Elon Musk Is Trying to Buy Twitter for $43 Billion

Tsing

The FPS Review
Staff member
Joined
May 6, 2019
Messages
12,595
Points
113
What's a man worth $265 billion to do with his absurd wealth? Buy one of the world's most popular social networks, apparently.

Go to post
 
I kinda hope he does buy it and take it private. I mean, really, what could possibly go wrong? I really only see two ways Twitter continues to exist: In one, it turns into another 4Chan and only the "special people" stick around. In the other, it essentially just stays as another advertisement medium -- either your hawking a product or your hawking your influencer cred/brand. In either scenario average people serve no purpose other than to be followers. Sure you can tweet out to your hearts desire, but unless you have thousands and millions of followers, who cares? You may as well be the begger on the street corner who mumbles to themselves as cars drive by.

I don't know why else it even exists where Whatsapp, iMessage, TikTok, Instagram, and however many other platforms with so much more capability are around. I mean, even old fashioned email ...

Outside of influencers and the media, who really uses Twitter for anything anyway? So why not, Elon - what else are you going to use that money on?
 
Meh,

If he wants that **** show, let him have it.

I've considered Twitter to be a passing fad ever since it first came into existence 16 years ago. I'm amazed it has lasted this long.

I think Eric Schmidt said it right, that it is a poor mans email.

The character limit is so restrictive that it makes it an ineffective platform to actually have a conversation or share information.

That and the company has repeatedly utterly failed to monetize their user base.

I see twitter as having absolutely no value what so ever. If that tool Musk wants to waste $43B on it, more power to him. Why doesn't he buy Yahoo while he is at it?
 
Tsing said:
What's a man worth $265 billion to do with his absurd wealth? Buy one of the world's most popular social networks, apparently.

Go to post
Click to expand...
Sheesh 265 billion? Musk could give every USA citizen a million bucks each and still have 264 billion laying around. He wouldn't even feel it. This makes me sad when I look at my retirement account and wonder how I'm going to live off of that....

edit - actually google says 273 billion
 
Burticus said:
edit - actually google says 273 billion
Click to expand...
Just depends on whatever Tesla stock is trading for that day - that’s where all that is tied up into. Tesla drops by $1 and the headline is “Musk loses $14B in one day”
 
Zarathustra said:
Meh,

If he wants that **** show, let him have it.

I've considered Twitter to be a passing fad ever since it first came into existence 16 years ago. I'm amazed it has lasted this long.

I think Eric Schmidt said it right, that it is a poor mans email.

The character limit is so restrictive that it makes it an ineffective platform to actually have a conversation or share information.

That and the company has repeatedly utterly failed to monetize their user base.

I see twitter as having absolutely no value what so ever. If that tool Musk wants to waste $43B on it, more power to him. Why doesn't he buy Yahoo while he is at it?
Click to expand...
Well said. This pretty much sums up my thoughts on it. That being said, it obviously appeals to a broad range of people for whatever reason.
 
Burticus said:
Sheesh 265 billion? Musk could give every USA citizen a million bucks each and still have 264 billion laying around. He wouldn't even feel it. This makes me sad when I look at my retirement account and wonder how I'm going to live off of that....

edit - actually google says 273 billion
Click to expand...
There are over 400 million Americans. He would need 400 trillion to give every American a million.
At least America is still first at being bad at math. ;)
 
Yeah, 265 billion most of which is in Tesla stock, a company with grossly overvalued stock price. According the stock market Tesla is worth as much as all other US carmakers combined, yet produces 1% of the number of cars while barely making a profit. And SpaceX is on the verge in bankruptcy apparently. So that 265 billion is paper thin.
 
As for twitter, I still don't understand how one can use that in any meaningful way. It constantly shows out of context messages to me. Someone I followed replies to someone, and it only shows the reply, but not the OP. What good is that? Also every message is it's own thread, it is a squid, with no telling where a conversation begins and ends.

if you can even call something a conversation where you are limited to 280 characters.
 
