He is already talking about
bankruptcy (
archive).
Elon Musk tells Twitter employees ‘bankruptcy is not out of the question’
Ad revenue has declined significantly since Musk took over the company.
Two weeks after taking over Twitter, Elon Musk has finally addressed the company’s remaining staff and the message was bleak. Speaking at an all-hands meeting, Musk said that Twitter is losing so much money that “bankruptcy is not out of the question,”
The Information and
Platformer reported.
Twitter hasn’t turned a profit since 2019, and ad revenue has declined significantly since Musk’s takeover as advertisers pull back from the platform. At the all-hands, Musk said Twitter could have "net negative cash flow of several billion dollars” in 2023, according to T
he Information. He also suggested that Twitter’s future depends upon the success of the revamped Twitter Blue subscription service.
“The reason we’re going hardcore on subscribers is to keep Twitter alive,” he said.
Musk also told employees, again, that they are expected to work from Twitter’s office, a reversal of the company’s previous “work from anywhere” policy. “If you can physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation accepted," he said,
Platformer’s Zoe Schiffer, reported.
Twitter is also rapidly losing the top executives that survived Musk’s layoffs. The company’s chief information security officer, chief privacy officer and chief compliance officer all recently resigned, exposing the company to potential new FTC fines. And two other high-profile executives, head of trust and Safety Yoel Roth and head of ad sales Robin Wheeler, also resigned on Thursday,
Bloomberg reported. The two had joined Musk in a town hall meant to reassure Twitter’s advertisers just one day before.
Meanwhile, the roll out of the new Blue subscription has been rocky. After introducing — and quickly killing — a separate “official” checkmark, there’s been a surge in scammers and pranksters impersonating politicians, celebrities and brands. Musk reportedly told employees that rooting out scammers abusing the checkmark was a “top priority.”
I'm starting to feel a bit bad for Elon, which is really hard for me, as I despise these pampered rich fucks.
How I see things:
He buys the corporation, after trying to get out of the deal. His friends and investors are nowhere to be seen. Maybe they warned him. He's faced with a huge corporation with a very specific, urban progressive culture and expectations, filled to the brim with Amerifat queerio pink hairs that the previous admin has made sure to hire. A core of programmers and competent managers run things.
He immediately becomes deeply hostile to this existing intricate machinery by firing most of it, making the rest afraid and likely uncooperative.
He find himself caught between the need to make money and his idealistic, naive lolbert convictions - the question of moderating the platform is revealing itself now in full. People (like me!) test the waters and boundaries, creating the impression that the platform is now allowing nazis on it. Celebretards start leaving like the paranoid low IQtards that they are. Negative publicity on all MSM. He tries to compromise some, shadowbanning hostile users and hiding their content, but you cannot compromise with social justice activism, as we all know, because this is a cultural war. Advertisers are hit with multiple demands from NGOs and activists, which create an atmosphere of an out of control, death-spiraling corporation where it's not worth putting ads on.
Desperate, Elon starts to sell checkmarks, essentially now a way to make your content visible - but it's not even guaranteed, what if you want to say nigger and shitpost - will Blue guarantee that you're not shadowbanned? Likely not.
Inconsistencies are everywhere. The platform seems aimless and headless. New checkmarks add to the chaos by impersonating.
----
So, yeah.
There is no escape from the moderation question, and now it's a bit too late. I honestly don't know what I would've done if I were Elon.
Twitter was a legitimately dangerous propaganda tool for the shitlibs. That had to change. But you cannot fully change such a progressive corpo overnight. And you cannot make it more libertarian and free speech without the far right. I don't really mind that, I enjoy some online conflict and shitposts, but most people aren't like that.
I don't know a single person from my circle of acquittances and friends that would be OK with a 2013 Twitter where hordes of anime avis bully queers and journos and feminazis. "Normal" people perceive that as a hostile, dangerous, abnormal territory that should be avoided, they don't wanna see Jews in ovens memes and demands for race wars.
Running big platforms is incredibly complex, it's not like with forums. When I was young, because of my tech knowledge, I got to moderate a large forum for money, paid janny&sheeiit. rules were simple, no religion, no war, no oil, no politics, we're here to discuss tech. There were no queers, no fags, no blacks, no whites, no cishets, just random anons poasting about the first Geforce and AMD's hitting the 1GHz barrier or w/e.
Once you let in politics and social issues, you're fucked, you'll have to take sides and to moderate.
