Of course it does. It took 17 years for the company to turn a profit, despite the help. Pick your subsidy: $2B in state incentives, Billions selling EV credits, direct payments to taxpayers who buy their cars etc. The fact is that the company would not exist without the US taxpayer. Many consider this a success but I would not nominate the guy for executive of the year. He knows how to raise money, sell a vision, and take advantage of government handouts. He has even gotten to the place where he can make a profit on selling cars, but don't ignore how he got there.
Elon Musk Begins Mass Layoffs At Twittter
- Thread starter RetiredAt49
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Of course it does. It took 17 years for the company to turn a profit, despite the help. Pick your subsidy: $2B in state incentives, Billions selling EV credits, direct payments to taxpayers who buy their cars etc. The fact is that the company would not exist without the US taxpayer. Many consider this a success but I would not nominate the guy for executive of the year. He knows how to raise money, sell a vision, and take advantage of government handouts. He has even gotten to the place where he can make a profit on selling cars, but don't ignore how he got there.
Ronstar
Moderator Emeritus
I don’t do twitter, and I don’t know anyone who does - or at least they don’t talk about it. I know nothing about it. And I don’t know much about Musk, Tesla, or Spacex. Not sure what else he’s into.
Lots of talk that Musk overpaid for twitter. But he can probably afford to if he’s as rich as is claimed.
Lots of talk that Musk overpaid for twitter. But he can probably afford to if he’s as rich as is claimed.
mpeirce
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Sure, but the US government just happens to be the biggest user of space launch systems. And SpaceX is saving them a lot.
Just one example is how expensive the rocket engines used by the (so far unlauched) Artemis project.
NASA gave Aerojet Rocketdyne a contract worth $1.16 billion to restart the production line for the RS-25 engine. Then NASA is paying $100M for each engine.
The Raptor 2 engines SpaceX developed for the Starship (flown, but not to orbit yet) costs $0.25M per engine.
Rocketdyne is building four engines per year while SpaceX is producing one every day.
The R-25’s do produce a bit more thrust (about 512,400 lbf, vs 510,000 lbf), but still...
NW-Bound
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
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Man, reading this thread is
No. This thread is interesting, but nothing compared to what will happen next to Twitter. I just don't know what to expect. A lot of drama up to this point.
I never watch soap opera, but think it would be boring compared to this real-life drama.
It's almost like some of you have some resentment toward mega-corp's and being downsize.
I have worked for a medium-sized company, a large company, and a megacorp. In my limited life experience, the larger the company the closer to Dilbert cartoon it gets.
No, I have never been downsized in my career. Always walked off on my own. And in all cases, they contacted me, sometimes through an intermediary to bring me back, even after nearly 10 years. And in all cases, I said no. They would not be able to pay me enough.
PS. And I tried to create my own work environment by founding a couple of startups with like-minded friend. Both crashed and burned. Time to ER. Not going back to the asylum.
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acronymous
Recycles dryer sheets
Musk's twitter takeover has been a fascinating trainwreck so far.
After waiving due diligence after his memey $54.20 bid he very publicly trashed the company via tweet to try and renege / lower the price. That went over like a lead balloon with the court in Delaware and he was forced to honor the deal.
If that didn't endear him to his new team, there were also his comments on Chinese vs American workers:
"They won’t just be burning the midnight oil, they will be burning the 3 am oil. So, they won’t even leave the factory technically, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all”
There was his firing of executives for cause to avoid honoring their contractual severance clauses and now the layoff of half of the employees.
He's been tweeting about how twitter is too woke and that content moderation would be relaxed. So, that facet of the business was surely targeted in these layoffs. That was greeted with a spasm of hate speech tweets that spooked twitter's advertising customers who are now pulling back. Whoops, there goes the primary revenue stream.
He keeps digging that hole with his retweeting of the vile Paul Pelosi conspiracies and his follower poll on whether advertisers should prioritize free speech or political correctness. Not to mention, his embarrassing statecraft tweets (also with polling) endorsing Russian and Chinese positions regarding the Ukraine invasion and Taiwanese independence. Today, he tweeted that activists and their mission to destroy free speech had hurt his relationship with advertising customers.
Now he's spitballing a bunch of alternate revenue ideas: subscriptions, porn, pay-to-pm-celebs-and-politicians. Teams within twitter have been tasked to bring these ideas to production under insane deadlines or risk termination.
It does not appear to be going very well.
After waiving due diligence after his memey $54.20 bid he very publicly trashed the company via tweet to try and renege / lower the price. That went over like a lead balloon with the court in Delaware and he was forced to honor the deal.
If that didn't endear him to his new team, there were also his comments on Chinese vs American workers:
"They won’t just be burning the midnight oil, they will be burning the 3 am oil. So, they won’t even leave the factory technically, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all”
There was his firing of executives for cause to avoid honoring their contractual severance clauses and now the layoff of half of the employees.
He's been tweeting about how twitter is too woke and that content moderation would be relaxed. So, that facet of the business was surely targeted in these layoffs. That was greeted with a spasm of hate speech tweets that spooked twitter's advertising customers who are now pulling back. Whoops, there goes the primary revenue stream.
