this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023

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347

Twitter Turning Into X Is Set to Kill Billions in Brand Value (www.bnnbloomberg.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by Navarian@lemm.ee to c/technology@beehaw.org

89 comments fedilink hide all child comments

An estimated $4 to $20 billion in value, what is he thinking?

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[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 104 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Everything is tweets now, on all platforms; hear me out.

It might sound lazy, and I certainly have no loyalty to the Twitter brand, but if Musk isn't going to defend it we have the opportunity to dilute and generalize the term (like zipper or band-aid). We can kill it dead AND reclaim it.

It's a good word! Short, sweet, has familiarity, and is honestly pretty descriptive for the simple bird-like chatter of the discourse. Everything else proposed sounds dumb as hell, not to mention you're doing the marketing for them. Don't sell their brands - suffocate them!

[–] Cube6392@beehaw.org 98 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I enjoyed reading this tweet

[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 31 points 1 year ago

Not gonna lie, that still felt a little dirty. But I already posted it to the internet and there's no going backsies.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

As someone who prefers threaded interaction, it’s gonna be hard to stop calling them posts. Maybe that’s what my grandkids will think is old fashioned about me.

“They’s been posts since BBS and they’ll stay posts!”

[–] dbilitated@aussie.zone 15 points 1 year ago

I think personal micro-blogging (mastodon) and posting forum-style topics (reddit) can have different words?

[–] audaxdreik@pawb.social 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The original post was at least half joking in tone, but in seriousness, I think there's an argument to be made that "posts" applies to topical threads. Threads that originate with a piece of content like a link or self post and that all following discussion is at least tangentially related. I'd call them posts here on Lemmy for that.

Tweets, however, often originate out of thin air, be it someone's head or ass. When someone says, "Kanye West 'tweeted' " you've already determined about how seriously you're going to take it.

[–] Cube6392@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

So tweets will be the generic term for short top level posts that aren't responding to anything?

[–] binchicken@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 year ago

Nice tweet bro

[–] ghostdog@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

this appeals to me on such a visceral level.

[–] ArugulaZ@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

You make an interesting point, but I'm most comfortable calling them posts. Because that's what they are. The term "post" applies to any and all blogging services, regardless of their branding.

[–] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago

As long as nobody is using the term "toot" unironically, I'm OK with that

[–] Kara@kbin.social 80 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Our logo is our most recognizable asset. That’s why we’re so protective of it." -Twitter's (Currently Outdated) Brand Toolkit Page

[–] Moonrise2473@feddit.it 72 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The best part is that because now it's just Unicode 𝕏, the logo is public domain and it can be used by anyone in that exact shape in any context.

No matter how good are their patent lawyers, I don't think they will succeed to trademark prior art designed by someone else

[–] hh93@lemm.ee 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Also read that Microsoft is holding the trademark on 'X' because of DirectX, X-Box, etc...

I wonder how long until Elon pulls the "it's just a joke bro"

[–] realslef@fedia.io 15 points 1 year ago

Meta hold the trademark on X for social networking, I read. Maybe it will be in the prize pot for the cage fight?

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[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 64 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I don’t think twitter has $30B in valuation left. Musk bought it for $44B (which was beyond its value at the time, but okay). Since his takeover, it’s lost between 50-60% of its value. That was as of several months ago, so I have to imagine it’s even less now.

With the loss of brand equity, they might be sliding towards the single digit billions very quickly.

He’s just setting money on fire at this point.

[–] nutbiggums@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dude it's 4D chess brah /s

[–] SSUPII@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I have read here on Lemmy someone claim this is all political and just 4D chess to own the libs.

[–] Kerrigor@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What I don't understand is how he can still be in charge, at all? Do shareholders not have any legal mechanism to get him removed?

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

He’s the largest shareholder and it’s a private company, which is why we depend on companies holding his debt for guesstimates about the valuation. There’s no market forces that are punishing him for bad decisions, other than him not being able to service his/twitter’s debt based on twitter’s dwindling income.

Jack Dorsey and his Saudi partners agreed to hold onto their shares (ie, not force Musk to buy them) and together they held about $3.5B out of the $44B valuation when it went private. Dorsey just started offering some super gentle criticism while saying it’s a very hard job.

I don’t know if they’re under NDAs, or if they’re afraid of crashing their investments further by criticizing him in public, or if they just don’t care because what’s a few billion between friends. Maybe they’re sending him angry texts.

I’m just hoping that someone comes out with a tell-all that ends up being a movie called The Anti-Social Network.

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[–] Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Prior to Musk, IIRC, the valuation was around $11B.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

TWTR had about 765M shares outstanding. I didn’t follow them throughout the entire run up to the Muskening, but it looked like they were averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of $35/share, meaning their valuation would be about $25-30B. I’m deliberately ignoring the fact that they went into the 60s and 70s for an extended period in 2021 because I’m not sure what was driving that apart from cheap money and higher online activity during covid.

I still think he overpaid by a factor of about 1.5.

[–] mlong99@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So you’re saying it’s worth at least 20 billion? Still seems too high to me.

[–] SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

It’s probably between $15-20B right now.

I think it comes with a salvage title though.

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[–] donuts@kbin.social 45 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This fucking dude could have spent <$1M hiring a small team to spin up a heavily customized X-branded Mastodon server, but instead he spent $44 BILLION dollars buying and ruining Twitter.

How fucking crazy is that? That's fucking crazy... right?

[–] bermuda@beehaw.org 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

this is the guy who decided to build a tunnel under LA to skip traffic and then instead built one in las vegas that gets traffic jams

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 14 points 1 year ago (15 children)

wait he actually built that?

