I thought he had a VERY short-lived period where he was popular in the media and everyone was raving about him (Developers, Developers, Developers - like 1 or 2 years after XP), and then after that he was a punching bag for like a decade.
Is this wrong?
While late-Gates Microsoft was the king of whole technology industry, by late Ballmer it was one of many players. While they haven't decayed into "enterprise" obscurity like IBM, they weren't driving the industry then.
They missed several "trends" like mobile phones, and only thanks to Nadella they've caught up in cloud with Azure.
Balmer was responsible for the One Microsoft reorganization which Nadella finished executing.
https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/11/4514160/steve-ballmers-re...
https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/11/4486730/microsoft-reorgan...
I dont think Ballmer get's enough credit for reflecting on his tenure, looking at what didnt work, and blowing it up for the future on his way out the door.
Sure, the media reports on him a lot, but it’s because he gives them endless stuff to report on. He’s made himself the face of every company he owns, and gives ostentatious presentations of products that are often totally bananas (like the CyberTruck). He posts 2011-era memes on Twitter then randomly decides to talk about buying companies or taking companies private while tweeting questions about business strategy at their CEOs. He dated a pop star and they gave their child a name that sounds like a galaxy cluster.
For better or for worse, Elon’s intense visibility is his own doing, and the press is just along for the ride.
He's visible because of his neurosis. He doesn't do it to make money. He's never admitted to it, but it's been hinted at in the past that he also has some kind of bipolar condition as well.
There's a reason so many refer to him on a first-name basis that they don't with other tech CEOs, and it's not because of media coverage. It's because of his own cult of personality that makes his fans think he's one of them and overlook the countless shortfalls in his visions for the future.
Twitter is where he plays around, but his thoughtful personality comes through face to face in talks and interviews. That's what shows how Elon got to where he is. No other CEO talks with the clarity like he does (ironically in a stuttering fashion).
It's not because of a "cult". It's because of his insight into things I had never put that much thought into. He's broken a lot of my own assumptions about how things are supposed to work. He's literally changed how I think as an engineer.
Not saying it’s what you’re doing, but your comment reminded me of people like that.
And yes in his interviews of late he's been a quite clear communicator. Here's a couple within the last month or so that are quite good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRvf00NooN8
Every year, Elon makes over 100 flights using private aircraft, which offsets the emissions savings of over 100k EVs. Most of these flights are for pleasure, not business.
"Fixing" global warming is just a marketing ploy for Musk, since he seems to be doing an incredible job of personally trying to make it worse. He doesn't get to freeride on the labor of others on this.
Seek help. I mean it. This is not healthy. You do not know him, you are infatuated with aspects of his public persona.
You deny that your admiration for Elon Musk is because of a "cult," but this sounds very cult-like. Have you considered that Elon Musk is not the only person who can make you a better engineer?
He's not emblematic of US problems but theres a trajectory that lines up with some of the political discord timeline wise and his change in perspectives going from center left to center right.
A great example of how far gone the misinformation campaign already is.
> The number is hardly new: Twitter has been giving the same estimate for years, even though critics and experts have said they believe the company is lowballing the actual number of such accounts.
If Musk wanted the deal contingent on this very specific data point, he should've said so before he committed to the $1B cancellation fee and made it part of that agreement.
> "Musk tweeted on Tuesday that Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal has refused to show proof for his company's estimate and that the deal cannot move forward until he does. Twitter's proxy statement shows that in the run-up to the deal Musk made no effort to get information about the issue. "Mr. Musk did not ask to enter into a confidentiality agreement or seek from Twitter any non-public info regarding Twitter," Twitter said in its proxy statement."
https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/twitter-committed-elon...
If he now regrets that, it’s his own fault.
Stop looking at the showmanship and look at the crude numbers.
You honestly can't try and equate this with Elon almost single handedly bring the EV car market to the planet.
It either shows you are being disingenuous at best or ignorant in the subject matter at worse.
Thanks in part to Elon Musk.
We fixed global warming?
I think that caricature is pretty off base. He bought something that was damaged and its value went off a cliff. What kind of person would pay full freight for Twitter as the tech valuations plummet - only a fool would stay locked into that deal.
He waived due diligence now is complaining about something that should have been obvious in advance, and in fact was one of the things he said was an issue with the platform that he'd fix.
>What kind of person would pay full freight for Twitter as the tech valuations plummet
The kind of person that signs a deal. Were he and his team not smart enough to offer fair value for the company? What kind of person absolves a billionaire from rules we all have to follow?
Twitter have two options if Elon refuses to close. They can sue him. Or they can settle. The former will be a multi-year boondoggle for everyone involved. Nobody wants that. But neither does either side want to settle for less than they can get.
Both are thus positioning to make it seem like they'll make the boondoggle the boondoggliest if they're forced to face it. Twitter isn't great at theatrics. Elon is. Thus, he's taking the lead. That said, it remains in both parties' rational interests to appear willing to pursue their aims to an irrational extent in the courts, so the other side settles for less than that. Keep that in mind over the coming weeks.
Point is, yes, when you're a billionaire, signing a contract means something different from you or myself because the cost of enforcing a $44bn deal is minuscule compared to the cost of the deal. (And in this, he's far from unique.)
Sure, I agree.
But the OP's interpretation of events is dead-wrong. This isn't the media picking on poor Elon. The guy dove head-first into something without thinking through consequences, now he and his supporters are claiming to be some kind of victims in this. Twitter did nothing wrong here.
"Twitter did nothing wrong here" -- what kind of framing is that?
Again there is no victimization of Elon - he's just trying to get out of a deal - you are using some overly hyperbolic language in your comment which is common these days and equally as annoying as Elon's twitter thread.
I have nothing but respect for Elon's work at Tesla and SpaceX. But Elon Musk is a known quantity in terms of counterparty behavior. Nobody should be surprised this is happening, least of all Twitter's Board.
The value of Twitter may have decreased since he made his offer, and he may want to back out, but he (impulsively) made an agreement to purchase it, so backing out comes with the responsibility of $1 billion.
Honestly I think it's comical that people are complaining that he's not paying up for twitter when valuations went off a cliff and twitter hasn't divulged bot data (when CLEARLY that's what he was doing all along (see my comments eons ago saying that he was pointing to this as an exit strategy). Twitter could have put that information forward and kept the $1B but they knew either (1) don't know or (2) they didn't want to for fear of damaging their company.
It's like all of a sudden Twitter is the good guy and Elon is the bad guy when at the end of the day this is two business entities interacting and positioning themselves.
We aren't complaining, we're mostly confused how the world's smartest man would make a bid on a product not based on actual valuation, but instead on the inflated current public market price.
He's free to back out of the deal, but some people aren't falling for the victimization. His bid was a mistake, and he should own it.
>twitter hasn't divulged bot data
Once again, this should have been part of a due diligence process that the Musk team deemed unnecessary.
Separately from intent (where I agree with you), legally, Twitter was required to provide “properties, books and records [and] information concerning the business, properties and personnel” per section 6.4[0], which is cited in today’s letter[1]. (The fact that it is not a due diligence, IIUC, means that this information should not change the decision to make the purchase; but if Twitter was found to violate the merger agreement, Musk could walk out on it anyway.)
It will all hinge in litigation on whether Twitter can argue that Musk’ demands were not “reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transactions” or would “cause significant competitive harm to the Company”.
In my mind, it is easy to argue that Musk did violate section 6.4 by making his request public, impacting the stock, which is not a “reasonable best effort to minimize any disruption to the respective business”.
[0]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522...
[1]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...
And I'm not necessarily saying HN complaining - I'm referring to the general public narrative
And the layoff isn't 10% of all workers. It was 10% of salaried workers, a much smaller amount.
This goes exactly to the point of the person you responded to. The media blows up smaller news items into bigger ones for clickbait.
You have to balance his incredibly strong capital manner with the fact that he also is changing our human trajectory. He's tiresome, gets into petty arguments with people but he's also changing our trajectory more than almost all other humans on the planet right now - for better or worse.
Whether his heavy lifts stands the test of time and significantly alter our trajectory is truly the question here. This Twitter buy doesn't really matter in the arc of this century unless it is merely a reflection point which Musk fades to irrelevance.
People will jump through hoops to defend him because he's doing work that no one else is capable of doing.
Has he? How do large rockets help with climate change? How does going to Mars, a dead planet that is almost a foreshadowing of where Earth is going with climate change and ecosystem destruction, help fight climate change? Electric cars will improve things a bit, but they are not a one-shot solution to climate change. They are cars after all, and for the first couple years of their life, they contribute more emissions than existing cars, so there's a crossover point. And those emission crossover point calculations do not take into consideration battery recycling or disposal. There are many, many other things that we could be doing. But Musk likes to keep the limelight on him and have his toys.
Many solutions to climate change are actually rather boring and easy in terms of their actionable solutions, but we don't do them. One can't hype up hundreds of millions of dollars of investment for planting native plants or composting or improving ocean ecosystems or reducing plastic use and habitat loss. If Musk truly cared about the climate, he would promote these other things. But he doesn't, because they can't be hyped, they wouldn't get him the attention he craves, and they wouldn't serve his ego.
I have seen it first hand. Young college graduates, apparently concerned about climate change, choosing Tesla over working for a fusion company. These are people whose tech and science influences are Musk and Iron Man.
