That’s one of the LBO playbooks, but it’s not the only method. In this case, Musk believes he can trim the fat and make Twitter profitable. But if advertisers flee and he thinks he can rely on verified payments alone, everyone on HN who signals interest for a social network they pay for will get to see how viable such a business model truly is.

> everyone on HN who signals interest for a social network they pay for will get to see how viable such a business model truly is.

Let me get ahead of you there. They would only pay for a quality product which Twitter is definitely not, as a ruiner of modern discourse. Of course there's also the catch that there are no quality products anymore. The whole world of products is devolving at almost the speed of Google Search. But definitely paying is the superior business model

Precisely.

The thinking in April was probably they can sell off a bunch of crypto tokens they create. Some of his texts reference this or using it to pump Doge.

I can't think of anything, but Twitter is responsible for a lot of major projects out there.

Bootstrap comes to mind - and while that's not something I foresee them "selling", a company large enough to produce a F/OSS project of that size and complexity surely has any number of large, mature products that they could sell or monetize.

Also, the key part of the LBO playbook isn't making quick cash from selling off assets - it's divesting the company of cost centers and investing heavily in profit centers. If you're able to sell the things that aren't making you money, all the better.