[–] bermuda@beehaw.org 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

yes but he built it in las vegas. It has a few stops and relies on teslas, each with a driver, and it functions as a very basic "public transit" system. Almost none of what he initially promised are present in the final design. Originally it was going to be his "hyperloop" thing. Then it was "autonomous vehicles." Now it's "teslas driven by people"

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This makes the most sense. Man he's trying really hard to not admit that a subway works pretty well, isn't he?

[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Haha you are right, he did try to reinvent the subway!

And any of the problems he mentioned could basically be fixed by spending -more- on public transit, rather than less… with the exception of it leaving from wherever you want and there being other people (though the more they run, the fewer people need to take each).

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 6 points 1 year ago

That's what bugs me about all of his "inventions", is that they aren't really new ideas, or even if they are they're wildly expensive for the benefits. Cities like Vegas look at him and thought "Oh wow finally we'll solve traffic with these new ideas!" when really they just need to invest in actual proven infrastructure like subways and commuter rail.

It's well known that Elon pitched the hyperloop in California because he wanted to kill California's high speed rail, because he'd rather have people buy Teslas then have an inexpensive fast way to travel between cities. He delayed the project for years over his wild claims, and people are still hesitant to it thanks to his selfishness.

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[–] Snapz@beehaw.org 39 points 1 year ago (5 children)

On purpose.

Only clearer by the day that this was all an exercise to intentionally kill Twitter to the benefit of billionaires, fascists and other extremists.

Twitter existed as a relatively free and open public space to communicate, organize and assemble to take actions for and against things at scale before musk (e.g. The Arab Spring, a terrifying moment for the Saudis especially - the second largest shareholder behind musk).

When people collectively laughed at elon and his cringe, inbred, emerald boy antics or his humiliating divorce and other routine failures, Twitter was the bullhorn.

Now elon and his desperate far right Toadies will work to try to rewrite reality so they can eventually have this conversation:

"Twitter? What's a Twitter? Wait, are you talking about blork? A bird? No, blork's logo is a dinosaur with chainsaw arms... and everyone wants to be his best friend... and it's against the law to divorce him... and he's cool... and..."

What an everlasting tool history will remember you as, elon. If they remember you at all, it will be to laugh at you - you'll never outrun that.

[–] Steeve@lemmy.ca 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Stop giving Musk so much credit, he's shown historically that he's just massive narcissistic fuck up who got lucky in the dot com bubble. There's no reason to think there's some far right conspiracy here, he only bought the website because he got in a pissing match and couldn't get out when he tried.

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[–] Navarian@lemm.ee 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm inclined to agree with others here in the thread. I honestly don't think this was an intentional action designed to tank Twitter. It may well be doing just that, but frankly, Elon has proven time and again that he's a world-class idiot.

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Musk did not pay $44 billion to buy Twitter. He paid $26 billion, underwritten by stock in Tesla, which subsequently lost significant value. $5 billion was from other investors including the Saudi Prince.

The remaining $13 billion was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on Musk's behalf. Even before Musk started tanking the revenue, Twitter could not afford that debt - the interest alone was comparible to its revenue. That debt is probably about what Twitter is worth right now after the name change, making it pretty much unviable as a business.

You don't have to look at Musk's antics to conclude that the intention was to kill the company. You only have to look at the financials.

Leveraged buyouts almost always lead to the business closing. It's how Toys R Us, and many other staple brands, were brought down.

[–] Kaladin_Stormblessed@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What does it mean for Twitter to take out a loan to buy itself?

[–] TWeaK@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

It means Musk & co only paid $31 billion, and only paid tax on $31 billion, while Twitter gets saddled with $13 billion in debt.

$44 billion was required to buy Twitter and pay off existing shareholders. The argument is that under the new ownership the new owners would be able to direct Twitter to take out a loan to further the business, however in practice they avoid tax and saddle the business with debt that it can't afford.

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[–] SlamDrag@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Twitter isn't and never was useful as an organizing tool. Arab spring was a failure. Twitter is actually more useful to the ruling class than not because it gives a way for the masses to expend it's restless energy without changing anything.

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[–] rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What an everlasting tool history will remember you as, elon.

Biggest tool in the history of tools.

Only clearer by the day that this was all an exercise to intentionally kill Twitter to the benefit of billionaires, fascists and other extremists.

When I initially heard about Elon paying what he did for Twitter my first thought was he's buying it to kill it, then I thought nobody in their right mind would spend that kind of money to carry out a personal vendetta. Now I think that's absolutely what's going on.

I believe he's killing Twitter purely for personal reasons (he hates it because people gave him shit there). I don't think there's some kind of grand social agenda. It would require an assumption he cares about someone other than himself. Unlikely as the guy's ego extends past Planet 9.

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[–] zxo@sopuli.xyz 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It seems to me that recently, Big Tech CEOs have been searching for interesting and creative ways to utterly destroy their company with no chance to rebuild it. Maybe he is trying to do that? At this point, it seems to me like Elon is doing his best diligence to set money on fire and run Twitter into the ground.

[–] Limeaide@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It honestly seems like some sort of virus going around. It has affected people I know, strangers I see on the street, CEOs, celebrities, comedians, etc.

People have just lost their common sense and are more likely to believe the impossible than the improbably. More likely to act out of spite than the interests of society as a whole, or even their own self interest.

Not sure if it was COVID, the internet, media, or idk what else, but people like Elon are popping up left and right. It's crazy and I don't even have the words to describe it.

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[–] style99@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

WR lose $900 billion any% speedrun

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty sure its been losing brand value since musk bought it

[–] norbert@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's why Jack Dorsey jumped on it. Why spend all your time and energy maintaining a completed project when you can take $44 billion and explore other, new projects..

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Jack Dorsey did not make that decision. The company had a board that made the decision.

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