Elon Musk and Twitter

[Hegemony]

I have a Twitter account. I follow a couple of great people, and I say nothing controversial whatsoever. I also follow some firebrands in my field, just to see what the furor is about. As far as I can observe, no one has ever changed anyone else's mind by lambasting them on Twitter.

Musk thinks he knows how to run a business, but I think there is practically no one else that thinks he will handle Twitter sensibly. He reminds me of those retired guys who write to History Departments saying, "Hey, I've read a lot of Time-Life military history books over the years, why don't I come and teach for you all?" Except this guy bought the department.

[mamselle]

Doesn't seem like Musk came in with much of a plan.

When she heard of the sale, a Fri said, "Well, that's good. There's almost nothing that can't be improved by having Elon Musk in charge of it..."

M.

[marshwiggle]

Just learned from another discussion board that Musk plans to charge for Twitter's Bluecheck. I had to google what that meant! :-)

As I understand it, that's for "verified accounts". If that means it takes some actual human intervention to "verify", then that makes sense and is quite reasonable.

Musk thinks he knows how to run a business, but I think there is practically no one else that thinks he will handle Twitter sensibly. He reminds me of those retired guys who write to History Departments saying, "Hey, I've read a lot of Time-Life military history books over the years, why don't I come and teach for you all?" Except this guy bought the department.

I seem to recall an interview where Musk said he knows many (most?) of his ideas will fail, but the few that succeed are worth it. Since Twitter is only one of his irons in the fire, I don't imagine even he is too concerned about whether it succeeds or not. Given the problems with it already, if it falls off the face of the Earth it won't be any big loss for society, and it's just money for Musk.

[secundem_artem]

At the risk of outing myself, a colleague commented that now, all Musk needs to do to cement his reputation as an evil genius is  shave his head, get a white Persian cat, and change his name to Blofeld.

[mamselle]

Comment on Colbert....

   https://youtu.be/LvlDDJBtmbQ

M.

[mahagonny]

Just learned from another discussion board that Musk plans to charge for Twitter's Bluecheck. I had to google what that meant! :-)

As I understand it, that's for "verified accounts". If that means it takes some actual human intervention to "verify", then that makes sense and is quite reasonable.

Musk thinks he knows how to run a business, but I think there is practically no one else that thinks he will handle Twitter sensibly. He reminds me of those retired guys who write to History Departments saying, "Hey, I've read a lot of Time-Life military history books over the years, why don't I come and teach for you all?" Except this guy bought the department.

I seem to recall an interview where Musk said he knows many (most?) of his ideas will fail, but the few that succeed are worth it. Since Twitter is only one of his irons in the fire, I don't imagine even he is too concerned about whether it succeeds or not. Given the problems with it already, if it falls off the face of the Earth it won't be any big loss for society, and it's just money for Musk.

Bummer. I was looking forward to seeing him personally devastated.