Or it could be both. The actions and motivations of private equity firms, and right wing autocrats, are by no means mutually exclusive. Historically, they often seem to go hand in hand. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Although you make some good points, you may still be overthinking this. In view of Musk's ample history of asinine pronouncements and temper tantrums, I'm inclined to invoke what I call Firefly's Principle: "Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you - he really is an idiot."*
*Said by Groucho Marx's character, Rufus T. Firefly, regarding Chico Marx's character, Chicolini, in the courtroom scene of "Duck soup" (1933).
Too late ; ) - I spent a few months studying Elon’s psychology so you don’t have to. Much of what I found was shocking but not surprising & explains how trauma & abuse made him much of the narcissist he is today, yet there are many other surprising yet telling conditions, factors & traumas that also explain his behavior. That being said, I tend to agree with what Max says about his playbook re: twitter. What a psych profile adds are deep-seeded antisocial pathologies that drive him to follow that playbook. https://samray.substack.com/p/the-grooming-of-elon-musk-a-psychological-139
I’m going to suggest that you are missing entirely what is actually happening. Unfortunately there is a paywall if you want to read the whole thing, but the gist is: there is a grand plan, mostly in evidence in the lies he tells about his intent, reason or purpose re any of the disparate companies he controls.
The real object is to get to uploadable consciousness (c2170 per futurists) at least 100 years early, so that he need not terraform anything as he rockets his boring operations to mars etc along with versions of himself in nigh indestructible robot bodies.
Elon Musk does whatever he feels like doing at the moment he feels like doing it, is, I think, the only rational explanation. (It's like asking 'what's his strategy for offering an inflight hostess a horse in exchange for a rub and tug massage?') The man has an ego larger than Mars, and he's been wildly successful being a TOTAL ASSHOLE, so why should he stop now? There's no strategy here; it's all id.
Yes, I know you’re basically just applying Hanlon’s Razor to Elon Musk, but given what we know about him I feel like the answer to the question “is it stupidity or is it malice?” is “yes”.
That is, yes, Elon is trying to “save” Twitter and make a profit, and, yes, Elon’s idea of *how* to “save” a company and make a profit consists primarily of his being an impulsive, vindictive buffoon.
The difference with Twitter, as opposed to Elon’s other companies, is that he put Twitter on the corporate Amex, and so he actually has to make money in order to make the interest payments, whereas with his other companies he doesn’t have the same baseline of debt.
Oh, I have a totally alternate theory. It's not a GOP playbook, he's purposefully destroying the functionality of the platform bit by bit, to appeal to the Indian & Chinese gov't, in a way to ensure Tesla is able to access both markets. https://factualdispatch.substack.com/p/factual-dispatch-59-burn-down-the Speaking truth to power and breaking stories about the rich, powerful, and autocratic was the one good thing about Twitter. What if Musk bought it to drown it in a bathtub so Modi, Xi, MBS, and Putin have a better life? What if Musk could sell gov't level censorship, info ops & suppression as an Enterprise SaaS product to bronze tier autocrats across the Global South? Gotta spend money to make money, as they say.
I haven’t double-checked this, but if the financial backers of the LBO (i.e. the people to whom Twitter owes $44 billion) are seasoned private-equity types, it would make sense that they would advise him to do all the things LBOs always do, namely burning down the company for the insurance money (figuratively), by which I mean asset-stripping and flipping the empty husk on a new public listing.
A problem with this approach here is that, unlike, say, a department store chain, Twitter doesn’t have, say, several billion dollars’ worth of underutilized commercial real estate ripe for the picking.
(Though in the case of said department store chain, the usual outcome is that the empty husk goes bankrupt and is reorganized as being owned by its creditors, which is why all the dying mall stores have ended up being owned by their landlords.)
The outcome I’m hoping for is that Elon staves off the creditors by making in-kind interest payments of his own Tesla stock, so that in the end he owns Twitter outright instead of Tesla.
Or it could be both. The actions and motivations of private equity firms, and right wing autocrats, are by no means mutually exclusive. Historically, they often seem to go hand in hand. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The answer to the question of “stupidity or malice?” in this case is probably “yes”.
