Elon should, but likely won't, learn from his billion dollar boondoggle. His massive ego will prevent hime from learning any lesson. He'll just blame anyone and everyone for his screw ups.
Business schools will be using his purchase of Twitter as lessons in "what not to do in business" for decades to come.
Elon should, but likely won't, learn from his billion dollar boondoggle. His massive ego will prevent hime from learning any lesson. He'll just blame anyone and everyone for his screw ups.
Business schools will be using his purchase of Twitter as lessons in "what not to do in business" for decades to come.
They might, but I can't see how that will be useful. It's like focusing on not using a hairdryer whilst in the shower. Sure, it's important, but it's effectively common knowledge (i.e.: obvious) thereby not requiring any real discussion.
The only scholastic area where Musk's purchase of Twitter may be relevant is in discussing abnormal psychology on looking at the signs of megalomania and narcissism.
So Twitter was the preeminent microblogging platform, doing well enough to have shareholders getting earnings. Musk buys it and starts pulling every lever he can find, many of which were clearly marked DO NOT TOUCH THIS LEVER. Now the company is bleeding value, invisible to the public, and got its lunch eaten by Meta in less than a week of competition. Oh, and a new half-billion liability based on Lever #2.
Remind me how this reflects on the legendary genius of Musk?
You ain’t seen nothing yet by the end of the decade, the US will be the only area of the world where Tesla will have any significant marketshare, Japan, South Korea, and China will be but footnotes, Europe, in the end will be single digits Because of the German companies and the rest of the world aside from Australia, and New Zealand quite simply just can’t afford them.
Also, note the fit and finish still is crap, (that old CNC dealership location next to the 210 freeway in Upland, California is now occupied by Tesla‘s and they seem to be fixing a lot of new Tesla‘s direct from the factory at this location before shipping them to the new owners), the early adopters still don’t care, but the second and third wave adopters will, particularly with more choices for sale by competitors, and these competitors will have Apple CarPlay and Android CarPlay, and it does make a difference.
Not sure that any of this is correct. Tesla has advantages currently that are giving it time to go much further into unoccupied territory and to establish a significant lead.
Tesla is diversifying manufacturing centres to meet the particular needs of large local markets, to minimise shipping costs and protect it against de-globalisation. Tesla manufactures, apart of course from in the US, in China for the local, asian and Australian/New Zealand markets and in Germany for Europe. They will likely soon be manufacturing in Mexico for both the North American and South American markets, in India for a potentially huge market and possibly in Indonesia for the world's 4th largest population centre. These latter three Gigafactories however, will produce very different vehicles to those on the market currently. They'll be smaller and much cheaper, built with less expensive batteries.
With each iteration of Gigafactory, build quality improves. In North America you would not be exposed to vehicles built in China and Germany but the teething problems associated with the Fremont factory don't exist. The Texas factory build quality will be out-of-site next to earlier locations.
Tesla is highly vertically integrated. They rely still on outside suppliers but to a much less extent than others. As examples, even some chip manufacture and mining and refinement of critical minerals is or is-going in-house. Tesla has borne the myriad issue of producing an operating system for their cars and are not burdened with that quasi-operating system android as many others are. Volvo will be building their next generation of cars, the EX series with android as the driver facing OS. The cars themselves are beautiful but are let down by laggy, buggy and insecure higher-level software. (I'd buy an EX30 or eX90 but for android.) Apple could buy the publicly listed Volvo and gain a huge head start in its automotive ambitions.
The austere interior design of Tesla cars was predicated from the beginning on full self-driving obviating the need for driver operated controls and of course, whereas this has not been forthcoming, it will be eventually.
The first production-ready Cybertruck have been built in Texas, it will be interesting to see how it is accepted.
An afterword - there is one other Tesla product that Musk has referred to explicitly that is yet to see fruition - a Gigafactory for building factories. Likely products of these will include the Optimus robot and Tesla flying machines.
When you buy a company you buy their assets and liabilities. The money you pay goes to thee owners, in the case of Twitter it went to the shareholders.
Twitter had 2 billion in cash and less than 600 million in debt when Musk purchased it. He took out 13 billion in loans when he purchased the company and had Twitter to take on the loans. So the heavy debt load he is taking about is 100% his own doing. Somehow he failed to mention that.
It does take a genius to buy a non=profitable company and believe that you make it profitable by tripling the debt load.
When you buy a company you buy their assets and liabilities. The money you pay goes to thee owners, in the case of Twitter it went to the shareholders.
Twitter had 2 billion in cash and less than 600 million in debt when Musk purchased it. He took out 13 billion in loans when he purchased the company and had Twitter to take on the loans. So the heavy debt load he is taking about is 100% his own doing. Somehow he failed to mention that.
It does take a genius to buy a non=profitable company and believe that you make it profitable by tripling the debt load.
