this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago

What I’m reading is that there’s another 53% left to lose, come on musk hurry the fuck up already.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Just this once,. I actually believe in his abilities. He can bring that 47% down to 0%. I just know he can. Come on, Elon. We're all counting on you now.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

47% down to 100% or 53% down to 0%

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

You mean he’ll bring Twitter valuation back to what it was?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

Only 47%? Really?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

"That's according to a Monday report from The Wall Street Journal. Given Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion late last year, the markdown would put the company's current valuation at about $23 billion, based on Ark's estimate."

$23b is what it was actually valued before Musk crazily overpaid for it and took over.

Now, that estimate comes from an investor that financed part of that purchase (so they're already suspect for paying double the odds back then) that still thinks there's a great future ahead for Twitter under Musk - so it's wildly optimistic.

The real value you could find someone paying for it would be more likely in the mid single digits.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's worth about $6b, this is not a good time for a social media company built around ad revenue that's hemorrhaging customers and also happens to be saddled to the brim with short-term debt.

This whole comment should be bankrupt.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Let’s also remember that in all of Twitter’s years of operation they only had a couple quarters where they actually turned a profit. Even after Trump made it ‘the place to see whatever the President was talking about’, they still struggled to make money.

Elon thinks he can fix that, but the real fools are the investors who believed him.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Let’s also remember that in all of Twitter’s years of operation they only had a couple quarters where they actually turned a profit

And if memory serves, some of their most profitable quarters were during the lockdowns, which don't exactly happen regularly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

He doesn't, he was smoking like crazy for a while, it's a whole story, basically he smoked himself stupid during covid and only quit a few months ago.

He said a bunch of stupid shit when he was high because he thought he was beyond any and all question, and this is one thing he got caught on because it had a material effect on a publicly traded company.

I'd feel bad for him if he wasn't such a complete moron who let the paranoia get the better of him.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

ad revenue that’s hemorrhaging customers

It's also haemorrhaging ad revenue, since Musk recently stated that ad volumes were down 50% or so.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Twitter ad buys were junk when it was considered a good site. I can't imagine how poorly it's doing since the users are largely bluetlicker shitstains

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there ever a good time for that type of company? Hemorrhaging customers and being saddled to the brim with debt seem like pretty big problems at any time

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

When money is free debt is almost meaningless, now is when shit gets real.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Wouldn't it be 23B minus ~10B in loans, or is that accounted for?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Last thing I heard, Cathie Wood is not much better than Musk and Ark is quite a scam. Did I get it wrong?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

She does not have superhuman stock picking and macroeconomic environment decoding abilities. She got massively lucky with China until Xi decided that large successful Chinese enterprises were a danger to his Party and COVID+inflation stressed all other companies

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Possibly not, but people believe Ark and that will affect the valuation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I had some of her ETFs. Yes, had. They did okay when the topic they cover was getting media attention or breakthroughs or whatever but granted I was only paying attention to them during the late 2020 bull market when most everything did at least okay.

Specifically, my shares of her gene therapy ETF did well. My shares of her robotics and technology one did meh. I can’t honestly remember how my share or fraction of her fintech one did lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ok, then not so bad after all?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Religiously, I have severe problems with prosperity gospel bullshit that Cathie Wood (and similar investors) follow. These people are literally praying to God for more money, and trying to convince the religious folk out there that this is normal. (Ignoring the fact that Jesus literally warned us against this practice)

And not like how poor people pray to God to have enough money to keep their house or other necessities. She's literally praying for the excessive amounts of wealth that only exists in top-level venture capitalism firms.

I'm somewhat religious myself, and I know there's a lot of atheists out there. But I feel the need to point out the prosperity gospel bullshit whenever she comes up, because I think this is a dangerous religious movement that needs to be kept in check.


So religiously at least, I think Cathie Wood is a scam. What she invests into is momentum-following / following of hype for the most part (kind of standard in the great scheme of crazed venture capitalist firms these days). Its really the religious slant she represents that bothers me more so than others.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I wasn't aware of the religious slant but - as an atheist myself - Amen to that brother!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The real question in my mind, is will the investment markets punish Musk as a result of such an epic demonstration of business incompetence. For whatever reason they haven’t done that so far.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So now it's worth $22bn and has $13bn of debt?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It was never worth 44 bn in the first place

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Anything is worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it.

This dumb bastard just happened to be willing to pay $44 billion.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Actually, Musk didn't want to pay anything for Twitter, but was willing to pay $44 billion to avoid the discovery process.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

Excellent point, lest anyone forget that he was really just running his mouth and got too far in before the mania dropped.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

I don’t think it was even that. He was so 100% going to lose the fight to not buy Twitter that even for someone with his resources it wasn’t worth fighting. He made a weak attempt to embarrass Twitter into backing out due to public opinion, but didn’t really have any options after that. He just fucked up that magnificently with the initial contract.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

True but It is like a reverse Schrödinger valuation.

When EM offered 44B, that was twitter's value until the transaction was complete.

Now it is only worth what someone else will pay for it...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Musk didn't pay $44bn. He paid $26bn, then $5bn was from other investors and the remaining $13bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on Musk's behalf.

Yay, leveraged buyouts! They totally aren't used to avoid tax and kill businesses!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Only 47%? You'd be a fool to invest.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Musk didn't buy twitter as a purely financial return investment. He wants to control the narrative, be a media mogul and get election favours. He brought it to be a cult leader and spread his ideology

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Maybe when he realizes how broke most of his userbase is he will start to care about wealth inequality.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Step 1: Get rid of 3rd party clients Step 2: …

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Step 2 was to severely limit the time people could spend on the platform, preventing them from seeing the ads

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I feel like he's trying to see how fast it can be done

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Cathie’s still “bullish”. At least those were the words that came out of her mouth

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Maybe she mispronounced bullshit? Because that would make more sense.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I hate that word so much

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence

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