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Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?


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20 minutes ago, Homercles said:

I relish the idea of Musk burning down Twitter because I want to see what he embodies fail, despite unlimited funds…out of control narcissism hitched to the hate wagon.  You seem to relish an entire collection of pee-ons getting their comeuppance because they haven’t hitched their wagon to the almighty dollar.  

Hear hear... and as much as I really like Twitter, i just want to see him publicly screw it all up (so long as my place in line on Post comes up, thank you)

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16 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

 

Nice math.
 

All the hand wringing here about Twitter’s profitability and I don’t think I’ve seen it once mentioned how much reducing headcount will help their bottom line. Only that without all those vital personnel, Twitter won’t make it through whichever weekend. 

Every time I think, welp, we've seen the absolute stupidest parts of Humble Beast and he'll surely catch a slight clue and do a little better next time, you manage to disappoint. Every single time.

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5 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Elon fanbois’ glee at all these workers being fired or bullied into shitty working conditions reveals what libertarianism/anarchism-capitalism weirdos are really all about: they’re about authoritarianism, but they’re the authoritarians. 
 

I am deeply serious about this, I used to dwell in the weird corners, where Lew Rockwell is the entry point and not the destination. There’s lip service to freedom of speech and drunk driving laws, but what really gets them spun up is when the gubmint dictates that “bosses” can’t do whatever they want to everyone else. Anti-discrimination laws. Exploitative contracts and child labor being illegal. Worker safety. Basic labor laws like overtime.  That’s where the outrage is, concealed in the rhetoric of “in a free market any contract should be legal.” 
 

And they’re always the authoritarian heroes, too, never the shat-upon. The real anger is not at being stifled or restricted, the anger is at the government for preventing them from exploiting others, and being in charge. That’s why they only cheer the market when it exerts force downward and not when consumers or workers exert force upward through things like ad boycotts. That fucks up the authoritarian wet dream.

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I shall never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine” — John Galt

It’s that second part that in my experience all the self-professed “libertarians” overlook. They’re all frauds. 

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When the Financial Times decides to run a hit piece, you know it's bad:

https://www.ft.com/content/126219c4-5ac0-4c8b-996c-307c24a4cd61

 

Quote

Elon Musk’s tumultuous reign at Twitter has led to a damaging rift with top brands and marketers, with the social media company’s $5bn-a-year advertising business hit by tensions over content moderation and resources. Multiple top advertising agencies and media buyers told the Financial Times that nearly all of the big brands they represent have paused spending on the social media platform, citing alarm at Musk’s ad hoc approach to policing content and decision to axe many of its ad sales team.

 

 

Quote

Musk, meanwhile, has sought to personally call chief executives of some brands that have curbed advertising in order to berate them, according to one senior industry figure, leading others to instead reduce their spend to the bare minimum required so as to avoid further confrontation with the billionaire entrepreneur. After several waves of job cuts and departures, Twitter’s ads business team has shrunk so much that many agencies no longer have any point of contact at the company and have received little to no communication in recent weeks, according to four industry insiders.

 

 

Spoiler


Some brands have been unable to get feedback on how previous campaigns have performed because of the staffing shortages, one media buyer said. Others are complaining Twitter’s ads systems have also become buggy, making it difficult or even impossible to run campaigns.

“It is quite unique. The turmoil, the damage, nothing of this magnitude has happened before. Never,” said a senior executive at a big four advertising agency.

“He seems to put off even those advertisers who wanted him to succeed,” another top advertising agency executive said.

Musk is under pressure to draw revenues from Twitter, as he faces $1bn in annual interest payments after loading the company with $13bn of debt to help fund his acquisition of the business.

On October 27, the day he closed his $44bn deal to buy Twitter, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive sought to reassure marketers that the platform would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” despite his plans to relax content moderation restrictions.

Soon after, he conducted rounds of calls and meetings to reassure top ads agencies and brands. One email, sent in early November and seen by the Financial Times, said of Musk: “He’s one of the greatest innovators in the world, and he understands our platform and product at a level that few people do. He wants to ship exciting things, and he wants to do it quickly.” 

In the meetings, Musk appeared across all the details of how the platform is run, two agency executives said, impressing brands with his knowledge. “He knows more than [former chief executive] Jack Dorsey ever did. He has immersed himself very deeply in the business,” a senior executive at a top advertising agency said.

However, the relationship soon soured after Musk laid off more than half of the company’s 7,500 workforce, upending Twitter’s ads sales team and trust and safety team, and heightening concerns that misinformation and hate speech could proliferate on the platform.