That would be genius compared to wjay he did. Three times would just be 1.8 billion. He almost doubled that.
But as his fans like to point out. It’s early days, he’s just getting started!
Elon has done well with Tesla and SpaceX but those were primarily tech companies. Twitter is a social media company - what makes a good social media company is different from what makes a good tech company. Elon is also not necessarily the same person he was when he was building Tesla and SpaceX. The bottom line is his prior successes do not guarantee he has the skill set to make Twitter successful.
Many people like to quote Elon's saying "move fast and break things." That works in some areas but in Twitter's case the main thing he broke was its revenue stream. If you're building a ship on shore you can fix what you break. If you're out to sea and you break the hull you've got some issues. Beyond that, Elon & Twitter have been slow to fix what they've broken. The approach seems to be trade a small problem for a bigger problem then move on.
Things were not all wine and roses but Twitter was doing OK but had its issues when Elon bought it. After purchasing he proceeded to make a series of changes that were universally considered to be ill-advised and poorly thought out. Even the changes that had potentially positive elements were poorly executed. The result has been the destruction of Twitter's reputation, image, with that it advertisers and revenue base.
What's quite interesting that the people who are optimistic about Twitter's potential with Elon's leadership have little more to say than "well, he did good with Tesla and SpaceX so that's proof that he knows what he's doing!" we're 9 months into this debacle and while the bull has stopped (or at least slowed down) knocking over shelves, he's still in the china shop and the mess still remains.
Twitter had a very commanding position in social media. It was the social media platform and not just by a little. Its market dominance was astounding. Further, it had become a trusted, relied upon platform for many companies to make news and press releases. Even now most people have a hard time naming another significant platform. What that means for companies is they may decide to stay on Twitter simply because even with its faults and issues there's not a better choice. That also means Twitter still has a chance. The bull may have done a lot of damage but the china shop was big enough that it still has wares to sell and can potentially turn itself around. As long as the bull sits down and shuts up.
Mark Zuckerberg said "Move fast break things" not Elon Musk. I guess it's yet another case of Musk getting credit for something he didn't do, par for the course. Based on his tenure at twitter it would seem Musk is more a "break things fast" kind of person.
Also, Twitter isn't a dominate social media market. Facebook has 2.96 billion users, YouTube has 2.53 billion users, Whats App has 2 billion, Instagram has 2 billion all of which are more significant that twitter. Twitter ranks 19th with 450 million. It has done very well in certain areas, journalists, politicians, academics and celebrities have very much thrived on twitter but for the average person it isn't a huge deal hence why most people don't use it.
What’s app is a messaging app, not a social media platform. Facebook, YouTube and Instagram may have more users but they are all used very differently from Twitter; the majority of Twitter’s ‘users’ are not actually on or actively using it. (Although Elon is trying to stop anyone from using without logging in, so that may change)
What’s App, Facebook and Instagram are all the same company.
Many people like to quote Elon's saying "move fast and break things." That works in some areas but in Twitter's case the main thing he broke was its revenue stream. If you're building a ship on shore you can fix what you break. If you're out to sea and you break the hull you've got some issues. Beyond that, Elon & Twitter have been slow to fix what they've broken. The approach seems to be trade a small problem for a bigger problem then move on.
Though I agree with much of what you've said, ironically it was Zuckerberg who coined the phrase "move fast and break things."
To Zuckerberg's credit, he revised that to "move fast with stable infrastructure" later (2014). Musk must have missed the update.
Yes, that was my mistake. Thanks for the correction. (Unfortunately I can’t correct my original post)
The previous owners of Twitter must be laughing their asses off.
The previous owners of Twitter are busy figuring out how to create the next disinformation center of the world. Twitter was never about money, and still isn't.
Musk is showing them: create a successful and respected dissemination platform.
Then remove all protection against scammers, bots, and fake news factories.
So Twitter was the preeminent microblogging platform, doing well enough to have shareholders getting earnings. Musk buys it and starts pulling every lever he can find, many of which were clearly marked DO NOT TOUCH THIS LEVER. Now the company is bleeding value, invisible to the public, and got its lunch eaten by Meta in less than a week of competition. Oh, and a new half-billion liability based on Lever #2.
Remind me how this reflects on the legendary genius of Musk?
Twitter was an absolute disaster and a fraud. That’s why he almost canceled the deal. It was a bloated company that was all smoke and mirrors. It’s going to take a while for even him to turn it around.
While reading your post I was going to ask why you think Twitter a fraudulent company, but by the end I was very curious as to why you think that Musk can "turn it around", and by the end of my comment it occurs to me that Musk has already "turned it around" from being a successful platform people depended on and loved to something that absolutely sucks big monkey balls because he's nothing but a snake oil salesman.
