{"id":23935,"date":"2022-10-31T12:26:15","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T19:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=23935"},"modified":"2022-10-31T12:26:17","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T19:26:17","slug":"by-buying-twitter-elon-musk-has-created-his-own-hilarious-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/10\/31\/by-buying-twitter-elon-musk-has-created-his-own-hilarious-nightmare\/","title":{"rendered":"By Buying Twitter, Elon Musk Has Created His Own Hilarious Nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Musk will likely ruin Twitter for one specific user: himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/jonschwarz\/\">Jon Schwarz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>October 28 2022, 12:56\u00a0p.m. (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/join.theintercept.com\/donate\/now\/?referrer_post_id=412554&amp;referrer_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com%2F2022%2F10%2F28%2Felon-musk-twitter%2F%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3DThe%2520Intercept%2520Newsletter&amp;source=web_intercept_20221004_article-share\"><strong>BECOME A MEMBER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Stavanger, Norway, on Aug. 29, 2022.\u00a0 Photo: NTB\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ELON MUSK&nbsp;(and his consortium of much smaller investors) now owns Twitter. We need to take seriously the possibility that this will end up being one of the funniest things that\u2019s ever happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s because as of this moment, it looks like Musk dug a big hole in the forest, carefully filled it with punji sticks and crocodiles, and then jumped in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was made immediately clear by Musk\u2019s \u201cDear Twitter Advertisers\u201d tweet as the deal closed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Dear Twitter Advertisers <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GMwHmInPAS\">pic.twitter.com\/GMwHmInPAS<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1585619322239561728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 27, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The statement starts off, promisingly, with a blatant lie: \u201cThe reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital town square.\u201d Musk apparently believes that no one will remember that until three weeks ago, he was desperately trying&nbsp;<em>not<\/em>&nbsp;to buy Twitter. The only reason he did is because he was about to lose Twitter\u2019s lawsuit to force him to buy it. This may be the greatest \u201cyou can\u2019t fire me because I quit\u201d moment in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The significance of the rest of his statement is more subtle. To understand it, you have to start with the basics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Twitter currently makes 90 percent of its revenue from advertising. (The rest is largely from data licensing.) This means that you, the Twitter user, are not Twitter\u2019s customers. You are its product. Its customers are corporate advertisers and, as every businessperson knows, the customer is always right. Grocery stores care about the people shopping for Cheetos, not about the feelings of the Cheetos themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>https:\/\/o.prod.theintercept.com\/checkout\/template\/cacheableShow?aid=hsZyoAWmIE&#038;templateId=OTEXERHVRCE9&#038;templateVariantId=OTVEIU52VT7IF&#038;offerId=fakeOfferId&#038;experienceId=EX3LBE28N473&#038;iframeId=offer_d95877cf7d9b23ea09ec-0&#038;displayMode=inline&#038;pianoIdUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fid.tinypass.com%2Fid%2F&#038;widget=template&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Twitter\u2019s content moderation has sometimes been heavy-handed \u2014 especially when it froze my account&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2019\/11\/30\/david-duke-and-his-twitter-nazis-got-mad-at-me-twitter-took-their-side\/\">because David Duke got mad at me<\/a>. But this is not because Twitter is run by a woke mob. It\u2019s because Twitter needs to keep advertisers happy \u2014 and their top priority is a certain kind of environment for their ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This can take specific forms. Delta probably has it written into its contract that its ads won\u2019t run near any tweets about plane crashes. But more generally, advertisers don\u2019t want anything controversial that gets people out of the buying mood, or worse, mad at the brands themselves. Proctor &amp;&nbsp;Gamble can\u2019t allow its ads for Charmin, targeted at the Upscale Panera Mom micro-demographic, to appear below frothing diatribes about annihilating all Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Twitter is also, speaking just in financial terms, a crummy business. It\u2019s only been profitable&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2022\/04\/26\/business\/twitter-elon-musk-news#what-is-musk-buying-a-sporadically-profitable-social-company\">for