He lost that value a long time ago when he laid off all of the employees and burning out what's left. It's a testament to old Twitter employees' skills that the app lasted this long.
The real question, why did Google Web Services and other cloud providers let Elon not pay them and let the app run for so long? It's clear he isn't going to pay up
It's literally all on him, but it's hard for his ego to accommodate that fact, so he lashes out. Yoccarino must already be counting the days until she can jump ship.
If you want to pick a fight with the ADL, you have to have a significantly more nuanced social media approach, regardless of whether you are "right".
Hopefully this will resolve sooner or later with the current incarnation of Twitter going away completely.
Edit: Reminder to follow HN guidelines[0] and only comment if you have something substantive to say. I'm curious to see discussion on this but HN downweights submissions with high comment to vote ratios (flame wars).
Funny how Elon blames one of the greatest defenders of the Israeli government for his ills while using Israeli company AU10TIX for verification of Xitter's users. [0]
Who would have thought that laying off most of your staff, implementing poorly conceived product changes, and alienating your advertisers with edgy hot takes would cause your company to lose value?
While the ADL's previous relationship with Twitter to enforce shadowbanning is kind of a spicy accusation, the actual damages here are almost certainly wrong.
In theory, markets for direct response ads should be somewhat efficient - you are paying for clicks, views, traffic, etc. So even if the ADL was behind some kind of conspiracy with major brands, you would see someone scooping up the ads at a slight discount.
The truth is that most ads were probably ineffective to begin with. Big brands were overpaying on ads as part of "awareness" programs, and probably because the ad departments at these companies were personally using Twitter a lot and wanted their brands to be on Twitter for personal reasons (if you don't think marketing departments are so vain, you should hear how many billboards are bought just because they sit on travel routes of company executives).
Musk is now himself hammering in this idea. He's not making a case that Twitter has a valuable set of engagement metrics that are currently going untapped - and current ad buyers are getting a crazy good deal. He's admitting that Twitter's valuation was based on Twitter being a cool place for vain brands to dump money and now it's not.
It wasn't worth anywhere close to $40 billion to start with to anyone but Musk (and not really to him, either, which is why he tried to run from the contract until it was clear that wouldn’t work.)
Every self-professed technologist or SV cheerleader valued this guy and his companies as some sort of last bastion of hope for a better future and the reason why we must tolerate his shananigans and straight up frauds.
Cooler heads have always identified Musk companies as dominant in the financial press publications and the tech press narrative publications and now the political press publications but of very little structural importance.
When JPMorgan, Microsoft, Amazon, Walmart, Bank of America, Exxon, Aramco fold...or lose 90% of their value, that would be the moment to stock up on food and ammo.
Does Elon/X pay back loans based on this current deflated value?
Or the equivalent with buying back / diluting stock or whatever the mechanations are.
Starlink's global "last mile" coupled with "you have to have an X account to use it" or even "free X/starlink/internet service" ... he can still win on this deal, i think.
It's a complex question. Without totally committing to the rabbit hole, one can say that the first order effect is that a Twitter bankruptcy would result in the creditors owning Twitter and the equity holders getting wiped out.
Twitter is probably out of money by now. If you've been inside a business that's in trouble, this is the part where you start doing sale lease backs on whatever capital equipment you have and getting individual founders and early stage investors to write loans. It's probably Elon's money keeping Twitter afloat. Technically out of compliance with his lbo loan covenants, but nobody's going to squeal about that yet.
The real question, why did Google Web Services and other cloud providers let Elon not pay them and let the app run for so long? It's clear he isn't going to pay up