You know, Musk made a severe error of judgement IMO

[PCIntern]

We are judged by what we leave to ensuing generations. For the money he spent insanely on this Internet-based social media website, which consists of electrons which disappear, so to speak, essentially instantly, he could have built the tallest building in the world in any city in which she had chosen to build it. he could have created a structure which, like Rockefeller Center, would withstand ages of depreciation by erecting, say, a 3500 foot tower, and a huge complex underneath it with whatever he wanted.

For that kind of money, there is no limit to possibilities, and , it would have been something which would’ve been talked about for hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years. Instead, he’s got a failing website which is easily replaced by any one of 10 or 15 others at a fraction of the cost. All people have to do is agree to use a different place, and it will become the sanctum sanctorum of political and social thought.

What a waste of 44 billion dollars.

[msongs]

1. or the revamped twitter could be a leaner and meaner hate peddling cash machine nt

[Walleye]

2. Can you imagine? The Elon Musk cancer clinic

[Mr.Bill]

5. That would require him to consider the well-being

of other human beings, something a sociopath isn't capable of. Even Zuckerberg isn't that much of a sociopath.

[Javaman]

13. +1000 nt

[KPN]

14. No, I can't.

[Walleye]

17. Yeah right neither can I. Takes more imagination than I got

[tinrobot]

21. No, but I can absolutely imagine the Mackenzie Scott clinic

Because she's not a self-centered narcissist.

[Walleye]

23. I wouldn't be surprised that at all. Strange all that money,doesn't want to make people miserable

[rubbersole]

3. I'm curious to see how much of the $44bil is actually Musks...

The whole thing smells like a ruskie disinformation operation. Could be oligarchs just think alike. 🤔

[ProfessorGAC]

7. It's Over $30 Billion

The new borrowings were disclosed. $11 billion from venture capital. Might be another $2 billion from banks, but that might not have occurred.
Experts think the collateral was a mix of the $14 billion in assets and Musk's portfolio. Since there was already debt, the assets don't protect much of the new $11 billion.
It looks like he put himself on the hook for a really high fraction of it, if not all $33 billion.

[paleotn]

9. How much is unknown, but a sizable chunk is normal investment capital...

from the usual investment banks, hedge funds, etc. Where the money comes from is subject to a raft of regulatory scrutiny, so there may be some foreign money, but it's not all Moscow. Probably a bunch of different sources cobbled together to come up with $44B. Thinking is, much of the collateral for the debt is his own Tesla stock, the source of most of his wealth. Estimates have been kicked around that his debt service is around $1B per year.

Such exposure (he apparently bet the ranch) makes his behavior all the more puzzling. Unless he actually is an immature buffoon who just happened to be smiled on by the wealth gods. Regardless, he's coming dangerously close to losing much if not most of his fortune.....and with Toyota, GM and Ford EV's, just to name a few, nipping at Tesla's heels. I wouldn't want to be him right now. An epic crash and burn appears to be in his future.

[magicarpet]

4. Ego trumps rational thought.

[EYESORE 9001]

6. The former richest person in the world

traded the title for that of World’s Biggest Troll. I like to think I’d do something more worthwhile with wealth like that. Like commissioning a project to develop a prehensile bionic tail and have it implanted on myself. Trouble is, I’d have to wear coats with a high slit in the back.

[ShazzieB]

22. Well, with all that money, you could afford as many coats as you wanted!

All hand-tailored to fit perfectly around that bionic tail!

[Tetrachloride]

8. 44 billion wasn't lost. it was saved.

born in a manger

go tell it on the mountain

let nothing you dismay

right down Santa Claus Lane

[Snackshack]

10. A phenomenal waste of $$$

Serves him right…in this case his ego wrote a check he actually could cash. It doesn’t appear he has learned any lesson here. He didn’t want this, he tried to back out by all accounts but he ran off at the mouth or keyboard and had caused so much damaged to Twitter by then that Twitter was going to take him to court to keep his word,… so I have the popcorn out waiting for his next pr fuck up….and looky there…that’s not a good look at the WC.

Investor probably don’t really care who he is with but they certainly don’t like the publicity it will bring. “Do you think it is right to invest in a Musk company when he is seen with the bonesaw crew”?

I read a bio on him and it said he has like 8 children, plus a marriage, plus Tesla, Space X and now Twitter… his Outlook calendar must be just insane…but maybe he is trying to spend it all before he reaches the end, that would avoid all the legal mountains that size of an estate would have.

[CloudWatcher]

11. Musk burning billions

At this point, I have to consider Musk burning billions to be a much better outcome than
what evil he might have accomplished with that money.

Destroying Twitter (and possibly Telsa and SpaceX) kind of sucks, but compared to other
scenarios? I think we all got lucky.

[Walleye]

24. To me it seems like a pretty banal activity for a billionaire

[CloudWatcher]

26. Well .. start with the assumption ...

Start with the assumption that anyone having that much money is not
mentally well. If they were the least bit "human" they'd have given away
the money they didn't need long before they'd gotten to billionaire status.

Seriously, what sane person would keep it all?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. An error of Putinesque dimensions. . . . nt

[KPN]

15. ++++

[Historic NY]

16. Its suddenly sell sell sell at Tesla

[mahina]

18. He asked the UN what it would take to end world hunger and they said 6 billion

A year
And then he didn’t do it
But he did this
He is deserving all of what he gets

[Jon King]

19. Vote in the poll so he steps down as CEO.

Hopefully Twitter just goes away, in its current form its a disaster and mostly right wingnuts anyway.

[Warpy]

20. He went in with a lot of ignorant assumptions

Like firing half the staff (more women than men) would make it lean and mean enough to turn an instant profit. He seemingly had no clue that most of them were there because their jobs needed doing. He then announced the rest of them were going to have to start working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week: cue mass exodus of the rest.

Like letting go the moderation staff because he'd had some of his tackier posts hidden behind a warning. Nobody likes being called on putting a foot into his mouth, I suppose he thought his money should have insulated him from that.

Like being sold a muzzy headed libertarian idea of the marketplace of ideas in which only the good ideas survive and the hooting morons are soon silenced as they realize their own inferiority. Uh, Elon? That has never happened anywhere at any time. See: the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Oh, and he saw himself as the benevolent despot of the site.

[Walleye]

25. I keep thinking of the Kipling poem "The Gods of the Copybook Headings"

“As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:”

[niyad]

27. Easing hunger worldwide. Ending housing shortages. Healthcare. Education.

climate catastrophe. Many things one can do with 44 billion.

[PCIntern]

28. Yes but these guys almost never do that stuff