two years<\/a>&nbsp;of its existence, 2018 and 2019. In 2020 it lost over&nbsp;$1 billion, rebounding to lose a mere $222 million in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To make matters worse, Musk\u2019s deal to buy Twitter involved taking out $12.5 billion in loans. This means that Twitter will have to come up with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-seen-swelling-the-companys-debt-11666609106?mod=series_musktwitter\">an additional $1 billion a year<\/a>&nbsp;to service this debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why Musk hit the ground running with a groveling attempt to propitiate advertisers. He absolutely must keep them happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus if Twitter&nbsp;simply continues on its current path, it will lose huge amounts of money indefinitely. But if advertisers get nervous about Musk\u2019s management and flee the platform, it could see losses every year in the multiple billions of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s true that Musk has said, \u201cI don\u2019t care about the economics at all.\u201d But even as the richest man on earth, he has to care about them. He has a current estimated net worth of $220 billion, but that\u2019s not $220 billion in cash sitting in a bank vault \u2014 it\u2019s mostly tied up in his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus to cover big Twitter losses, he would have to sell off more of his stock every year. This would be painful in monetary terms but more so in terms of power: Eventually he would get into a situation in which he could lose control of the companies, Tesla in particular. Moreover, Tesla is publicly traded, and while it\u2019s fallen 45 percent since its high a year ago, it&nbsp;remains&nbsp;way overvalued by normal metrics. Right now its price-earnings ratio is 70. The historical average for the S&amp;P 500 is about 15. The price-earnings ratio for both Ford and GM right now is 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why Musk hit the ground running with a groveling attempt to propitiate advertisers. He absolutely must keep them happy. As he put it, \u201cTwitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">MOST READ<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/31\/social-media-disinformation-dhs\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/31\/social-media-disinformation-dhs\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept-static.imgix.net\/usq\/e51b080d-a3ea-4fe9-b287-94f8de40f011\/e51b080d-a3ea-4fe9-b287-94f8de40f011.jpeg?auto=compress,format&amp;cs=srgb&amp;dpr=2&amp;h=440&amp;w=440&amp;fit=crop&amp;crop=faces%2Cedges&amp;_=447afb79911e8bcd129002c00723fbe9\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/31\/social-media-disinformation-dhs\/\">Leaked Documents Outline DHS\u2019s Plans to Police Disinformation<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/31\/social-media-disinformation-dhs\/\">Ken Klippenstein, Lee Fang<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/26\/matt-damon-crypto-commercial\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/26\/matt-damon-crypto-commercial\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept-static.imgix.net\/usq\/8b9a8260-1465-4b3c-96b8-d58574d58898\/8b9a8260-1465-4b3c-96b8-d58574d58898.jpeg?auto=compress,format&amp;cs=srgb&amp;dpr=2&amp;h=440&amp;w=440&amp;fit=crop&amp;crop=faces%2Cedges&amp;_=0f8db3a1e3d5ef3204831d84d3469e85\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/26\/matt-damon-crypto-commercial\/\">Here\u2019s How Much Money You\u2019ve Lost If You Took Matt Damon\u2019s Crypto Advice One Year Ago<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/26\/matt-damon-crypto-commercial\/\">Jon Schwarz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/25\/house-progressives-letter-russia-ukraine-diplomacy\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/25\/house-progressives-letter-russia-ukraine-diplomacy\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theintercept-static.imgix.net\/usq\/3043f131-bd6f-4175-94bb-65208dee153e\/3043f131-bd6f-4175-94bb-65208dee153e.jpeg?auto=compress,format&amp;cs=srgb&amp;dpr=2&amp;h=440&amp;w=440&amp;fit=crop&amp;crop=faces%2Cedges&amp;_=22bfd3d23c9ec54d41f7e202f81afc70\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/25\/house-progressives-letter-russia-ukraine-diplomacy\/\">House Progressives Float Diplomatic Path Toward Ending War in Ukraine, Get Annihilated, Quickly \u201cClarify\u201d<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2022\/10\/25\/house-progressives-letter-russia-ukraine-diplomacy\/\">Ryan Grim<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s where the hilarity begins. Musk has engaged in endless paeans to the glory of free speech and the need to end Twitter\u2019s invidious censorship. This clearly isn\u2019t a subject he\u2019s thought deeply about, since he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/b_fung\/status\/1524093307567149058\">said back in May<\/a>&nbsp;that Twitter should delete \u201ctweets that are wrong and bad.