wp-plugin-hostgator domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114ol-scrapes domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/7\/8\/23201082\/elon-musk-twitter-deal-is-over<\/a> It\u2019s on. Elon Musk has officially filed to kill his own Twitter acquisition<\/a>, and Twitter is calling his bluff. They\u2019ll see Musk in court. And while it\u2019s only going to get messier from here, one important verdict has already been rendered by Elon Musk himself: he doesn\u2019t have what it takes to run Twitter. And that\u2019s a damning blow to his own central mythology.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll look at the specifics of Musk\u2019s formal SEC filing in a minute, but first it\u2019s important to remember what he\u2019s said about the deal and why he wanted to do it in the first place. It\u2019s not like the world forced the acquisition of a relatively small social network on the world\u2019s richest man. And Musk\u2019s conduct surrounding the deal has been marked by a lot of obvious troll behavior. A reasonable person would conclude he was never serious about it to begin with, which is already leading to a lot of Musk stans and Twitter haters divining a 4D-chess narrative that makes his blunder seem intentional. But.<\/em><\/p>\n There are some things Musk said in the frenzy of the Twitter takeover that can\u2019t be ignored. That\u2019s because they strike at the heart of what built his original reputation: as a visionary, a bold industrialist, a futurist, and maybe even the guy who would solve climate change and multi-planetary civilization. Sure, lately he works tirelessly to attract a huge base of social reactionaries and various right-wingers who care more about his trolling than the missions of SpaceX or Tesla. But Musk\u2019s real credibility \u2014 if he ever had any \u2014 was being the face of genuinely huge and ambitious efforts to change the world and make it better. <\/p>\n He probably didn\u2019t need to, but he brought that same world-saving energy to the Twitter deal:<\/p>\n These statements stand out above everything else because (a) things that are important to the future of human life <\/em>are not things you typically troll people about, and (b) that should be especially true if you are Elon Musk, who has spent his entire modern career since Tesla cultivating the idea that he is on a mission to save the future of humanity and spread civilization across the stars. Does he tweet dumb memes a lot? Yes. Did he send a car into space as a joke? Sure. But the missions of his companies are dead serious. Tesla\u2019s mission is \u201cto accelerate the world\u2019s transition to sustainable energy.\u201d Neuralink wants to build devices that help people with paralysis to \u201cregain independence.\u201d And SpaceX? That\u2019s about nothing less than \u201cenabling people to live on other planets.\u201d<\/p>\n So: Musk has intentionally spent his career leaning into some of the world\u2019s most difficult-to-solve problems. He gives lots of keynotes, throws big ideas on the board, and makes lots of promises. Incidentally, this campaign to save the world earned him one of the biggest and most active fanbases on Twitter<\/em>. And let\u2019s be real: the man loves to tweet. The only person in the world who might love tweeting more than Elon Musk has been banned from the platform and impeached twice by the United States Congress.<\/p>\n But remember: Musk didn\u2019t say \u201cI want to buy Twitter because I love tweeting and I command an army of users here.\u201d He said Twitter was important to the future of human civilization<\/em>. And so, spiritually, the deal joined the ranks of the Teslas and the SpaceXs of the world.<\/p>\n What kind of problems would prevent this man from unlocking Twitter\u2019s true potential? To help steer it and, along with his other companies, help humanity flourish in the future? He only really makes two assertions in his SEC filing: <\/p>\n This is weak crybaby stuff.<\/p>\n Musk has been going on about the alleged bot issue for a while, even getting into public beefs<\/a> with the CEO of Twitter about it. I\u2019m not going to unpack this whole spat \u2014 the Delaware Court of Chancery<\/a> is about to examine that in some detail \u2014 but the TL;DR is that Musk wants to tank a huge deal over a problem known to every social media company on the planet, who have all dedicated vast amounts of resources toward fixing over several decades. It\u2019s just a fundamentally unserious position from a guy who is willing to solve world-shaking problems like climate change<\/p>\n But let\u2019s assume just for fun that Musk is right. After he started the deal and looked under the hood and laid out his plans for Twitter\u2019s staff, he discovered Twitter\u2019s bot population is more like 20% than 5%. So what? <\/em>What\u2019s a spread of 90 million users when TikTok and Facebook are ahead of you by billions<\/em>? If your position is that Mark Zuckerberg is an unelected tyrant of speech, how is abandoning Twitter going to help you take him on? And why would you argue in your SEC filing that revenue from active users is at stake? That doesn\u2019t sound like \u201cnot caring about the economics at all.\u201d That sounds like only caring about the economics.<\/p>\n And as for blowing the deal because a few Twitter execs fired staff while continuing to operate normally and roll out new features (hi, co-tweeting!) \u2014 get real. You\u2019re buying Twitter for $44 billion. It\u2019s yours now. You can clean house if you want to and correct or reverse all of the ill-advised decisions that brought the platform within your sights originally. Nobody will stop you! The SEC couldn\u2019t even get you to stop tweeting!<\/p>\n There are many possible theories for why Musk put himself, Twitter, and the world through this charade. But in the end, Musk wrote a check his myth couldn\u2019t cash.<\/p>\n We\u2019re left with two possibilities. Either Musk doesn\u2019t think he can do the job he promised at Twitter, and he\u2019s not the world-changing force he\u2019s been made out to be. Or, he was lying about the kinds of lofty ideals and visions that built his companies and his image. <\/p>\n What kind of man trolls the world about a better future?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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