrants - for president will pay off for him

ftfy

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

Imagine the government buys Twitter and runs it under the US Postal Service.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

Maybe then he won't get deported

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It will, for a while, as Trump bans every other news outlet.

However, as all authoritarians do, the circle will get smaller and X will get shut down in favor of Truth Social.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Here in Portugal a country of 10 million people, the "in group" with the dictator was 9 families.

Scaling it up to the US and it's 300 million people, it would be 270 families.

Absolutelly, it's a wild estimate, but it should give a decent feeling for the rough size of the in-circle under Fascism.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I really should've started breeding face-eating leopards. If Trump wins, the demand is going to eclipse the supply for a good few years.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)