X -Where Twitter goes to die.

[Foggy]

On the bright side, since Musk bought and destroyed more than half of Xhitter, he can't bitch about the "woke mind virus" that he and DeSantis think is out there. He broke the virus, yesno? By buying Xhitter and gutting it?

Good job, Mr. Musk. Thank you for destroying the woke mind virus. Now can you shut up about it?

[raison de arizona]

https://twitter.com/xdaily/status/1720675740910563572

NEWS: Former workers at X/Twitter's office in Ghana are taking legal action against X after reportedly not receiving any redudancy pay a year after being laid off.

Twitter's African office, which had only just been opened, was completely cut shortly after Elon's acquisition.

[Gregg]

X Is Now Worth $19 Billion, Down 57% From $44 Billion When Elon Musk Bought Twitter

Now we know how inflated Musk believe his bid was: X, the new name of Twitter, on Monday informed employees eligible for stock grants that they would receive shares at a valuation of $19 billion.

https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/x ... 235774209/

Since Twitter is private, its valuation is an estimate provided by management. If it's granting options, they have an incentive to maximize the stated value of the company to reduce the percentage of dilution to pay employees a certain number of dollars.

In a publicly traded company, valuation is easy because you know the stock price. In a venture capital-backed company, employees can assess whether the valuation of the company used in computing stock grants is reasonable because it should bear some resemblance to the most recent financing round, which (though not necessarily public information) is usually known to people inside the company.

But Twitter is neither venture funded or public. Thus, the valuation is set by management, and they'll have a lot of latitude in how to value it. Given Musk's general sleaziness and shoddy management, it wouldn't surprise me if an outside expert who is given access to the books would value it at a substantially lower number, potentially half or even less of Management's quoted figure.

Less than $8 billion on it's best day.

The real crime is that one man who has not really contributed much to society was able to blow $44 billion on something and the loss won't have much effect on his wealth.

What is the difference between $200 billion and $156 billion? I mean, as a measure of personal wealth, not a small countries GDP?

If you took all but the last billion from every billionaire on earth... every one of them would still be billionaires. At no time in history has it been sustainable for the relative wealth of the middle class and the ultra rich to be too wide. Eventually you get The French Revolution.

[Foggy]

I agree with every word of that.

[raison de arizona]

X staff almost asked police to carry out a wellness check on Elon Musk after he once locked himself in his office, author says

"He got to a point where he locked himself in his office, was so upset that the Twitter employees were considering calling a wellness check by the San Francisco police because they thought he was going to self-harm himself," Mezrich said. "I think he truly cares about his reputation, and he was shocked."

Mezrich cited several incidents that led to a "spiral" for Musk, including getting booed at a Dave Chappelle comedy show and his son's car being attacked.

"The Elon before Twitter and the Elon after Twitter are two different Elons," he said. "Elon didn't just break Twitter, Twitter broke Elon Musk."

Musk has historically been concerned with his popularity, especially on the platform he owns. Back in February, the billionaire asked engineers to investigate why his tweets were getting fewer views, Platformer reported.

Musk later fired an engineer who showed him his popularity was declining on the app, the Platformer report added.

https://www.businessinsider.com/x-staff ... ch-2023-11

[pipistrelle]

Sad little people who want to be loved and admired for doing things that are neither liked nor admirable.

[Volkonski]

Backlash spreads over Elon Musk’s endorsement of antisemitic post

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/11/17/ ... press.coop

The European Commission joined IBM in announcing it will stop advertising on X after Musk agreed with a post that said Jewish people hold a “dialectical hatred” of white people.

[pipistrelle]

Why did they wait this long? It’s not like Twitter hasn’t been trashed for months.

[raison de arizona]

Why did they wait this long? It’s not like Twitter hasn’t been trashed for months.

I think this is the first time Musk has posted that the Jewish hate white people, the proverbial straw.

[Volkonski]

White House blasts Elon Musk’s ‘unacceptable’ antisemitic tweet

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... press.coop

The White House on Friday criticized tech billionaire Elon Musk for engaging with an antisemitic social media post this week and calling it the “absolute truth.”

“It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of Antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

The antisemitic post Musk appeared to endorse came in response to a user on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, who expressed concern about rising antisemitism.

The user posted, “To the cowards hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and posting ‘Hitler was right’: You got something you want to say?” Another user responded, “Okay. Jewish [communities] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”

Musk replied to that post: “You have said the actual truth.”