Burticus said:
Sheesh 265 billion? Musk could give every USA citizen a million bucks each and still have 264 billion laying around. He wouldn't even feel it. This makes me sad when I look at my retirement account and wonder how I'm going to live off of that....

edit - actually google says 273 billion
Click to expand...

273 billion (his wealth per your post) / 332 million (approximate U.S. population) = $822.29 for each American.

And that's if he gave it ALL away, and why would he? It's his.

Large numbers are difficult, I get it, but on the scale of global or even national problems, $273B wouldn't go very far to fix anything at all.
 
Zarathustra said:
273 billion (his wealth per your post) / 332 million (approximate U.S. population) = $822.29 for each American.

And that's if he gave it ALL away, and why would he? It's his.

Large numbers are difficult, I get it, but on the scale of global or even national problems, $273B wouldn't go very far to fix anything at all.
Click to expand...
Well it's about 8 times what the pandemic cost my country in extra expenses, on a scale of countries like the USA its small potatoes.
 
Burticus said:
Sheesh 265 billion? Musk could give every USA citizen a million bucks each and still have 264 billion laying around. He wouldn't even feel it. This makes me sad when I look at my retirement account and wonder how I'm going to live off of that....

edit - actually google says 273 billion
Click to expand...

Besides the obvious math fail that others have pointed out. Musk does not have $274 billion dollars sitting around in a bank account that he can give it away. Guessing you skipped math AND economics 101?
 
So, curious side bar.

At what point do you consider having enough wealth that "more" doesn't really matter?

Or, phrased a bit different, how would you define "wealthy"?

My answer to both of those is the same - the point at which more wealth can no longer increase your quality of life or standard of living. But even that answer is somewhat objective.
 
LeRoy_Blanchard said:
Besides the obvious math fail that others have pointed out. Musk does not have $274 billion dollars sitting around in a bank account that he can give it away. Guessing you skipped math AND economics 101?
Click to expand...

That is exactly the point. Most of these founder type billionaires have most of their wealth tied up in shares, and if they sell their shares they risk losing what control they have over their babies (either outright through majority positions or due to alliances with other shareholders). This is why you rarely see them doing philanthropic things until they retire. Once they do they can afford to cash out, and once they cash out they have these huge sums in actually usable money.

You see this time and time again, either from the railroad tycoons of the 19th century, and from the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Once they retire and ave given up on controlling their business empires, that is when they turn to philanthropy.
 
Zarathustra said:
That is exactly the point. Most of these founder type billionaires have most of their wealth tied up in shares, and if they sell their shares they risk losing what control they have over their babies (either outright through majority positions or due to alliances with other shareholders). This is why you rarely see them doing philanthropic things until they retire. Once they do they can afford to cash out, and once they cash out they have these huge sums in actually usable money.

You see this time and time again, either from the railroad tycoons of the 19th century, and from the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Once they retire and ave given up on controlling their business empires, that is when they turn to philanthropy.
Click to expand...

Yup, and even when they do that it's no where near the amount of money they were "worth" when they were in control. However, it's way more than any of us will ever earn in a lifetime. Well, until I win the lottery at least.
 
Brian_B said:
I kinda hope he does buy it and take it private. I mean, really, what could possibly go wrong? I really only see two ways Twitter continues to exist: In one, it turns into another 4Chan and only the "special people" stick around. In the other, it essentially just stays as another advertisement medium -- either your hawking a product or your hawking your influencer cred/brand. In either scenario average people serve no purpose other than to be followers. Sure you can tweet out to your hearts desire, but unless you have thousands and millions of followers, who cares? You may as well be the begger on the street corner who mumbles to themselves as cars drive by.

I don't know why else it even exists where Whatsapp, iMessage, TikTok, Instagram, and however many other platforms with so much more capability are around. I mean, even old fashioned email ...

Outside of influencers and the media, who really uses Twitter for anything anyway? So why not, Elon - what else are you going to use that money on?
Click to expand...
Investors use it a lot, tbh. Sure, there’s Stocktwits, but it kinda sucks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Become a Patron!
Back
Top