Must be a good oil salesman, w the $ he amassed beating other legacies auto.
Elon has done well with Tesla and SpaceX but those were primarily tech companies. Twitter is a social media company - what makes a good social media company is different from what makes a good tech company. Elon is also not necessarily the same person he was when he was building Tesla and SpaceX. The bottom line is his prior successes do not guarantee he has the skill set to make Twitter successful.
Many people like to quote Elon's saying "move fast and break things." That works in some areas but in Twitter's case the main thing he broke was its revenue stream. If you're building a ship on shore you can fix what you break. If you're out to sea and you break the hull you've got some issues. Beyond that, Elon & Twitter have been slow to fix what they've broken. The approach seems to be trade a small problem for a bigger problem then move on.
Things were not all wine and roses but Twitter was doing OK but had its issues when Elon bought it. After purchasing he proceeded to make a series of changes that were universally considered to be ill-advised and poorly thought out. Even the changes that had potentially positive elements were poorly executed. The result has been the destruction of Twitter's reputation, image, with that it advertisers and revenue base.
What's quite interesting that the people who are optimistic about Twitter's potential with Elon's leadership have little more to say than "well, he did good with Tesla and SpaceX so that's proof that he knows what he's doing!" we're 9 months into this debacle and while the bull has stopped (or at least slowed down) knocking over shelves, he's still in the china shop and the mess still remains.
Twitter had a very commanding position in social media. It was the social media platform and not just by a little. Its market dominance was astounding. Further, it had become a trusted, relied upon platform for many companies to make news and press releases. Even now most people have a hard time naming another significant platform. What that means for companies is they may decide to stay on Twitter simply because even with its faults and issues there's not a better choice. That also means Twitter still has a chance. The bull may have done a lot of damage but the china shop was big enough that it still has wares to sell and can potentially turn itself around. As long as the bull sits down and shuts up.
Mark Zuckerberg said "Move fast break things" not Elon Musk. I guess it's yet another case of Musk getting credit for something he didn't do, par for the course. Based on his tenure at twitter it would seem Musk is more a "break things fast" kind of person.
Also, Twitter isn't a dominate social media market. Facebook has 2.96 billion users, YouTube has 2.53 billion users, Whats App has 2 billion, Instagram has 2 billion all of which are more significant that twitter. Twitter ranks 19th with 450 million. It has done very well in certain areas, journalists, politicians, academics and celebrities have very much thrived on twitter but for the average person it isn't a huge deal hence why most people don't use it.
What’s app is a messaging app, not a social media platform. Facebook, YouTube and Instagram may have more users but they are all used very differently from Twitter; the majority of Twitter’s ‘users’ are not actually on or actively using it. (Although Elon is trying to stop anyone from using without logging in, so that may change)
What’s App, Facebook and Instagram are all the same company.
So to recap, if we use your limited definition of social media, then discount every social media platform that is larger than twitter and assume some unknown number of users is vastly larger than everyone else then we get to your conclusion that twitter was "the social media platform" that had "market dominance".
Your are entitled to your opinions but I'll take data over conjecture any day of the week. The data doesn't back your claim.
So Twitter was the preeminent microblogging platform, doing well enough to have shareholders getting earnings. Musk buys it and starts pulling every lever he can find, many of which were clearly marked DO NOT TOUCH THIS LEVER. Now the company is bleeding value, invisible to the public, and got its lunch eaten by Meta in less than a week of competition. Oh, and a new half-billion liability based on Lever #2.
Remind me how this reflects on the legendary genius of Musk?
Twitter was an absolute disaster and a fraud. That’s why he almost canceled the deal. It was a bloated company that was all smoke and mirrors. It’s going to take a while for even him to turn it around.
While reading your post I was going to ask why you think Twitter a fraudulent company, but by the end I was very curious as to why you think that Musk can "turn it around", and by the end of my comment it occurs to me that Musk has already "turned it around" from being a successful platform people depended on and loved to something that absolutely sucks big monkey balls because he's nothing but a snake oil salesman.
Must be a good oil salesman, w the $ he amassed beating other legacies auto.
Elon has done well with Tesla and SpaceX but those were primarily tech companies. Twitter is a social media company - what makes a good social media company is different from what makes a good tech company. Elon is also not necessarily the same person he was when he was building Tesla and SpaceX. The bottom line is his prior successes do not guarantee he has the skill set to make Twitter successful.
Many people like to quote Elon's saying "move fast and break things." That works in some areas but in Twitter's case the main thing he broke was its revenue stream. If you're building a ship on shore you can fix what you break. If you're out to sea and you break the hull you've got some issues. Beyond that, Elon & Twitter have been slow to fix what they've broken. The approach seems to be trade a small problem for a bigger problem then move on.
