![]() But most likely, Musk fell prey to the same temptation as many rich and powerful people throughout history: he wanted attention, he figured he knew better about everything than everyone else, and he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Maybe owning Twitter scares off potential critics. Maybe owning Twitter ultimately makes his other companies worth hundreds of billions more. While betting against Musk should probably come with a warning label, it’s hard to see how going from the image of a radically brilliant inventor to someone stuck in the never-ending morass of moderating content and refereeing between left- and right-wing nuts is a good move. ![]() No one spends $44 billion to profess their love for free speech. Perhaps in Musk’s mind, Twitter is the modern-day version of the Washington Post–except that instead of the $250 million that Bezos paid for the Post, Musk spent $44 billion. Jeff Bezos benefitted from buying the Washington Post because his critics on the left became hamstrung by the fact that Donald Trump hates the Washington Post, making the enemy of their enemy their friend. Or it could simply be that people who own means of communication are powerful and Musk wants more protection. And while manipulating Twitter’s algorithms to impact a public company’s share price would most likely violate SEC rules, it wouldn’t be Musk’s first fight with the SEC. If Musk can use the hype machine to produce a differential of hundreds of billions of dollars between what his companies are actually worth and their market cap, then the money he paid for Twitter is a minor cost of doing business. Controlling that means of information could be pretty valuable, especially if he wants to repeat the process once he takes SpaceX public. Ideas or announcements that would be considered trivial by experts instead excite day traders and groupies, driving valuation by tens of billions of dollars. It comes from the constant hype machine of Twitter, Reddit, StockTwits, and every other platform.īy using Twitter to speak directly to investors, Musk doesn’t have to rely on market analysts like most CEOs. ![]() That comes from retail investor enthusiasm. Even if you decide somehow that Tesla is as valuable as Toyota, there’s still a half-a-trillion-dollar gap. Toyota’s annual revenue exceeds Tesla’s by a margin of almost four to one ($275 billion to $75 billion). Toyota has a market cap of around $220 billion. General Motors’ market cap is approximately $55 billion. Tesla’s market cap is around $700 billion. No one in the world–perhaps no one in history–has benefited more from hype and pixie dust than Elon Musk. Or maybe it’s more obvious than we realize. But if he really wanted to buy Twitter, he wouldn’t have spent months trying to get out of the deal. This feels like Musk woke up one day and said something slightly crazy to get attention. You get it for saying and doing either major things, crazy things, or both. You don’t get much attention for having a sharp take on which left-handed reliever should come out of the bullpen. Bad attention is much better than no attention at all, no matter what it requires him to say or do.Ī normal person can tweet about the Mets game, get a few likes, and be happy with it. He needs attention ahead of anything and everything else. The least generous explanation is that Musk is essentially no different from Donald Trump or Kayne West. Maybe we should just give him the benefit of the doubt and withhold judgment for a few years. ![]() Odds are, no one reading this column has ever launched anyone into space or moved the entire auto industry into electric vehicles. And while Twitter as currently constructed seems like a very bad use of his capital, this is the guy who created Space X. The explanation most generous to Musk is that he’s a visionary.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |