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@germ I look forward to the new X everything app, the one that can't do anything and will drop offline because a man child billionaire is literally pulling (hair)plugs in a data centre

@germ Simple. He wanted to be Mr. Popular on Twitter, not somewhere else. As that clearly hasn't worked, he'll change the name, pretend it was always that (As he did with Tesla, trying to convince people it was always his) and then just abandon it the way he abandons his kids.

@germ because it is not really possible anymore. Age of 'corporate singleton social network' is gone, you can buy platform which has most interesting user base, you can't create it from scratch, it just does not happen.

@germ the point of the purchase was ‘catch and kill’

@germ elon is such a dumb little bitch. Without his emerald mine he would have been just another obnoxious arrogant tech bro.

@germ @lisamelton none of this was about a social network

It was about control

@germ

So he actually bought the company T(w)itter to burn the brand for the alt-reight AND then turn it into a rebranded generic company name that PayPal thought was a bad idea? Huh.

@germ Is there any chance that he thinks by changing the name, he can avoid paying Twitter’s bills? “Twitter? What’s that? This is X. I don’t know anything about no Twitter.”

@germ Something that's been a surprise to me in watching the dumpster fire of Elon's ownership, and the folks cheering him on, is just how obsessed and weirdly mad about the previous verification system they all are. There's a ton of weird conspiratorial thinking associated with this, like the "shadowbanning" bullshit and whining about not being able to say slurs, etc etc. Aside from just being a business idiot, Musk clearly bought into much if not all of that madness.

@germ X is a stupid name. The logo will be equally stupid.

Nope. They get to be called Shitter.

@germ Why?
1) Because the entities which funded his acquisition had a different objective in mind than starting up a social network;
2) Because using X instead of Twitter not only destroys the old brand but makes it a lot harder to use a dead bird to mock him...or so he may think.

@germ @maxkennerly let’s be honest. This option is way funnier.

@germ @lisamelton it boggles the mind, since he likely bought it for the user base and the relationship with advertisers, which he then alienated in a matter of months.

He could literally have taken Mastodon and made a new thing for a fraction of the cost, so he is a brilliant businessman.

@germ Because having a social network wasn't really his motivation. He dreamed up a world in which Twitter was run by left radical woke liberals and he wanted to destroy that. Simply founding another social network would've only attracted a bunch of Elon weirdos and have him compete with hellsites like Truth Social and Parler, but it wouldn't have had any impact on Twitter or the people using it.

@germ this would imply that he is capable of actually creating something. All he knows how to to is buy stuff and exploit it.

@germ

Did anyone go there why he loves 'x' so much?

I guess because the is an x in the middle of the swastika...

@germ Because Twitter was becoming far too successful as a gathering and information-sharing space for communities and organizations that attempt to change the status quo? As @raynetoday intimated, maybe the actual buyers just wanted to kill the platform.

@germ it's almost as smart as hbo rebranding to max.

@germ answer is complex but basically boils down to: he dumb

@germ
That wouldn't have allowed him to purchase a userbase.

@germ If the people who funded this purchase cared about the business side of it, they’d have intervened by now to stop him from setting their money on fire. This was about destroying Twitter as a forum for global dissent; whatever he does with the ruins is an afterthought.

@germ @lisamelton
Elon

@germ IMO, Dear Leader bit off more than he could chew, got himself a case of Buyer's Remorse and has been floundering between bad and worse ideas ever since in order to cover up the massive shitstain he left in trying to tweak his new toy to his own liking.

He also confirmed what a lot of people thought early on - he's trying to make it s haven for alt.right creeps and vaccine denialists because those groups dovetail with his own views. "Free speech absolutism", unless you disagree.

@germ
Elon bought Twitter in an emotional decision.
His emotional decision making is currently completely broken.
He doesn't know how to fix it.
He's surrounded himself with fawning simps.
This story ends badly.
In normal life this would affect only a few others.
In this case This One Dude is damaging millions, perhaps billions, of others.