Here’s the Musk playbook: Enter a field with very little competition. Claim that your new company will solve a massive, global problem or achieve a seemingly impossible goal. Raise money from a fervent group of true believers and keep them on the hook with flashy, half-baked product ideas. Suck up billions from the government. Underpay, undervalue, and overwork your employees. Repeat.
Twitter is the antithesis of an “Elon Musk company.” It’s an influential but small player in a field that is dominated by giant, well-funded competitors. The government is more likely to put the clamps on Twitter than give it some windfall contract. And Twitter’s employees have options: They can leave and work for companies that treat them much better than Musk ever would.
The Business Insider is predicting Twitter will be a bust.
They point out Musk ventures are not always successful—Solar City.
They might also mention X.com, Musk’s first attempt to have an internet payment system. He was CEO for six months until he was unceremoniously kicked out by the board because he was so erratic. They showered him with shares to get rid of him; X was later absorbed by PayPal and he got rich, quite accidentally.
I’ve posted this before, but Elon is in clear melt-down mode. Most of these companies are not in competition with Twitter in any meaningful way. Feels desperate.
There is something about some peoples‘ failures apparently being much more financially rewarding than most peoples‘ successes… I just can’t put my finger on what exactly though.
Solar city was absorbed into Tesla and actually is doing very well. It made a little over 1 billion last quarter and is growing at 38 percent. Not bad for an unsuccessful business.
Something seems to be going on in Tesla solar division.
After years of its solar business slowing down since acquiring it through taking over SolarCity in 2016, Tesla’s solar division was finally getting some momentum over the last few quarters.
Right I was discussing this with another person and they told me they thought that they were doing away with Solar city doing the installs. They were going to let other companies perform the installs and just provide the supplies. So hopefully that will help them to sell more equipment at higher Margins. I don’t know if that is true but we should know in a few quarters.
As offered here some time ago, my read is Musk sees Twitter as his personal megaphone. No-one else is allowed to promote anything, but he can use it to promote himself 24/7.
Twitter speculation enters the mix.
Musk’s seem to be driving users away & advertisers to suspend advertising on the platform. Perhaps should step down & turn the reins of power over to someone that hopefully will stop Twitter from being a money pit. Musk could then concentrate on Tesla where the money is being made & stop calls from Tesla shareholders demanding he step down from the CEO spot there because he attention is focused on Twitter.
The US is on the cusp of a recession. Where should Musk be concentrating his attention?
he should step down as head of the company had voted yes by the time the poll closed Monday.
There was no immediate announcement from Twitter, or Musk, about whether that would happen, though Musk said that he would abide by the results.
X.com (more or less an on-line bank) merged with their arch-rival Confinity. The result was still named X.com, with Elon as CEO for about six months when he was ousted and replaced by Peter Thiel.
And no, it wasn’t for being “erratic”, it was because Elon had a grand vision of X.com being a better bank and taking over the whole world of banking, a long-term vision. Those other guys were much more conservative, just wanting to make a good solution for person to person payments, to have a successful startup and sell out and get rich.
They were successful in that. Less than a year later they had renamed the company PayPal, after their main product. And a year or so after that they sold out to eBay. Everyone made a pile of money, including Elon, who had been the biggest shareholder all along.
There was nothing accidental about it. And Elon took his increased wealth and used it to start SpaceX, and fund Tesla soon after that.
It’s all fairly well documented. Elon’s plan for X.com then is essentially his plan for Twitter now: take over the entire financial world by being cheaper and more convenient and more secure.
Of course his recent descent into borderline insanity might put a bit of crimp in those plans.
I know he’s made some offhand references to an everything app. But has he actually said that he plans to pivot Twitter into something that would “tak[e] over the whole world of banking,” or something to that effect?
Well, yes, although it’s kind of spread out over time and place.
Take a look at this Twitter employee meeting transcript from November 10.
Then search for “The full answer to the payment story is complicated.” Among other things he says: “Then over time, you basically address what are all the things that you’d want from a finance standpoint. And if you address all things that you want from a finance standpoint, then we will be the people’s financial institution.”
Elsewhere, he’s said that there’s a path to Twitter becoming the most valuable financial company in the world. Certainly in his interview with Ron Baron (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiMvQSWr-v4), I think after minute 31. So connect the dots. Basically, his vision for X was to utterly disrupt the banking industry. That’s why he got kicked out for somebody more practical. With Twitter he’s back at it.
Now, with cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies available, it is possible to supplant not only banks but governments. He’s truly crazy if he things people with power are going to sit idly and watch that happen.
Me, I wish he’d just STFU and get back to space and cars.