Although you make some good points, you may still be overthinking this. In view of Musk's ample history of asinine pronouncements and temper tantrums, I'm inclined to invoke what I call Firefly's Principle: "Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you - he really is an idiot."*
*Said by Groucho Marx's character, Rufus T. Firefly, regarding Chico Marx's character, Chicolini, in the courtroom scene of "Duck soup" (1933).
👏👏👏 yes Max
I’m glad to have mostly left Twitter.
Too late ; ) - I spent a few months studying Elon’s psychology so you don’t have to. Much of what I found was shocking but not surprising & explains how trauma & abuse made him much of the narcissist he is today, yet there are many other surprising yet telling conditions, factors & traumas that also explain his behavior. That being said, I tend to agree with what Max says about his playbook re: twitter. What a psych profile adds are deep-seeded antisocial pathologies that drive him to follow that playbook. https://samray.substack.com/p/the-grooming-of-elon-musk-a-psychological-139
I’m going to suggest that you are missing entirely what is actually happening. Unfortunately there is a paywall if you want to read the whole thing, but the gist is: there is a grand plan, mostly in evidence in the lies he tells about his intent, reason or purpose re any of the disparate companies he controls.
The real object is to get to uploadable consciousness (c2170 per futurists) at least 100 years early, so that he need not terraform anything as he rockets his boring operations to mars etc along with versions of himself in nigh indestructible robot bodies.
He wants to be Ultralord.
https://open.substack.com/pub/sethabramson/p/proof-exclusive-do-these-new-revelations?r=25hye9&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Elon Musk does whatever he feels like doing at the moment he feels like doing it, is, I think, the only rational explanation. (It's like asking 'what's his strategy for offering an inflight hostess a horse in exchange for a rub and tug massage?') The man has an ego larger than Mars, and he's been wildly successful being a TOTAL ASSHOLE, so why should he stop now? There's no strategy here; it's all id.
Yes, I know you’re basically just applying Hanlon’s Razor to Elon Musk, but given what we know about him I feel like the answer to the question “is it stupidity or is it malice?” is “yes”.
That is, yes, Elon is trying to “save” Twitter and make a profit, and, yes, Elon’s idea of *how* to “save” a company and make a profit consists primarily of his being an impulsive, vindictive buffoon.
The difference with Twitter, as opposed to Elon’s other companies, is that he put Twitter on the corporate Amex, and so he actually has to make money in order to make the interest payments, whereas with his other companies he doesn’t have the same baseline of debt.
Twitter is a crash test dummy for another social network.
Or maybe he's trying to scoop up training data for some kind of AI product.
Oh, I have a totally alternate theory. It's not a GOP playbook, he's purposefully destroying the functionality of the platform bit by bit, to appeal to the Indian & Chinese gov't, in a way to ensure Tesla is able to access both markets. https://factualdispatch.substack.com/p/factual-dispatch-59-burn-down-the Speaking truth to power and breaking stories about the rich, powerful, and autocratic was the one good thing about Twitter. What if Musk bought it to drown it in a bathtub so Modi, Xi, MBS, and Putin have a better life? What if Musk could sell gov't level censorship, info ops & suppression as an Enterprise SaaS product to bronze tier autocrats across the Global South? Gotta spend money to make money, as they say.
And here I thought he was burning $44 billion dollars of borrowed money just to spite his trans daughter!
Tesla is already in China and is one of its core sales and manufacturing markets.
Gotta keep your biggest market happy when they can shut you out on a whim.
I haven’t double-checked this, but if the financial backers of the LBO (i.e. the people to whom Twitter owes $44 billion) are seasoned private-equity types, it would make sense that they would advise him to do all the things LBOs always do, namely burning down the company for the insurance money (figuratively), by which I mean asset-stripping and flipping the empty husk on a new public listing.
A problem with this approach here is that, unlike, say, a department store chain, Twitter doesn’t have, say, several billion dollars’ worth of underutilized commercial real estate ripe for the picking.
(Though in the case of said department store chain, the usual outcome is that the empty husk goes bankrupt and is reorganized as being owned by its creditors, which is why all the dying mall stores have ended up being owned by their landlords.)
The outcome I’m hoping for is that Elon staves off the creditors by making in-kind interest payments of his own Tesla stock, so that in the end he owns Twitter outright instead of Tesla.