\u201d Still, his vague pronouncements have given him a legion of right-wing acolytes who feel they\u2019ve been ill-treated by Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But they are not Musk\u2019s constituency now. Advertisers are. Even if Musk had some genuine commitment to free speech (which he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JoshuaPHilll\/status\/1585663046801825794\">absolutely does not<\/a>), it would be essentially impossible for him not to continue significant content moderation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why, after a brief nod to his wish for Twitter to be a place \u201cwhere a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner,\u201d he quickly pivoted to telling advertisers that \u201cTwitter obviously cannot be a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences! In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This could have been the mission statement of pre-Musk Twitter. But now there\u2019s one big difference: When the content moderation of Twitter remains largely the same, the sense of betrayal among Musk\u2019s super-fans will explode with the force of a supernova. And they will scream at Musk about it nonstop \u2014 on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another mogul might have the fortitude to ignore this. But Musk does not, judging by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1279144671286038528\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">past performance<\/a>. You can also judge this by current performance: On his first full day on the job, Musk is personally \u201cdigging in\u201d to the complaints of Catturd &#x2122;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I will be digging in more today<\/p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1585959864454459393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 28, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And while Musk has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1586059953311137792\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;a new \u201ccontent moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints,\u201d he&nbsp;will feel constantly compelled to either explain why he\u2019s standing by his underlings\u2019 moderation decisions, or reverse them. Then he will inevitably be drawn into personally making more and more content calls, perhaps giving the thumbs up or thumbs down to individual tweets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will be hell on earth for him. No matter what decisions he makes, he will infuriate large swaths of Twitter. The left will see its suspicions about him confirmed. The right will see him as a horrendous sellout, just another lying Big Tech swine. Joe Rogan will shake his head sadly about what happened to Elon. Eventually what used to give Musk the greatest pleasure, opening up Twitter on his phone, will be a source of excruciating pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s just the beginning. Musk has important business interests around the world, and the potential riptides are endless. What happens when Kim Kardashian starts tweeting about how Taiwan is an independent country? Will the government of China quietly suggest to Musk that he do something about this, or&nbsp;will they make things hard for Tesla\u2019s Shanghai plant and block the import of Teslas? What do other Tesla shareholders do if he defies China, and they find out his little bird app adventure is losing them money? What happens when a SpaceX rocket explodes, but Musk has been too busy adjudicating which Nazi furries are going to be suspended for a month?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This future is obviously not foreordained. Possibly Musk will do what no human has ever been able to do before and invent&nbsp;1) content moderation that everyone likes at an enormous scale, and 2) a way to make huge amounts of money off Twitter. Maybe Tesla will become so profitable that he can use it to subsidize Twitter until 2090.&nbsp;But the most likely outcome is that he\u2019s just asked the monkey\u2019s paw to grant him his greatest wish. Now look as the paw crooks its gnarled finger, and Musk\u2019s love for Twitter ends up obliterating the Twitter experience for one specific user: Elon Musk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Musk will likely ruin Twitter for one specific user: himself. Jon Schwarz October 28 2022, 12:56\u00a0p.m. (CommonDreams.org) BECOME A MEMBER Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Stavanger, Norway, on Aug. 29, 2022.\u00a0 Photo: NTB\/AFP via Getty Images ELON MUSK&nbsp;(and his consortium of much smaller investors) now owns Twitter. We need to&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/10\/31\/by-buying-twitter-elon-musk-has-created-his-own-hilarious-nightmare\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23936,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23935\/revisions\/23936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}