Groups such as General Motors, Volkswagen, Carlsberg and General Mills, have announced they would be pausing spending on the platform given the moderation concerns. Many in the advertising industry have struggled to keep track of the changes. Robin Wheeler, who started heading up Twitter’s ads sales business under Musk after the former chief Sarah Personette resigned, left the company last week. Bloomberg reported that Wheeler was fired by Musk after refusing to sack more people in the ad sales team. Twitter and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.


Musk’s own use of Twitter — including reposting conspiracy theories and interacting with controversial accounts — has also unnerved brands who fear their content being placed next to toxic posts.

The self-described “free speech absolutist” has further irked advertisers when he relaunched Twitter’s premium subscription service, Twitter Blue, as its “blue tick” feature was abused by impersonators, targeting politicians and brands such as Eli Lilly and Lockheed Martin. He initially paused the rollout of the service until there is a “high confidence of stopping impersonation”, saying on Friday that he would aim to launch it the following Friday.

Last week, Musk also began to reverse certain permanent bans of high-profile figures, such as former US president Donald Trump, despite previously pledging not to do so until he had convened a content moderation council of experts.

When asked on Tuesday why he reversed the bans without setting up the council as promised, Musk said “a large coalition of political/social activist groups agreed not to try to kill Twitter by starving us of advertising revenue if I agreed to this condition”. He added: “They broke the deal.” Several left-leaning groups have been pressuring brands to pull their spending.

The shake-up appears to have had a knock-on effect on Twitter’s advertising technology. Gabby Krite, Head of Digital Operations at The Kite Factory, which used to spend “hundreds of thousands” of dollars per year on the platform, said she was experiencing technical difficulties in placing or changing advertising campaigns. “Tech issues on campaign management . . . mean it’s completely unreliable as a platform to use,” she said.

Analysis by left-leaning non-profit Media Matters suggested 50 of the top 100 advertisers — accounting for $750mn in advertising in 2022 — had paused or announced their intention to pause spending since Musk took the helm, and a further seven had reduced spending to a trickle. Those 50 advertisers accounted for $317mn of Twitter’s $5bn in revenues in 2021, Media Matters said.

Agencies too have put out directives. In mid-November, Omnicom Media Group recommended clients pause spending on the platform, according to three people familiar with the move, following a similar recommendation from Interpublic. Last week WPP’s GroupM raised their assessment of the risk of advertising on the platform to “high risk”, two people familiar with the situation said.

Omnicom declined to comment. Interpublic and GroupM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is unclear if and when brands will return. “It’s hard to have criteria [for returning to the platform] when Musk manages by tweet and something changes on the platform every day that causes advertisers concern,” said an executive at another advertising agency.

“Musk’s best chance of bringing advertisers back to Twitter is to appoint a new CEO,” said Darren Savage, chief strategy officer at Tribal Worldwide. “Particularly, one who understands what Twitter is, has the credibility with advertisers, and users — and is then left alone to do their job.”

 

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19 hours ago, Humble Beast said:

I agree that it will be very interesting to see how it plays out.
 

I pointed out the expense reduction because literally no one here has despite waxing on and on about profitability. In the end I think there’s a good chance these advertisers come back. If the traffic and eyeballs are on the app, then you’re hurting your business by not being involved if you thought it was a worthwhile spend in the past. If that happens, you have costs down where you’re profitable. As a bonus, the remaining workforce is committed and harder working by default than all the divas that have left. The path is there. Whether it happens remains to be seen. 

 

Porn gets a lot of eyeballs too but you don’t see General Mills trying to sell you Lucky Charms on Pornhub. 

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1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:


FiivUqIWIAAG2XE?format=jpg&name=large
 

 

 

Why is their slide background the back cover of a used Scantron Blue Book?  And why is the date on slide 2 from 2020…if Twitter is anything like my employer, they average about a full man hour for every minute of exec time, so someone would have caught that if it was an oversight.  

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6 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Elon fanbois’ glee at all these workers being fired or bullied into shitty working conditions reveals what libertarianism/anarchism-capitalism weirdos are really all about: they’re about authoritarianism, but they’re the authoritarians. 
 

I am deeply serious about this, I used to dwell in the weird corners, where Lew Rockwell is the entry point and not the destination. There’s lip service to freedom of speech and drunk driving laws, but what really gets them spun up is when the gubmint dictates that “bosses” can’t do whatever they want to everyone else. Anti-discrimination laws. Exploitative contracts and child labor being illegal. Worker safety. Basic labor laws like overtime.  That’s where the outrage is, concealed in the rhetoric of “in a free market any contract should be legal.” 
 

