If you have not watched what is going on with twitter, it’s been a total shitshow and looks to be getting worse. The Eli Lilly stuff has been great:
On Wednesday, accounts that had paid for the new Twitter Blue — among them parody accounts, conspiracy theorists and white nationalists, according to Media Matters for America — started to get their check marks. Some accounts soon ran amok.
One impostor account with a check mark masqueraded as Eli Lilly, tweeting on Thursday that the pharmaceutical company would provide free insulin to its customers. Eli Lilly’s stock tumbled more than 5 percent in morning trading on Friday and was still down more than 4 percent at the close.
Another account with a check mark pretended to be Nintendo of America, sending a tweet featuring the video game company’s Mario character making a rude hand gesture.
And then this happened:
Let's be clear. Eli Lilly should apologize for increasing the price of insulin by over 1,200% since 1996 to $275 while it costs less than $10 to manufacture. The inventors of insulin sold their patents in 1923 for $1 to save lives, not to make Eli Lilly's CEO obscenely rich. https://t.co/5ZpZkqY0f9
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 11, 2022
He is, of course, right.
Honestly it's pretty heartwarming that one of the very first things people did with the Twitter Blue checkmark was to tank the market caps for several of the absolute worst multinational corps in the world
— Ian Boudreau (@iboudreau) November 11, 2022
If you like chaos and watching billionaires light stacks of money on fire, it’s beautiful.
On the other hand, I hope twitter is not totally destroyed and can recover. I like it. Most of the most clever and interesting people I know are from comments sections of blogs or their online personae. I’ll trade 100 of the people I know in real life for someone unfettered by fear of job loss because they go by the handle bananahammock or bread_pitt who shares interesting thoughts and ideas.
Except Baud. Fuck that guy. I am totally beating his ass in 2024.
lollipopguild
Baud vs Cole. Steel cage death match?
WaterGirl
Gosh, Cole, I hate it when mom and dad fight. Figuratively speaking. I might have to be on team Baud.
West of the Rockies
Rooting for injuries (that involve naked mopping and the bathing of cats but no serious damage).
Westyny
Don’t make me chose!!
Kent
I have yet to see proof that Baud isn’t a bot
That Cole guy though? I’ve seen things I can’t un-see.
dm
Great article on Musk’s management at Twitter:
https://www.platformer.news/p/inside-the-twitter-meltdown
(substack, but it let me read it without subscribing)
PS., reposted from below:
https://twitter.com/mrbenwexler/status/1590904883313774592
(Can Elon Musk buy Fox News next?)
sdhays
I don’t see how it rights itself with current management, and current management is the majority owner so he can’t be fired. Unless he fires himself, which won’t happen until it’s too late if it happens at all.
Major Major Major Major
I didn’t think he’d be fucking up the core business so quickly and with such gusto. Figured he’d fiddle with moderation policies and call it a win. There’s still time for him to stfu and let it run itself though before the whole house of cards collapses.
Benw
Cole/Baud 2024. Fuck pants and mops
eclare
@Benw: Love it! Fits on a bumper sticker.
dm
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t think so. See the Casey Newton Platform article above. Musk has really made some amazingly terrible management decisions that have screwed his relationship with his customers (the advertisers) and the people who will make Twitter work.
I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of my friends (formerly, perhaps) at Twitter, but: wow.
Bill Arnold
I track some solidly pseudonymous accounts and a few probably-genuinely anonymous[1] accounts on twitter, that are more interesting than almost all bluechecks.
[1] Actual twitter anonymity is doable. Tedious and finicky and requiring 100 percent discipline, but doable.
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t see any saving Twitter. It will disintegrate in purely technical ways even if Musk stops with his dumbass ideas. He fired the frikkin’ maintenance staff. Everyone left is updating their resumes and deciding whether to quit or force Musk to fire them. It’s going to stop functioning.
And Musk can’t stop with his dumbass ideas, because he got rid of everyone who can run the company for him. He has to be directly involved, which will mean a nonstop shit show of incompetence.
Oh, and the FTC is probably going to fine the company billions of dollars, so it’s fucked right there.
EDIT –
@Major Major Major Major:
The power of spite and thin-skinned narcissism. The first thing Musk did was fire everybody that told him when he bought 9% of the company that didn’t mean he was in charge. So it’s just him making decisions. Shitty, shitty decisions.
dmsilev
Musk is also torching Tesla’s stock price with his foolishness, and that bubble could burst in a big way. A Tesla whose share price is in line with actual sales and such would be worth far less than the current iteration, propped up by Musk’s undeserved reputation as a genius inventor-business guy. Gee, it’d be a big shame if all the loans he took out using Tesla shares as collateral suddenly got called in because of drops in the value of that collateral, which of course would further decrease the price of his remaining shares…
bjacques
It’s all over now, Twitter Blue
BigJimSlade
@lollipopguild: “Steel cage death match” more like tin foil cage BBQ match – let’s give them good food and some tin foil to smash.
Kent
@Frankensteinbeck: My guess? Elon will drive it into the ground in some fashion then when he eventually gets bored will sell it off and some new corporate buyer like Google will pick it up for cheap and put it back together.
NotMax
@dm
Next acquisition — Texas!.
Splitting Image
I remember the good old days when George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees to be a toy he could play with. When you think of how long it actually took him to drive the team into the basement compared to what Musk is doing to Twitter, Steinbrenner starts to look by comparison.
Martin
Another reason for Musk turning Twitter Blue off – it was exposing data from other user accounts on the payment screen. Pretty direct violation of the consent decree by the FTC. I’m guessing that’s why the 3 privacy/security execs resigned – Musk demanded the feature be pushed before it could be certified to not leak data, and they left rather than be on the hook to the feds.
Current valuation of Twitter is $5B-$8B based on the bond prices from the debt he took out. I think that’s generous, TBH.
Still think he’ll have Tesla acquire Twitter to bail himself out. Should be fun watching the Tesla board/investors lose their shit over that idea.
Parfigliano
@sdhays: Shocking. Another member of the lucky sperm club proves yet again to be dumb.
Major Major Major Major
@Kent: this is pretty much where I’m at.
Anoniminous
Financial Tech press reporting banks are trying to sell Twitter debt at 60 cents to the dollar.
FlyingToaster (Tablet)
@Anoniminous: They’ll be lucky to get 15 cents.
James E Powell
@Anoniminous:
I’d like to know why they made the loans.
Alison Rose
I don’t admire it, but I do enjoy it.
oldster
@dmsilev:
I’m rooting for that particular injury. Tesla has been a meme stick for too long. Their actual sales and productive base are tiny compared to their share price, and the rest is all buzz and vibes.
Buzz and vibes based on the perception that Elno is a genius whiz kid who can do no wrong. That perception is looking less plausible now.
I never had much faith in Elno’s genius because I read Eschaton/Atrios documenting his bone-headed misconceptions about mass transit (“hyperloops”). Then he tried to intervene in the Thai cave rescue and proposed a stupid solution that would not have worked, and insulted people who were on the ground and knew better.
That’s about when it struck me that this guy has another problem aside from than being an asshole: he’s a lousy engineer.
He does not have a good engineer’s approach to problem-solving, to estimation, to sizing up the situation and getting a sense of what’s practical.
His answer to everything — public transportation, space travel, mars colonization, Thai cave rescue — is to say, “let’s put one or two humans into small metal cans”. That’s it. That’s his go-to play.
And it’s not totally hopeless for near-earth space flight. But it’s totally hopeless for mass transit, and it’s totally hopeless for cave rescue.
Same hackneyed solution for radically different problems? We’re looking at someone with lousy engineering instincts.
Pity that he’s bringing Twitter down. But his own fall cannot happen soon enough.
lowtechcyclist
What I really want to know is: Cole, how does it feel to be @dougjballoon? ;-)
Chief Oshkosh
Friend of a guy I know tells me that Baud’s dom beats his ass every night — and Baud likes it. So, he may not notice you piling on.
Well, each to his own, I always say.
Chief Oshkosh
@NotMax:
That would be so, so sweet. Except for the ~45% of the population who votes D.
artem1s
@oldster:
Best that he’s bringing Twitter down. Maybe this infatuation with social media (and other companies with no assets except thin and hot air) being the way to drive entire economies will finally die. That crypto is (again) taking a hit at the same time is even better. Maybe journalists would get better at their jobs if they weren’t so distracted by social media and angertainment (love that)
Denali
How could anybody hate Baud? Baud is my hero. I love him almost as much as I love my dog Daisy.
The Pale Scot
Ok, great way to start the day
Uncle Cosmo
OUATALTA**, Mad bound a supercheapo record into the magazine with one cut, entitled “She Lets Me Watch Her Mom & Pop Fight.” Some lyrics I recall (bridge & last verse):
(Kind of astounding what sort of archaic dustbunnies can be found kicking around the brain’s baseboards 60 years on, innit? ;^D )
**Once Upon A Time A Long Time Ago. Deserves to be enshrined in acronymdom IMHO…
Subsole
@NotMax: Don’t you fukken dare… We’re already dealing with enough as it is…
Actually,
y’know what? Go ahead. We’ve already got Abbot running shit as we head into winter.
If I gotta freeze to death, I’d at least like the vicarious warmth of watching the schmuck who did it to me light his reputation on fire in the process…
PaulB
From what I’ve seen and read, Twitter may have actually increased the number of users and the engagement of those users since Musk acquired Twitter. At least, that’s what the Twitter sales team is reported to be saying.
I’m prepared to believe it, as I know that I’m spending more time reading Twitter than I did before, in much the same way that I’ll spend time viewing the results of a natural disaster. Alas for Twitter and Musk, that interest will not last.
Spadizzly
@Дяде Косме!:
Synchronicity! Just retrieved an object that had rolled under a baseboard and found this gem.
gratuitous
Oh, someone has made a serious miscalculation. But as long as it’s fun to watch, I’ll watch.
Burnspbesq
I’m an insulin user and a Lilly shareholder. That shit isn’t remotely funny. If the SEC and/or FBI catch up with those fuckers, I will cheer loudly.
Burnspbesq
Speaking of people who deserve to go to Federal prison, you kinda have to admire the chutzpah shown by Elizabeth Holmes, whose sentencing memo says she should get 18 months or less of home detention.