> ... that he also is changing our human trajectory. ... but he's also changing our trajectory more than almost all other humans on the planet right now - for better or worse.
Comments like these are so hyperbolic that they're tough to even respond to. If I can be frank, they are sort of childish. Even out of billionaires, Musk doesn't contribute as much to these things as people like James Simons, who donates hundreds of millions of dollars to education, climate change research, and other scientific research. But Simons is an actually intelligent person doing actually important things with his money and influence. But funding education and scientific research is boring, apparently according to those obsessed with electric cars and rockets.
Oh yes, by shilling proof-of-work cryptocurrencies he definitely made a contribution. I'm not even sure if his Tesla venture would offset this damage long term.
> Glad you could enshrine it in this comment that adds absolutely no value to the conversation.
These comments are equally as tiresome. You reply to a comment that apparently adds no value (not a sentiment I necessarily disagree with) with a comment that adds even less?
> You reply to a comment that apparently adds no value (not a sentiment I necessarily disagree with) with a comment that adds even less?
So this is going to be an argument of which comment(s) add less value? We already started very close to 0 with yours so can continue to ride the asymptote as far as our stamina allows.
Could you clarify what the set complement of a salaried worker is?
Oh stop it! I lived in Los Angeles, that place is too big and populated by too many sharks. You only become famous if you really, really want to and deploy resources in a way that is optimized to reach that goal.
Musk wanted to be famous ever since the Paypal days.
There's a reason why you don't hear media obsessively reporting on 3 time Oscar winners Daniel Day Lewis and Jack Nicholson anymore. They have concluded their respective press tours (Lewis at least temporarily and Nicholson for a good 10 years, ever since he made "The Departed")
You need to seek press to get press, you don't stumble into it.
I would wager that the risk to his earned media strategy is he is going a bit off the rails in the last 6 months and staff might not be as interested working for him in the future. I don't think it has scared off investors yet as it appears he has the midas touch in the business world.
This post is probably not on top of HN because “the media” uses him for ad revenue, just saying.
>[second]
That’s not even close to the full picture. Its not like he went into a shop with cash to buy a car. Not saying that the gp is 100% correct either, but gross simplifications don’t help the discourse. Edit - To clarify: if he believed in the purchase as an investment, temporary tech valuations would not matter, what would matter is the quality of the product relative to the changes he wanted to make in the company. Twitter is very much intact, it didn’t materially change since the situation began.
Disingenuous.
He knew about the bots. Everyone knows about the bots.
Disingenuous again. Most people knows a significant amount of engagement is bots, as you yourself agreed.
>Most people knows a significant amount of engagement is bots
No, I don't think most people know that. They know there are bots, and they suspect there's a lot. That's why I said there's a difference between the two.
It's somewhat wild to posit this given how much of his balance sheet is public knowledge. He doesn't have the liquidity, sure. But there's a wide gap between illiquidity and insolvency, and he's not particularly leveraged.
Sure, but given the facts on the ground, he has more than enough capital to personally fund the equity. (The debt, LBO style, is held on Twitter's books.) We know there remain commitments from other investors for the equity, so that alone should draw a line under such discussions.
Elon Musk absolutely can fund this deal. He may not want to. And that isn't true in every state of the world. But currently, and in any proximate world state, him not having the money isn't an issue.
These reports are wrong (Reuters is not reliable when it comes to leaks from Tesla).
Tesla intends to lay off about 10% of salaried workers, which make less than 50% of the company's headcount (mostly managers). The company confirmed they're still hiring and will have more employees by EOY versus the day they announced the planned layoff.
> The company confirmed they're still hiring
That's not accurate, for salaried workers. Similarly, there is a hiring freeze for salaried workers. They're still hiring hourly workers.
And the 10% layoffs were much misreported. The layoffs were only among salaried employees with the release simultaneously saying that they will be increasing hiring for non-salaried production employees. A 10% layoff of only salaried workers isn't that large of a layoff.
How many people does this amount to?
I thought he had to seek additional funds because tesla stock dropped.
That's just negotiations 101.
Of course, the fact that Musk is materially affecting Twitter, Trump was president, etc. totally call for their manic actions as newsworthy. Ugh. Too much power concentrated in the hands of too few.
How was he to know they would intentionally misrepresent the number of fake users on the platform? Couldn't he argue twitter tried to defraud?
He chose not to do that. He chose to make the acquisition "sight unseen" in a way that also left the him on the hook for $1bn if he pulled out of the deal.
Now he's trying to dodge the $1bn clause, but the contract he signed doesn't give him many ways out.
I also think your relative corruption analysis is so far off base, you might as well be on the moon.
Elon Musk is doing his best to ruin something he thought he wanted, and it should be taken in the same bad faith he offered it in.
Please don't do this here.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email [email protected] and we'll look at the data.
