Why Elon Musk bought Twitter.
Ok so I think I figured it out. Obviously everybody makes mistakes, but the idea that Elon pissed away $40bn in a horrible business decision just does not sit well with me.
The guy is on-and-off the richest man in the world, he's built three companies from the ground up and made them profitable. Calling him out for a Humongous Business Blunder is ... "dangerous". Especially when it's a Humongous Business Blunder that practically everybody saw coming.
To put it simply: The chance that the richest man in the world made an incredibly stupid decision, which everyone knew it was stupid, is lower than the chance that YOU don't understand his real motivation.
Now there's of course the "Very Expensive Porche" theory, that the practicality of the purchase doesn't matter, it's not about making money, it's a play thing. But that doesn't entirely sit well with me either. Musk is not known for buying play-things, he didn't just finish a divorce or something which would make him want to make a change in his lifestyle, and he is not the only one who bought Twitter, he brought a lot of other big names in with him and he must have been telling these people SOMETHING.
I'm going to propose an alternative theory as to why Musk bought Twitter.
Musk's fortune, like MOST others, is owed significantly to government money. We live in an era when honest work is not the most effective way to make money, the most effective way to make money is by cuddling up to government agencies for access to moneyprinter cash. Tesla knows this, with the electric car subsidy which they were originally a beneficiary of, and SpaceX absolutely knows this, with MOST of their income coming from government contracts.
Now this is obviously a huge problem because eventually all real value creation will inevitably be replaced by paying government money to buy votes, but that is a problem which can't be solved without ending the FED and the US Dollar Hegemony.
What I think Musk is playing on is a near future where Republicans gain control of the congress and the Whitehouse, and by turning Twitter into a kingmaker which makes the difference between winning and losing an election, he can put his finger on the scale and help decide WHO sits in the halls of power. And with the power to pick the government, he can demand a blank check for SpaceX AND for Tesla. A future of unimaginable public investment into space travel and electric transport.
Basically, it's all about who controls the money printer, just like it always was.
Ok so I think I figured it out. Obviously everybody makes mistakes, but the idea that Elon pissed away $40bn in a horrible business decision just does not sit well with me.
The guy is on-and-off the richest man in the world, he's built three companies from the ground up and made them profitable. Calling him out for a Humongous Business Blunder is ... "dangerous". Especially when it's a Humongous Business Blunder that practically everybody saw coming.
To put it simply: The chance that the richest man in the world made an incredibly stupid decision, which everyone knew it was stupid, is lower than the chance that YOU don't understand his real motivation.
Now there's of course the "Very Expensive Porche" theory, that the practicality of the purchase doesn't matter, it's not about making money, it's a play thing. But that doesn't entirely sit well with me either. Musk is not known for buying play-things, he didn't just finish a divorce or something which would make him want to make a change in his lifestyle, and he is not the only one who bought Twitter, he brought a lot of other big names in with him and he must have been telling these people SOMETHING.
I'm going to propose an alternative theory as to why Musk bought Twitter.
Musk's fortune, like MOST others, is owed significantly to government money. We live in an era when honest work is not the most effective way to make money, the most effective way to make money is by cuddling up to government agencies for access to moneyprinter cash. Tesla knows this, with the electric car subsidy which they were originally a beneficiary of, and SpaceX absolutely knows this, with MOST of their income coming from government contracts.
Now this is obviously a huge problem because eventually all real value creation will inevitably be replaced by paying government money to buy votes, but that is a problem which can't be solved without ending the FED and the US Dollar Hegemony.
What I think Musk is playing on is a near future where Republicans gain control of the congress and the Whitehouse, and by turning Twitter into a kingmaker which makes the difference between winning and losing an election, he can put his finger on the scale and help decide WHO sits in the halls of power. And with the power to pick the government, he can demand a blank check for SpaceX AND for Tesla. A future of unimaginable public investment into space travel and electric transport.
Basically, it's all about who controls the money printer, just like it always was.
@cjd
What a cynical way of what he said out publically.
Speech cannot exist under the Silicone Valley censorship. By buying Twitter, he can allow open speech, under which, Republicans are obviously going to benefit.
To reduce the ability to fix culture to "buying votes" is reductive in quite a dumb way in my opinion.
@cjd
Of course, if you want to hear my truly aluminium hat theory, it's this.
There are some things that money cannot buy. Not even when you're the richest person on planet. One of these things is a good son.
So, when a toxic culture steals one from you, you WILL spend all of it trying to make sure it doesn't happen. So, that would be a reason to buy an ability to steer the culture itself.
I tend to agree that that plays some part in it.
It's been a successful dent in the trans lobby's strategy simply because now they can't just make all the mean comments go away as easily.