Things were not all wine and roses but Twitter was doing OK but had its issues when Elon bought it. After purchasing he proceeded to make a series of changes that were universally considered to be ill-advised and poorly thought out. Even the changes that had potentially positive elements were poorly executed. The result has been the destruction of Twitter's reputation, image, with that it advertisers and revenue base.
What's quite interesting that the people who are optimistic about Twitter's potential with Elon's leadership have little more to say than "well, he did good with Tesla and SpaceX so that's proof that he knows what he's doing!" we're 9 months into this debacle and while the bull has stopped (or at least slowed down) knocking over shelves, he's still in the china shop and the mess still remains.
Twitter had a very commanding position in social media. It was the social media platform and not just by a little. Its market dominance was astounding. Further, it had become a trusted, relied upon platform for many companies to make news and press releases. Even now most people have a hard time naming another significant platform. What that means for companies is they may decide to stay on Twitter simply because even with its faults and issues there's not a better choice. That also means Twitter still has a chance. The bull may have done a lot of damage but the china shop was big enough that it still has wares to sell and can potentially turn itself around. As long as the bull sits down and shuts up.
Mark Zuckerberg said "Move fast break things" not Elon Musk. I guess it's yet another case of Musk getting credit for something he didn't do, par for the course. Based on his tenure at twitter it would seem Musk is more a "break things fast" kind of person.
Also, Twitter isn't a dominate social media market. Facebook has 2.96 billion users, YouTube has 2.53 billion users, Whats App has 2 billion, Instagram has 2 billion all of which are more significant that twitter. Twitter ranks 19th with 450 million. It has done very well in certain areas, journalists, politicians, academics and celebrities have very much thrived on twitter but for the average person it isn't a huge deal hence why most people don't use it.
What’s app is a messaging app, not a social media platform. Facebook, YouTube and Instagram may have more users but they are all used very differently from Twitter; the majority of Twitter’s ‘users’ are not actually on or actively using it. (Although Elon is trying to stop anyone from using without logging in, so that may change)
What’s App, Facebook and Instagram are all the same company.
So to recap, if we use your limited definition of social media, then discount every social media platform that is larger than twitter and assume some unknown number of users is vastly larger than everyone else then we get to your conclusion that twitter was "the social media platform" that had "market dominance".
Your are entitled to your opinions but I'll take data over conjecture any day of the week. The data doesn't back your claim.
I should have been more specific in my original post - I wrote “social media” but I actually meant microblogging. You are correct that youtube, etcetera are social media platforms and bigger than twitter but in terms of microblogging and communication Twitter serves (served?) a purpose that the other types of social media do not. When you look at Twitter and competitors it’s still very much twitter and ‘everyone else.’
Comments
The only scholastic area where Musk's purchase of Twitter may be relevant is in discussing abnormal psychology on looking at the signs of megalomania and narcissism.
Tesla is diversifying manufacturing centres to meet the particular needs of large local markets, to minimise shipping costs and protect it against de-globalisation. Tesla manufactures, apart of course from in the US, in China for the local, asian and Australian/New Zealand markets and in Germany for Europe. They will likely soon be manufacturing in Mexico for both the North American and South American markets, in India for a potentially huge market and possibly in Indonesia for the world's 4th largest population centre. These latter three Gigafactories however, will produce very different vehicles to those on the market currently. They'll be smaller and much cheaper, built with less expensive batteries.
With each iteration of Gigafactory, build quality improves. In North America you would not be exposed to vehicles built in China and Germany but the teething problems associated with the Fremont factory don't exist. The Texas factory build quality will be out-of-site next to earlier locations.
Tesla is highly vertically integrated. They rely still on outside suppliers but to a much less extent than others. As examples, even some chip manufacture and mining and refinement of critical minerals is or is-going in-house. Tesla has borne the myriad issue of producing an operating system for their cars and are not burdened with that quasi-operating system android as many others are. Volvo will be building their next generation of cars, the EX series with android as the driver facing OS. The cars themselves are beautiful but are let down by laggy, buggy and insecure higher-level software. (I'd buy an EX30 or eX90 but for android.) Apple could buy the publicly listed Volvo and gain a huge head start in its automotive ambitions.
The austere interior design of Tesla cars was predicated from the beginning on full self-driving obviating the need for driver operated controls and of course, whereas this has not been forthcoming, it will be eventually.
The first production-ready Cybertruck have been built in Texas, it will be interesting to see how it is accepted.
An afterword - there is one other Tesla product that Musk has referred to explicitly that is yet to see fruition - a Gigafactory for building factories. Likely products of these will include the Optimus robot and Tesla flying machines.
wjay he did. Three times would just be 1.8 billion. He almost doubled that.
What’s App, Facebook and Instagram are all the same company.
Your are entitled to your opinions but I'll take data over conjecture any day of the week. The data doesn't back your claim.