Oh yes? Reading minds much?
Don't claim to speak for others.
And HN used to be called a platform for Alt-Right in its early days.
I think characterizing Musk’s request for Twitter to substantiate what they have placed in the public record with some actual methodology not fluff as “overinflated” is kinda unreasonable given we all already know their stats are full of shit to begin with.
He should have asked for this prior to agreeing to buy the company. This has veered into legal posturing by his legal team. The letter sent and the on the record with the SEC filing are for future litigation purposes. Many of us expected it would when the market turned and the deal was obviously overvalued. Elon timed the deal incorrectly. Unlikely many of us who would have to live with our poor business decisions, he's using the tools available to someone of his wealth to litigate his way out of this entirely or to a better price.
It's tiring because it was expected. This wasn't 5D chess.
His behavior (across a wide range of things) is not fine. Which is a real shame because the core of his business activities right now is great, and his behavior constantly distracts from that.
Most of the "behavior" that is reported about him is exaggerated, taken out of context, or outright lies. So no, in general I don't have huge issues with his current behavior. It's a lot better than it was back during the time period when Tesla was having a lot of financial issues and he was an emotional wreck.
Not fine, or you just disagree with? Two very different things.
Veppers is even trying to wiggle out of a contract he doesn't want; it's a central plot point!
The only annoying behavior I've seen of late are the frothing at the mouth vitriol that's being incessantly flung at him for the last weeks/months before and after the news about buying Twitter.
That's "annoying behavior". What he's been doing has not been that.
I wasn't aware he could vote for my political party of choice in England!
Twitter's character limit unfortunately requires everyone to simplify.
Also, previously, his falsely accusing a random stranger trying to help others, of being a pedophile - this makes him a schmuck pretty much permanently and where no amount of apologies are enough: https://www.google.com/search?q=musk+accuses+pedophile
https://www.google.com/search?q=schmuck - a foolish or contemptible person.
He's playing a game and he's winning. While not all his tactics sit well with me, he's created immense value for the world. We want this man to keep investing and running capital. The alternatives are just so much worse.
I agree that some people value modesty, I hope those people won't stop the next ego manic from trying to change the world.
I'd equally be happy if we could clone Buffett, Gates, and Musk. We get what we get. Unless you want to build a rocket, we should respect these life enhancing men, despite their character flaws.
> I hope those people won't stop the next ego manic from trying to change the world.
You are describing a super villain here! I certainly hope we would try to stop them. “Advancement at any price” is how we end up with dictators and fascists.
Maybe I'm naive, it doesn't seem like there's a desire for world domination. No political aspiration, unlike Sheryl Sandberg. Not implying she is evil or anything just highlighting another highly successful person.
At least in American English, the connotation of the word "arrogant" is so universally negative that it would only ever be used to express distaste for someone. Now whether he is arrogant or just (over)confident is another question but I think you acknowledge there is at least a good case for the former.
> We want this man to keep investing and running capital.
Why? If you ask the folks at the SEC, they probably wouldn't agree with you. From a public perspective, he hasn't exactly been great on regulatory compliance and market protection. From a shareholder/company perspective, he is a major liability. No company ever wants a CEO or any employee that picks fights with regulators, has a massively oversized media spotlight, and entangles the business in unrelated politics and personal fixations. That's textbook bad news for a business.
I've used Tesla's products, so as a consumer I'm very grateful for it. I am not a direct investor in Tesla (ie., only via index funds).
The take I can't believe is the SEC should decide how capital gets allocated. Elon created a tremendous amount of value. Both for consumers and for investors. Does he sometimes do things that appear/are dumb. 100%. However, net-net he's been such crazy value add to humanity i can't see why we would want to take this man out.
Is the world really a better place where this man just sits on the beach and does nothing? I think not. You may counter and say, why doesn't he follow the rules like everyone else, well sometimes to get something special we need to make special exceptions.
I think i'm just trying to reconcile that your view is genuine given the age of your account. I'm sadden by this being a real take. We want creators. We want folks to build. It's hard to build to follow all the rules. There are soooo many.
There are thousands of people smarter than Musk in tech but who didn’t have his money and connections. Give his billions to those people and you’ll get a thousand Teslas.
Intelligence is necessary but not sufficient. In fact, being a little too smart is quite detrimental to success.
I almost want to say intelligence is orthogonal to running a company but that wouldn't be true. You have to have some intellect, anything above that is not that important.
That's literally its job, and they charged him with securities fraud didn't they?
Their job is to regulate not allocate. They aren't here to pick winners or losers they only control who is allowed and not allowed to take money and from whom.
SEC protects investors cause investors from its perspective need protecting. It is like a father looking out for his kids. Some of us don't think we are kids that need protecting.
That's the context of what was being replying to - the "who" part.