Tag: Elon Musk

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Social Media

Stephen King Responds To Musk’s Plan For Charging Twitter Users And It’s Absolutely Brutal

 

Even though he’s only owned Twitter for a couple of months now, Elon Musk is already losing money hand over fist on the social media site, with Bloomberg reporting that Musk’s net worth is down a cool $8 billion in the week since he paid $44 billion to purchase a controlling interest.

How to solve the massive hemorrhaging of cash from Twitter? Well, Musk floated the idea of charging $20 a month for those who want “verified” accounts, which are easily identified by the blue check mark you see next to some users, for example on MSNBC’s Twitter account:

The Washington Post reports that Musk is desperate to find ways for his new acquisition to pay for itself.

Musk is scrambling to find ways to shore up Twitter’s business and increase its revenue. Though the company is no longer public, it now has to make huge interest payments every year on the debt Musk accrued by buying it. Musk also pitched his co-investors on the deal by saying he would be able to improve the company’s business rapidly in the years after taking it over.

Right now, Twitter makes most of its money from advertising, and Musk is currently in New York meeting with advertisers to shore up relationships with them, including representatives of the biggest marketing agencies, according to an executive at one of those agencies who spoke on the condition of anonymity. But advertising won’t be enough, Musk has said repeatedly.

But the idea of charging users for verified accounts isn’t sitting well with many, including novelist Stephen King, who was eager to let Musk know that his plan is only going lead to millions dropping Twitter altogether, which could prove catastrophic for Musk’s dreams of making a mint off the site.

King let Musk have it.

Musk tried to counter with a better offer.

Others joined King and noted that since they’re providing the content for Twitter, maybe Musk should be sending them a check every month instead of the other way around.

Even an online poll shows that the vast majority of Twitter users will refuse to fork over a red cent for the right to post on the platform.

Sounds like Elon should have stuck to inheriting money from his daddy and being an insufferable asshole. At least he’s good at those.

 

Categories
Donald Trump Elon Musk Social Media

Elon Musk Mocks Trump’s Truth Social And Suggests New Name For The Site

Even though he claims he’s actually going to purchase Twitter this time, Elon Musk still doesn’t control the social media site, and is lashing out at a potential competitor.

Speaking with the Financial Times, Musk had this to say about Truth Social (a.k.a. Twitter for losers), which failed, one-term former president Donald Trump now uses since he was banned from Facebook and Twitter for spreading lies about the 2020 election, which he lost in a landslide to President Joe Biden.

“[Truth Social] is essentially a rightwing echo chamber. It might as well be called Trumpet.”

So why is Musk suddenly interested in controlling Twitter, a deal he abandoned just months ago?

“I’m not doing Twitter for the money. It’s not like I’m trying to buy some yacht and I can’t afford it. I don’t own any boats. But I think it’s important that people have a maximally trusted and inclusive means of exchanging ideas and that it should be as trusted and transparent as possible.”

Musk’s interview with the Financial Times was wide-ranging and included the topic of his children, some of whom have publicly disowned him.

He also expressed his concern the American left has taken over academia and is warping the minds of young people. While he very briefly discussed his transgender daughter, Musk blamed “communism.”

“It’s full-on communism… and a general sentiment that if you’re rich, you’re evil,” He said. “[The relationship with her] may change, but I have very good relationships with all the others. Can’t win them all.”

The American left is evil, and yet Musk is still so ill-informed and brainwashed that he thinks anyone who disagrees with him is a communist. That’s classic right-wing propaganda, and it proves what an intellectually lazy person Elon Musk is and apparently always will be.

As for Truth Social, recent reports suggest it won’t be around much longer because it’s hemorrhaging money and losing investors.

Categories
Business Social Media

Elon Musk Says He’s Terminating His Purchase Of Twitter – But Legally He Can’t

After today, Elon Musk may want to change his last name to Mush, because his self-hyped proffer to buy Twitter is now on the rocks, and his attempt to extract himself from the deal is likely to cost him a cool fortune and may not happen at all, according to legal experts.

On Friday, attorneys for Musk filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to void the $44 billion deal. They also sent a letter to Twitter’s board of directors announcing termination of the deal. Musk and his lawyers maintain that he has every right to pull the plug on acquiring the social media giant because the company hasn’t provided enough information about the company, writing:

“Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information.”

Twitter was in no mood to debate Musk and made it clear they will force him to go through with the deal by taking him to court, with board chairman Bret Taylor noting:

“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”

Legal experts, the Washington Post reports, agree with Twitter that Musk cannot just void the deal and get off the hook for the $44 billion he pledged to pay:

His April agreement to buy the company included a commitment to go through with the acquisition unless there’s a major change to the business, and legal experts say nothing has happened to meet that threshold. Musk has previously threatened to scuttle the deal if Twitter didn’t give him more data to run his own analysis on how many spam bots it has, while Twitter has said it can’t give up personal information on its users like their names, emails and IP addresses, which it uses to come up with its own bot numbers.

Musk, according to those familiar with corporate law, agreed to buy the company as is, not some version of it after it met certain conditions that were never part of the original agreement.

Some suspect the real reason for Musk’s reluctance to complete the purchase is that he no longer has the capital needed due to significant losses of Tesla shares on the stock market. Those shares were a major portion of the money Musk put down to guarantee he was serious about the acquisition.

In the first six months of 2022, Musk’s wealth has plunged by $62 billion, and further reversals in the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes could more than double that amount by the end of the year.

Elon Musk is starting to sound like he’s almost as bad of a businessman as former president Donald Trump. But then again, no one is that incompetent.

 

Categories
Fox News Lies Social Media

Tucker Carlson Gets Cold Busted Lying About Why He Rejoined Twitter

Like all of the on-air hosts at Fox News, Tucker Carlson lies about everything, even when he’d be better served by telling the truth.

For example, on Monday evening, just hours after the announcement that Elon Musk had reached a deal to acquire social media platform Twitter, Carlson announced he was rejoining the site, even going so far as to announce it on his nightly show.

However, it turns out that Carlson lied about the reason he had returned to Twitter, according to Mediaite:

Tucker Carlson appears to have attempted to mislead his viewers as to why he is back on Twitter after a month-long break.

Carlson, who was suspended by the censor-happy platform on March 23, attributed his return on Monday to Elon Musk on his nightly show.

Carlson had his account locked for a disgusting tweet he posted suggesting that Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine — who is transgender — was a man.

The Fox News host commented on Levine’s biological sex after two other prominent accounts, those of the Babylon Bee and of Charlie Kirk, were suspended for calling Levine a “man.”

Afterwards, Fox said Carlson would refuse to delete the tweet, no matter the consequences.

And yet, he clearly did delete the offensive tweet, which led him to send out this message an hour before his Monday evening broadcast:

What happened? Once again, Mediaite explains:

Carlson’s Monday tweet appears to be the result of a decision to delete the Levine post, which no longer appears on his timeline.

So Tucker was never going to delete the tweet, but he did exactly that, which means he lied. Then he failed to admit he had deleted said tweet and pretended he was back on the platform because Musk was now the owner of Twitter.

There are lies, and then there are Fox News lies, which are always bigger, more obvious, and more pernicious.