I have no inside info but I think this is because he is getting wrecked by discovery. More and more about him is being leaked from that and he doesn't like it. He'd rather lose billions.

> He'd rather lose billions.

Its an AND not an OR. He either proceeds with purchase and loses billions, or proceeds with discovery/trial, has personal info exposed, and is then forced to proceed with purchase and lose billions. He's tried to stall proceedings so far, but has reached a legal dead end.

I’m scared what scorched earth musk in charge of a zeitgeist weapon like twitter will do.

There are two cohorts who dramatically overestimate Twitter's influence and importance - tech people and journalists. Twitter really is not very important. At my non tech workplace of 800 people, I'd be surprised if 50 were active on Twitter.

“Most people aren’t on twitter” is not a valid argument against twitter’s influence. Compare with “most people aren’t CEOs”, “most people aren’t politicians,” etc.

Some people have a lot more influence than others, and the influential people are disproportionately on twitter.

> tech people and journalists

Also politicians.

That is the whole problem though, isn't it? A few hundred random people on Twitter are often more than enough to manufacture a wave of articles across multiple news websites and newspapers.

Twitter isn't important, the problem is that influential entities think that Twitter is important (and representative).

>Twitter isn't important, the problem is that influential entities think that Twitter is important (and representative).

Which makes it important..

Correct, as long as the illusion stays up.

Well the TSLAQ community is certainly assuming they're gone.

It will be funny of the Blue Checkmarks have to form their own social media platform - or in incredibly irony - end up in one of the "right wing" platforms as a refuge of free speech.

We can build another if it comes down to it.

See: Facebook's declining usage, and the rise of TikTok.

Social networks are all quite replaceable, there are no exceptions.

Twitter won in its micro blogging space (there were numerous competitors for a brief time, way back), however it has never been a stellar product. It can and will be replaced if Musk turns it into a disaster.

I think the jury is still out on whether TikTok is an improvement over Facebook.

Who said anything about improvement?

Yeah, it sounds like a TTRPG doesn't it?

"Does applying scorched earth musk to my zeitgeist weapon always succeed, or do I need to roll another D20 for that?"

The Musk brand damage could exceed a "paltry" $44B when his dirty laundry becomes public, especially given he'll only need to put in less than 50% of his own money.

Regarding the information leakage, does this signal that Mr. Musk treats people poorly in his private dealings?

It's all damage mitigation at this point.

Do you have examples of the stuff getting leaked? I've not seen anything (though I tend to stay away from celebrity gossip).

This article is interesting for surfacing the impulsive, non-strategic, and sucking-up communiques from those in Musk’s orbit: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/09/elon-...

Note that the above article has at least one outright lie and is overall misleading. Just go read the actual communications on page 85 of the report[1], it'll be quicker and less inaccurate than reading the article.

[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23108357/redacted-ver...

There is lots of articles out there. Try this one:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/10/1/23381257/elon-musk-text...

This... wasn't leaked, was it? It was released legitimately, as I understand it.

From your link:

>"Within days of the announcement that the Twitter board had accepted Musk’s $44 billion offer, Benioff, who is currently worth more than $6 billion, sent Musk a cryptic text about his own vision for the platform, writing on April 27, “Happy to talk about it if this is interesting: Twitter conversational OS—the townsquare for your digital life.”

Wow. This is like something right out of an episode of Mike Judge's "Silicon Valley." These people might be extremely wealthy but jeez they are basically buffoons. I'm guessing Beinoff only shares his "A" material with Musk and he obviously felt that "Twitter conversational OS" was worth sharing. You couldn't get any more Gavin Belson than either "conversational OS" or "the townsquare for your digital life.”

Many thanks.

Spot on...the first thing I thought was 'really...he started listening to his lawyers?'.

Yeah, isn't this effectively a complete win for Twitter concerning the lawsuits?

If you're Musk or an apologist, how do you spin this in a way that doesn't say "Yeah, they were completely right and I had no basis for my claim"?

Probably something like "I no longer have time to fool around with trivial things like Twitter. Ignore it ever happened, since I'm now using my vast intellect teaching world leaders how to end their wars".

He's already ruled out shoehorning in Dogecoin due to scalability concerns, so there is nothing else left apart from more shitposting.

He was set to be deposed this week. I'm guessing his advisors finally got through to him that he's fucked and dragging out the trial will only further publicly humiliate himself and potentially open him to even more consequences. Musk finally has to face reality, for once.

Yup, take a $44b tesla share price and/or reputation hit, or pay $44b and at least have an asset to show for it.

Actually, scratch the reputation bit. That's already toast.

Kudos to Twitter.

Checkmate.

More like kudos to Musk's lawyers for creating several months' worth of billable hours out of trying to poke holes in a "I agree to buy it sight unseen, no refunds" contract.

What was the penalty if he lost the suit?

Would they force him to buy Twitter? Pay a fine?

Probably "specific performance", which is pretty much enforcing the contract that he already signed. So that would come down to forcing him to buy Twitter, yes.

Conveniently, much of Musk's assets are stored in another Delaware company called Tesla

Yeah, that provision seems suss as hell