He keeps digging that hole with his retweeting of the vile Paul Pelosi conspiracies and his follower poll on whether advertisers should prioritize free speech or political correctness. Not to mention, his embarrassing statecraft tweets (also with polling) endorsing Russian and Chinese positions regarding the Ukraine invasion and Taiwanese independence. Today, he tweeted that activists and their mission to destroy free speech had hurt his relationship with advertising customers.
Now he's spitballing a bunch of alternate revenue ideas: subscriptions, porn, pay-to-pm-celebs-and-politicians. Teams within twitter have been tasked to bring these ideas to production under insane deadlines or risk termination.
It does not appear to be going very well.
NW-Bound
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
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Lsbcal
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I'm surprised that so many have a low opinion of Musk's antics. Makes me proud to be an American.
Bamaman
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Hey don't talk about Rocketdyne. That's one of the only two companies in my small town. The other is Toyota's gasoline engine factory.
But it's obvious that competition has always been needed in the space exploration. Boeing/Lockheed/Northrup-Grumman have made too much money over the years. NASA builds nothing--just designs and contracts work to private industry.
You can bet Space X has a bunch of ex-employees from the Big 3.
Bamaman
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
We think that Elon Musk owns Twitter. Sure he sold a bunch of stock from his other companies. But Twitter is a private partnership with a bunch of American oligarchs and hedge funds.
Mr. Musk has to answer to the other partners/stockholders. And with the stock market taking the dip in 2022, they're not necessarily in the best moods.
I don't tweet, but I do wish Twitter the best. Social media needs to be as open and non-judgmental as they can be. Heaven's knows they've been poor stewards of the truth in the near past--and too political.
Mr. Musk has to answer to the other partners/stockholders. And with the stock market taking the dip in 2022, they're not necessarily in the best moods.
I don't tweet, but I do wish Twitter the best. Social media needs to be as open and non-judgmental as they can be. Heaven's knows they've been poor stewards of the truth in the near past--and too political.
Nyt has an anecdote about somebody who's unofficial notice of termination was being booted out of an online meeting due to revoked access. It was a Twitter Blue meeting !
Apparently terminated employees will likely be paid for >=60 days which probably resolves the WARN issue.
Apparently terminated employees will likely be paid for >=60 days which probably resolves the WARN issue.
Car-Guy
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
That is probably the understatement of the year... Or one of them anyway.
There are a lot of folks that will disagree with you though... But I'm not one of them!
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One good use of Twitter? When Musk let go entire departments today, some of those folks used Twitter to praise some of their co-workers to try to get them good jobs elsewhere. Someplace concerned about accessibility, human rights, and free speech by journalists?
Irishgirlyc58
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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All joking aside, Twitter is one of the best ways to get information out to people quickly. If they use Twitter.
During the camp fire in 2018 I was running an evacuation shelter. Information was fluid and the best way to keep up on what was going on was Twitter. The county sheriff had someone posting information there.
If I’m looking for information it is one of the best places to go to.
Also, again, good for company complaints when other mechanisms have been ignored.
I’ll continue to have Twitter for these purposes alone.
It’s good for some other news too like did anyone win the 1.2 billion powerball jackpot,
During the camp fire in 2018 I was running an evacuation shelter. Information was fluid and the best way to keep up on what was going on was Twitter. The county sheriff had someone posting information there.
If I’m looking for information it is one of the best places to go to.
Also, again, good for company complaints when other mechanisms have been ignored.
I’ll continue to have Twitter for these purposes alone.
It’s good for some other news too like did anyone win the 1.2 billion powerball jackpot,
NewEnglander
Recycles dryer sheets
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I just deactivated my Twitter account. I'll use other services.
ERD50
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I'm glad some are finding good uses for it.
I signed up for an account years ago, when DD had a longer car trip to make, and I just wanted an alternate way to stay in touch. Never really used it.
But I get links from some other sites or in an email, or a few people I guess I 'followed' at one time. For the life of me, I can't make heads or tails out of the 'organization' of these tweets. I guess the link I followed was someone 'retweeting' another posting? OK, but then are the replies to the person who re-tweeted, to the original tweet? Then are other tweets responding to the responses, to the original tweet, to something else? It all is a mish-mash to me, and I give up.
Is there any real organization? I can't see it.
The topics I'm lead to are of a more controversial nature to begin with, and it's 99.99% shallow mud slinging. Makes me sad.
-ERD50
Yes, it is a trainwreck, and it reveals a lot about Musk, but it could get worse.
It's not just Americans who have financial interests in Twitter. It's others, too, including Saudis. I don't care much for Musk's character or judgment, but I don't know if other investors are better.
Irishgirlyc58
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
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You can request current information by clicking on the upper right instead of hot topics or whatever they call it.
I don’t typically scroll through the thread as I found the same as you- just a lot of nonsensical comments. Some posts/comments are well thought out but I just don’t have the desire to scroll through a bunch to find them.
What I do is search for the company/ organization I want to contact. For example-Office of Emergency Services (OES) for the state or a county if I’m looking for updates on a situation.
Company names- Comcast/Xfinity and then post my issue. Most companies have been very responsive.
I don’t think I’m the typical user and I’m certainly not the demographic that advertisers are interested in.
youbet
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
They’re not really “avoiding” WARN. They’re complying with WARN.
JoeWras
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Good point, that's true.
When posts have to be removed for needlessly inserting politics, it's generally a sign that a thread has run its course.
Thanks for the interesting discussion.
Thanks for the interesting discussion.
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