• Moonrise2473@feddit.it
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    102
    ·
    1 year ago

    The value of his purchase of all that billions was essentially:

    1. The userbase

    2. The branding

    3. The software and the people that built it

    Now that got rid of all three… Wasn’t it 100x cheaper to just buy parler? Or just hire a single developer on Fiverr and start a defederated mastodon server

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      41
      ·
      1 year ago

      Either he’s a raving idiot or someone was paying him to destroy Twitter. Or both.

      • primalanimist@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        26
        ·
        1 year ago

        I doubt anyone could pay the man enough to blow 40 billion to tank a website. The moment you break something, the users will find a replacement and go there. This purchase was 100% ego. It changed no minds about Elon. His fanboys will still call this genius, and those who already knew he was a manchild are not suddenly thinking this was a mature, well-thought-out plan.

        • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          29
          ·
          1 year ago

          We seem to forget this whole “Imma buy Twitter” was, in part, because Twitter refused to disable the account of the kid that was tracking his jet

          • Thrashy@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            15
            ·
            1 year ago

            the kid that was tracking his jet

            The kid that was reposting public flight tracking data of his jet. He’s so fucking petty.

      • The Cuuuuube@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        1 year ago

        If the goal was just to shut down twitter that could have been accomplished day 1. My theory is he really didn’t think he’d be stuck paying the high price he offered and now his goal is to file for bankruptcy after tanking the company, and to do it he has to look like hes trying to make it work.

        Alternatively. He really is this big an idiot. It would be in line with the moron making an offer twitter couldn’t refuse and then being surprised when they accepted

      • batcheck@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Didn’t he get some Saudi funding for the purchase of twitter? Not the entire amount but a portion?

    • Auzy@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Didn’t he screw up royally and end up having to buy it though or he’d be breaking laws?

    • Liam Mayfair@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Lol, knowing our boy Elon, he would’ve managed to run Parler to the ground even harder than they could ever dream

    • Madcow@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      58
      ·
      1 year ago

      So why are you commenting on a news article about Elon Musk? Already missing the smell?

        • troye888@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          Well it only has 1 user according to the Mozilla store, so no surprise that no one had heard of it.

          • PeachMan@lemmy.one
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            I think it’s new, I’ve only seen people sharing it recently (in the past week). That count is likely outdated.

      • brothershamus@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        In a world . . . in which one man spends 45 Billion dollars to destroy a global communications juggernaut in the most assinine, ridiculous ways ever . . . It’s . . . The Rebrandening!

        I mean, if he bought Coca-Cola and replaced sugar with vinegar, it’d be news, right?

  • cryshlee@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    1 year ago

    It’s even more hideous than I was expecting. How is that even possible

  • Railison@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I remember visiting X.com in 2000 or so. Was a bank type website, which PayPal bought up. That’s probably how he got control of the domain. (ETA: more accurate answer below!)

    But also, looks like the X11 logo

    • zark@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      X.com was the online bank that Musk co-founded and that some time after it merged with Confinity Inc. changed its name to PayPal (PayPal was a product of Confinity).

    • deong@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      1 year ago

      If I recall correctly, he had the x.com domain and tried to rebrand PayPal to X. The board went, “are you a fucking idiot?” and replace him with Peter Thiel.

      He’s been trying to call stuff “X” since he was an edgy teenager. He just never had the good sense to grow out of it, and he fell ass backward into enough money that we all get to watch him go all “Star Wars kid” over and over again in public.

      • Leigh@beehaw.orgM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 year ago

        LOL @ Star Wars kid comment. Gave me a good chuckle. But, that’s not fair to the real Star Wars kid, my brother was just enjoying being him, living his best life! You do him dirty by debasing him to Musk’s level 😂

    • Liam Mayfair@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      The x.com domain was originally purchased by PayPal for over $8m back when Elon was still at the company. No one knows how much PayPal asked Elon for it back in 2017 when he bought it from them, but it was rumoured to be an eight digit figure.

  • Tibert@compuverse.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    Well, with all the porn on twitter, it may be an appropriate name.

    There are already jokes in brand names like from French :

    Official “X” account Msi France

    • greeen_tomato@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s why they went with PayPal instead of x.com for the payment business. It’s funny that he takes that name out of the closet again.

      • wjrii@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s better. He specifically went out and PAID to buy the domain back from Paypal because he was so sure he’d need it again.

  • accentgrave@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    Everything he’s done with Twitter is great. It was time someone brought it down a couple dozen notches. Here’s hoping someone will do the same to Meta next.

    • bigkix@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m on Twitter for a long time now and nothing really changed. No one left. People that lean left are bitching about the platform but continue to tweet. Previously, the same was done by right leaning people.

      • hoodatninja@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        26
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Twitter has lost over 10% of its users and engagement/monthly active users is down, Musk even admits they’ve lost users. Traffic is also going down with the API change/requirement to be on Twitter proper, as well as limiting the number of tweets one can see.

        Considering how much a Twitter is bots, that means the number of actual people who left is actually much higher. So yeah, something did change lol just because you haven’t noticed it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

        Edit: I’m not sure why you are talking about left and right users tbh. Seems like you’re kind of shoehorning a “both sides“ comment since no one is talking politics here.

      • Puppy@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yeah nah, pretty much everybody of importance left the platform quite some time ago actually. Twitter truly has turned to shit too. All you see in your feed is the same extreme-right propaganda we’ve seen for 4+ years since the pandemic. It’s just that now it’s boosted by Elon’s fuckery. Also, there’s a reason why they’re begging us to come back.

        They created their own little echo chamber and now they have nobody to argue with. That’s what happen when a far-right social media is created usually. They realize they aren’t the powerhouse they thought they were and all of a sudden it’s just “uh, where is everybody?!?!?”

        If you want my opinion, it’s 1000% deserved and they can suck my dick, I ain’t coming back just to hear “VACCINE BAD ORANGE MAN GOD PLS JOIN US WE CAN KILL EVERYBODY THAT LOOKS LIKE A JEW!”

        Noooooooo thank you

      • brothershamus@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        Well you’re not on Twitter now, are you. Neither is anyone else. Also they’re not tweeting anymore, they’re . . . xing? And per the article that was the last email from the twitter.com domain (supposedly) so . . what, is it x.com now?

        The guy’s, like, a 5-D chess jenius.

        • GunnarRunnar@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          1 year ago

          The biggest wtf in this is that tweeting, a term that’s been ingrained into modern lexicon, is becoming irrelevant. That’s like the greatest advertisement you can have for your platform.

        • primalanimist@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          1 year ago

          Over 50% of its advertisers left. That means most of the brands are not interested in the kind of people left in the toxic wasteland called X.

      • yildo@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        I left in November and deleted my account in December. Mastodon/the Fediverse is what I always wanted Twitter to be but it never was

      • Jaysyn@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I disabled my account the day Muskrat was forced to buy Twitter due to his own stupidity.

      • Seathru@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I know. I really want to like turn based tactical games but the RNGs end up making me rage quit before I can get into them.