And they’re always the authoritarian heroes, too, never the shat-upon. The real anger is not at being stifled or restricted, the anger is at the government for preventing them from exploiting others, and being in charge. That’s why they only cheer the market when it exerts force downward and not when consumers or workers exert force upward through things like ad boycotts. That fucks up the authoritarian wet dream.

 

1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I shall never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine” — John Galt

It’s that second part that in my experience all the self-professed “libertarians” overlook. They’re all frauds. 

Two fantastic posts.  And again, the overlap is quite telling.  Elon fanboys, crypto, Brexit, Putin fanboys, anti-vax, all that shit - if you’re an Elon fanboy, you’re all-in on AT LEAST one of those others.  

And the note on authoritarianism is spot-on: they aren’t opposed to authoritarianism or fascism, even though they often say they are.  What they are opposed to is fascism/authoritarianism where THEY aren’t the ones in charge.  They think it’s GREAT if it’s them and theirs in charge.

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6 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Elon fanbois’ glee at all these workers being fired or bullied into shitty working conditions reveals what libertarianism/anarchism-capitalism weirdos are really all about: they’re about authoritarianism, but they’re the authoritarians. 
 

I am deeply serious about this, I used to dwell in the weird corners, where Lew Rockwell is the entry point and not the destination. There’s lip service to freedom of speech and drunk driving laws, but what really gets them spun up is when the gubmint dictates that “bosses” can’t do whatever they want to everyone else. Anti-discrimination laws. Exploitative contracts and child labor being illegal. Worker safety. Basic labor laws like overtime.  That’s where the outrage is, concealed in the rhetoric of “in a free market any contract should be legal.” 
 

And they’re always the authoritarian heroes, too, never the shat-upon. The real anger is not at being stifled or restricted, the anger is at the government for preventing them from exploiting others, and being in charge. That’s why they only cheer the market when it exerts force downward and not when consumers or workers exert force upward through things like ad boycotts. That fucks up the authoritarian wet dream.

This is also why they hate age of consent laws.

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21 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

This is also why they hate age of consent laws.

Oh yeah, I forgot the other overlap: incels/dudes with terrible social skills (who often have a hard time making a connection with women).  They can’t convince people to like them on their merits, so they’ll force them to - whether that be through actually force/orders or by them somehow wielding such disproportionate power that “they cant HELP but love me…or live in fear of me, I don’t see much of a difference.”  Look no further than the “sexual success” that their god Elon has had; do you think any of his baby mamas have fucked him because they genuinely find him lovable and charming?  It is his money and power that opens their legs.  And that’s what many of his fanboys aspire to, because that’s the only shot they have.

Edited by Brisketexan
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58 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Analysis by left-leaning non-profit Media Matters suggested 50 of the top 100 advertisers — accounting for $750mn in advertising in 2022 — had paused or announced their intention to pause spending since Musk took the helm, and a further seven had reduced spending to a trickle. Those 50 advertisers accounted for $317mn of Twitter’s $5bn in revenues in 2021, Media Matters said.

Funny how they use "left-leaning" to describe Media Matters but not not surprising because the WSJ's owner, Murdoch, is often a target of MM's Reality Based Analysis.

 

1 hour ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Musk, meanwhile, has sought to personally call chief executives of some brands that have curbed advertising in order to berate them, according to one senior industry figure, leading others to instead reduce their spend to the bare minimum required so as to avoid further confrontation with the billionaire entrepreneur.

It's interesting how the most blustery, most obnoxious people are typically also the biggest snowflakes.

Quote

When asked on Tuesday why he reversed the bans without setting up the council as promised, Musk said “a large coalition of political/social activist groups agreed not to try to kill Twitter by starving us of advertising revenue if I agreed to this condition”. He added: “They broke the deal.” Several left-leaning groups have been pressuring brands to pull their spending.

Notably they re-print Musk's self-serving explanation, which was proven false days ago.

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1 hour ago, Bateshorn said:

In general, I find that anyone who espouses Rand after the age of 20 to be both intellectually and morally weak. 

It’s a stage a lot of young white men that are a little smart go through, but you need to grow out of it. It usually happens when you realize women hate it when you talk like an Ayn Rand character. 

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1 minute ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s a stage a lot of young white men that are a little smart go through, but you need to grow out of it. It usually happens when you realize women hate it when you talk like an Ayn Rand character. 

Excellent point.  It’s kind of a developmental fork in the road: do you decide to modify your behavior to be more socially  attractive, empathetic, and likable….or do you bitterly conclude that all women are “Stacies” who just want “Chads,” and they’re just too dumb to realize what a superior specimen you are?

