I assume he wants to destroy it for political reasons.

https://fortune.com/2022/10/04/twitter-texts-released-court-...

So he did it to win Republican favour for a weapons program, by squandering everybody else's favour? That doesn't sound like a winning strategy.

He also spent 44 billion on it, which he had, instead of using said 44 billion to lobby politicians of both parties and invest directly into whatever he wanted to do with the weapons program money. Sounds like a really solid strategy to me.

Lobbying is surprisingly cheap. The entire pharma industry spends $5B/year, while the entire fossil fuel industry spends $2B/year[0]. Both have achieved a large degree of control over government decisions affecting them.

Elon could have had his weapons program for $1B. He could have dominated defense spending for a decade for $25B. I don’t think the ROI of this $44B of very indirect investment will compare.

[0] https://www.investopedia.com/investing/which-industry-spends...

Keep in mind he actually spent around half that. There were significant loans and other investments contributing.

He needs more than lobbying, he needs to sway an election. But there were obviously other reasons as well, he probably thinks a hive mind is cool to own and he could finally build his everything app X, etc.. it's just the orbital weapons program is near the top of that list as he thinks it's necessary to save humanity from itself. From free-wheeling philosophy discussions, he seems to think this SkyNet system is actually a kind of Roko's Basilisk.

Who loaned him that money, and did they know this is how he'd treat that loan?

It was $13B in loans from a variety of banks. Lenders makes yes/no decision on loans, they do not retain management interest the way equity investors do.

If you believe this you are right up there with people who believe in pizzagate etc.

He bought Twitter because he was momentarily ego tripping, it was a bad idea, should have stuck with Tesla/Spacex.

Twitter seems to have some pretty shit tech given how slow the website has always been.

This is what I hate about politics and political reporting. People can make a vaguely plausible sounding insinuation about anything being connected. And then noone can disprove it.