Bates said the White House will continue to condemn antisemitism, which has been on the rise since the war between Israel and Hamas that was spawned in the wake of the surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

“Like President Biden said weeks ago memorializing the victims of the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting, the October 7 ‘devastating atrocity has brought to the surface painful memories left by millennia of Antisemitism;’ and under his presidency ‘we will continue to condemn Antisemitism at every turn.’ We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans,” Bates said.

He added that Americans have the “responsibility to bring people together against hate,” as well as “an obligation to speak out against anyone who attacks the dignity of their fellow Americans and compromises the safety of our communities.”

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the White House’s statement.

The claim that Musk appeared to endorse echoes false conspiracy theories that Jews want to flood the country with minorities. The billionaire faced immediate scrutiny online for his post.

[Rolodex]

So IBM said they'd stop advertising, and just now Apple said the same thing. Two huge advertisers.

Honestly I don't see their ads much on xitter. I get a lot of poor quality weird stuff, the oddest being ads for lottery and telephones in the Netherlands. The ads are in Dutch (which I don't speak and I haven't been there since like 2017).

[Rolodex]

And now Disney has bailed on the musky boy.

On Friday, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN, confirmed that they both halted ad spending on the platform.

The decision by two of the world’s most prominent film and television companies suggests an intensifying advertiser backlash to X after the social media platform’s owner, Elon Musk, embraced an antisemitic conspiracy theory popular among White supremacists.

Disney and Warner Bros.’ advertising pauses follow similar moves by Lionsgate and IBM.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/tech/lio ... e=facebook

[Slim Cognito]

I guess Elmo decided Twitter errrr X hasn’t lost enough money.

[AndyinPA]

It shouldn't have taken something this horrendous for these companies to have left.

[raison de arizona]

It shouldn't have taken something this horrendous for these companies to have left.

Seriously. Disney was still on there?

[Sam the Centipede]

Seriously. Disney was still on there?

What is Disney like as a company? As a child my early indifference to Disney cartoons grew quickly into a quiet loathing; the squeaky self-centred characters.just creeped me out. When I saw DisneyLand/World/Whatevs on screens they appeared to be manifestations of Junior Hades (or Tartarus?) to me. Right from the start however I understood that my aversion might be an unpopular minority opinion, and perhaps not entirely rational.

I understand that the wholesome image Disney projects is no better a guide to their corporate culture than the revulsion and sense of cynical exploitation their product induces in me.

So, is it surprising or unsurprising that Disney was slower on climbing out of the Xitter cesspit? Is Disney a burrow of fluffy bunnies or a pit of writhing snakes?

[Slim Cognito]

According to popular author and Florida resident Carl Hiaasen, they are a bunch of greedy rats. But I will still support them over DuhSantis.

[Sam the Centipede]

According to popular author and Florida resident Carl Hiaasen, they are a bunch of greedy rats. But I will still support them over DuhSantis

That is as faint praise as saying that one's meal is more appetizing than a shit sandwich!

[neonzx]

Is X even a good advert medium anymore IROI)?

[pipistrelle]

The ads now appear to be of the quality you'd expect from Weekly World News. I don't know what companies are doing about customer service/support. It was a great way to get quick responses to issues.

[neeneko]

Seriously. Disney was still on there?

Musk might be an embarrassment, and X degraded, but it still has a lot of daily eyeballs.

[poplove]

Elon Musk has said he will be filing a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters and others, after major US companies paused their adverts on his social media site over concerns about antisemitism. @Guardian.

Click image below for story

[MN-Skeptic]

Here's a link to the story shown in the tweet above - Elon Musk to file ‘thermonuclear lawsuit’ as advertisers desert X

[Rolodex]

The ads now appear to be of the quality you'd expect from Weekly World News. I don't know what companies are doing about customer service/support. It was a great way to get quick responses to issues.

I saw a Community Note (what X uses now for "fact checking" on an AD the other day! LOL It was for a ball that bounces as high as the level from which it's dropped. The note said something about physics.

A few weeks ago, I got an invitation to part of their community notes team. I'm nobody. I guess that's the expertise they're going for these days.

[chancery]

Musk's bumptious threat provoked Popehat to make a brief return to twitter:

https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1725788422001074299

DoneHat
@Popehat
There are about fifty reasons your petulant flounce is nonsense, you emotionally spavined freak, but let’s start with the first clause of the first sentence: it’s 2023 and you e-file complaints now. You don‘t have to wait for the courthouse to be open. You utter vagina.