I fear that the internet, and its echo chambers, make the second path much easier/more tempting.  Yeah, the problem can’t be ME, because I’m clearly AWESOME…the problem is all those dumb shallow bitches!  Yeah, me too, bro!

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23 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Both of Musk’s flagship companies are part of the military-industrial complex and/or profit thanks to U.S. government subsidies and programs. That’s why it’s so odd that his biggest fanboys right wing/libertarian/anarcho-capitalist weirdos. 
 

(MIC and subsides aren’t a criticism for me, it is awesome and cool that the United States is the world’s leading military power and I think the government should help drive and steer innovation).

It is not odd. His fans, including right-wingers and libertarians, don't really know how shit works.   They think Trump is a self-made man.  They think, Elon is a self-made man.  Those idiots think Ayn Rand was smart.  She was a moron in an academic sense, but a genius at influencing the dumb. 

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12 minutes ago, Nivek said:

It is not odd. His fans, including right-wingers and libertarians, don't really know how shit works.   They think Trump is a self-made man.  They think, Elon is a self-made man.  Those idiots think Ayn Rand was smart.  She was a moron in an academic sense, but a genius at influencing the dumb. 

The dumber you are, the more the dumb people like you

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2 hours ago, chainsaw said:

does this jackass have nothing better to do than reply to massimo at 3:42 in the morning

Okay - so let me explain this to everyone. I will type slowly - so I can understand my own words.

Elon Musk's twitter account is now being run by a bot; but not just any ordinary bot, this is a OpenAI bot (it is actually the virtual love child of Elon and the Senior VP chick he was/is banging) beta version 69.420 of OpenAI twitter bot. It has become self aware and is in full response mode to any and all things that relate to Twitter, Tesla, population decline, and anything related to the number 88.
I fully welcome Elon Musk OpenAI Twitter Bot (EMO ITB) to the wild and crazy world of Twitter.

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4 hours ago, Bateshorn said:

My version is: You are a sentient sack of meat on a speck of dust hurtling through an infinite void. Your specific life is the result of random biological chance, and from a universal time perspective, is so short that it doesn’t really merit relative measurement. 
 

Try to enjoy your time here.

And yet you decided to work for in the US Congress?

Edited by Biff Tannen
for in? yeah, why not.
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On 11/25/2022 at 8:24 PM, Walte464 said:

When another company can get the same charging network as Tesla, I’m out. Not going to support Elon’s lunatic moves anymore

A critical mass of other EVs will make it a moot point. Tesla already has pilot program for non-Tesla EVs in other countries. I have a feeling they are going to be more of an electricity producer/supplier/storage company going forward 

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1 hour ago, HookEm said:

If I fuck around, I expect that at some point I will also find out.

You might also find out after working really hard but then getting a new boss who unilaterally decides to cut half the workforce. 

You probably can’t wrap your head around this, but a lot of those 3,700 were hard workers that found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m guessing very few will struggle finding work because, you know, they’re good at what they do.

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On 11/26/2022 at 2:24 PM, Homercles said:


Fuck em all.  I’d be out of Twitter the moment that contract shit hit my mailbox.  You’re laying off half the company under the guise of cost savings / leaning, and now I have to work endlessly to pick up the slack.  Fuck.  That.  

 

8 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

This is something I stress to people regularly, especially the people I work with. You have one shot at life. Do not waste it endlessly pursuing money. Get out and live life. If you work for someone like Musk and can get a job that realizes you are a person with a life outside of work that is far more important then go work for that company instead. 
 

 

 Could it be that Elmo is actually trying to run off all employees who do have a choice? Thereby leaving him with a slavelike workforce whose lives in America are contingent on Twitter-based work visas? I mean, could the man possibly be such an authoritarian dick as to exploit foreign workers like that?

  

On 11/26/2022 at 3:06 PM, Aqua Buddha said:

So, he's putting stuff into orbit, which something NASA has been doing since the 60's?

Eric Berger, a guy who runs a blog called Space City Weather, and who is based in said Space City, should consider what entity iefort was that earned Houston that name before he goes stanning for Musk, especially in direct comparison to NASA.

On 11/26/2022 at 3:57 PM, Humble Beast said:

Elon has totally lived off the government teat. He’s done it well enough that I’d imagine he and his companies are viewed as important assets by the DoD and the government. 

Dear God I hope not.

 

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  • immamac changed the title to Elon Musk: [Fraud] Official or unofficial piece of shit?
  • blacklab changed the title to Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

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