Friday is the one-year anniversary of Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter, which he subsequently renamed X.
The big picture: Musk gets to benefit from the long-term nature of private equity. Which is good for him because, in the short term, this deal has been a steaming pile of blue bird poop.
It was never a bet, pretty sure it’s obvious to most everyone he did it to destroy it because he’s a child who can’t handle not being the center of attention.
No, it’s not obvious to most people, because it’s a theory that makes absolutely no goddamn sense.
- When you factor in the incredible damage done to the Tesla share price by the amount of stock he had to liquidate to finance the deal, and the almost billion a year in interest and operating costs the company is pulling out of him, the deal has, altogether, cost Musk about half of his net worth. No amount of petty childishness is worth that.
- He literally went to court to try to get out of the deal. What was his play here? To sue with the intention of failing? For what possible reason?
- If his plan was to kill Twitter, why would he attach his beloved X name to it? Musk has spent his entire life trying to make X happen. It is dearer to him than his own children. Why would he attach that brand to a company he’s intentionally sabotaging?
- If his goal is to kill Twitter, why is it still here? He owns the company outright. He took it private. There’s no board. There’s no shareholders. He doesn’t have a fiduciary responsibility. If he wanted Twitter dead, all he had to do was shut the doors, turn off the lights, and send everyone home.
Anyone who buys into this “He’s trying to kill Twitter” nonsense, please, I am begging you, try to get your head around the fact that Elon Musk is not a smart man. This isn’t some incredible 4D chess play. Twitter isn’t failing because of intentional sabotage; it’s failing because Musk is genuinely trying his best, and his best absolutely sucks. He’s a bad businessman who lucked into a fortune he never deserved.
The X thing is what got me. If I have a concept or naming scheme that is important to me on a personal level, there’s no way I would slap it on anything I knew that was disposable or on the way out, whatever.
Musk fucking loves this whole X thing.
Edit: although, its possible he’s being manipulated or there’s something bigger hiding behind him. Mob bosses or autocrats typically don’t give a fuck about putting the screws to people stupid or unfortunate enough to be in their webs.
Exactly.
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”.
- Hanlon’s razor
