Edit - FWIW, I waffle back and forth on this one. I mean, the guy's not a complete idiot. Though I don't certainly think he's the genius people often think he is. He's needed had a fair amount of luck and self-serving coercion to get where he is. The Twitter stuff is just so blind to market reality that I wonder if there's some self-sabotage in there?

(Either way, I am genuinely enjoying the the follow-on comments here!)

[–] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

~~Nah, he never wanted to buy it.~~

~~It was a pump and dump and then the SEC forced him to actually buy it.~~

He tried to back out but was forced to complete the sale.

Now he has no idea what to do with it and is just digging himself deeper and deeper and deeper.

[–] microphone900@lemmy.ml 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter?

Well, he is kinda following a random message he got from an unknown person:

The three texts were sent on April 4, 2022. In the nearly 18 months since then, many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination.

The text messages described a series of actions Musk should take after he gained full control of the social media platform: “Step 1: Blame the platform for its users; Step 2: Coordinated pressure campaign; Step 3: Exodus of the Bluechecks; Step 4: Deplatforming.”

Seems he's killing it to get cheers and adulation from the far right.

[–] ech@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

If he wanted to kill it, this whole charade would be utterly pointless. He could literally just pull the plug.

[–] mibo80@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

I like this take, too. I also see him spinning this into major tax write offs, or something. Even losses benefit billionaires in this country it seems.

[–] Uranium3006@kbin.social 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That makes No sense. He's just bad at busniess

[–] ulkesh 8 points 11 months ago

Yep, exactly. He’s an idiot who happens to be a billionaire who thinks he’s iron man with the IQ of Einstein. It’s a dangerous combination. I’m just glad he can’t become president of the US — we don’t need another of his ilk.

[–] agitatedpotato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago

Maybe hes just using it to hide something.

[–] gerryflap@feddit.nl 48 points 11 months ago

As a European: yes please. Fck off and never come back Elon

[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 38 points 11 months ago

You're welcome to leave!!

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

[–] Hubi@feddit.de 13 points 11 months ago

[–] fisco@lemmy.ml 21 points 11 months ago

Best idea he's had so far....twitter is dead anyway...💥

[–] redimk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 11 months ago

Just shut down the damn app by this point, man.

[–] DmMacniel@feddit.de 20 points 11 months ago

I see this as a perfect win.

[–] runiq@feddit.de 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

[–] Zellith@kbin.social 11 points 11 months ago

Bye Felicia. Nothing of value will be lost.

[–] DrugsMcChrist@lemmy.ml 11 points 11 months ago

oh no not that

[–] library_napper@monyet.cc 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Do North America next plz

[–] Ooops@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

How often have we heard that empty promise now?

C'mon... you can do it!

[–] TubeTalkerX@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

Thanks Rob!

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 points 11 months ago

Don't threaten us with a good time.

[–] pushingice@iusearchlinux.fyi 7 points 11 months ago

Please piss off Musk

[–] Foni@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago

A few years ago Facebook made the same threats and they are still there, screwing up. They are still empty threats and we all know that they will not do it

[–] MxM111@kbin.social 6 points 11 months ago

Promises, promises…

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

As much as I’d like to see this happen, I don’t think he’ll actually do it. His ego will not allow retreat.

Then again, if he spins it as a moral act of defiance against “woke” and “overreaching” Big Government regulations, I could see it. I still don’t think it’s likely, but it’s more of a possibility than it seemed when I started typing this comment.

[–] Zellith@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago

His ego is why I hope to god he starts charging money for access to the service. I can imagine the number of likes, retweets and follows taking a huge nosedive as the musk fanatics stop using bots to prop him up.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago

I don't care what Phony Stark is "considering" - I only care whether he fucks off or not.

[–] azerial@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 11 months ago

Dumpster fire.

[–] shiveyarbles 4 points 11 months ago

$44 billion.. x marks the money hole

[–] TubeTalkerX@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

Bye Felicia!

[–] TheFrirish@jlai.lu 4 points 11 months ago

Yes please

[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

So while we all rightfully hate Musk, what does "removing twitter from the EU" even look like? Does he just stop doing business with all European ad-agencies, get rid of the safety blanket that twitter installed to molify the German government, and basically through inaction allow European users who want to user twitter use it without materially supporting Musk through ads at all? That sounds like a win for european users who still want to use twitter.

Does the EU step in and trip over their collective dicks trying to censor twitter from EU users? That doesn't like something that anyone should desire, or support, it would also be ineffective. Does Twitter try to trip over their dicks trying to censor twitter from EU users? Given how well twitter is run, I look forward to most EU users who want to use twitter being able to do so almost trivially after just a few months. So basically Musk can't make money from twitter in the EU, but who cares? It's already losing astounding amounts of money. It's not a sustainable business, and it never was going to be.

So it sounds like even if this was going to happen (it won't, he'll just shut down all of twitter when he realizes he can't pay for it anymore,) that it will improve the experience for everyone who still uses it, including those in the EU, and twitter will have even less oversight then it does today.

[–] XTornado@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I expect a "This page is not available to European Users" page setup by X when entering and that's it similar to some pages that didn't want to to deal with GDPR did. Maybe since this is Elon Musk some rant or some crazy shit on it but that's basically it.

The thing with European ads agencies side not sure, the issue of X with Europe doesn't have much to do with them or in any case European Users wouldn't be effected by their ads anyway if the page is blocked and they might have ads for the USA I guess? So not sure if that would stop.

Of course regarding access VPNs and similar would still work... But really at least in my case I don't see myself using a VPN just to check Twitter... I will simply stop using it I barely use it already just as an RSS alternative to get some notifications.

[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

The issue is that in order to block a website on the internet from a subset of users, there is a huge amount of work that has to be done to make it effective. I can't imagine twitter would bother with any of that, and why would they? It doesn't cost them anything to just shut down their EU offices/operations, stop complying with all EU laws they have to comply with in order to do business there, and make twitter (even more) American-centric. EU users can still use it if they want, since at the end of the day it's just a website on the internet.

[–] Syldon@feddit.uk 3 points 11 months ago

Cya

[–] AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago

Yeah, that'll show them!

[–] rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 11 months ago

👍

[–] Railison@aussie.zone 2 points 11 months ago

Good riddance!

[–] Rearsays@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

Eu feels very much like they don’t want any balls in their ball pit. I hate their garbage cookie compliance spam they forced on all of us crapping up the internet

[–] blazera@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

I hate musk and his handling of twitter, but i also dont like EU's anti-privacy push online

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago