Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604617643973124097

by calcifer • 4 years ago

756 701 4 years ago

twitter.com

consumer4514• 4 years ago

Truly wild. World cup had nothing on this level of excitement from my POV.

donsupreme• 4 years ago

Everyone is voting "no" just to keep watching the trainwreck

DevX101• 4 years ago

I absolutely just did this. Twitter burning down will make room for the next platform, which hopefully will be more resilient.

acidburnNSA• 4 years ago

I'm also really praying that some super cool platform emerges from this that's convenient and fun and also somehow resilient against the whims of whacky billionaires.

logicallee2• 4 years ago

There's no option "No you don't need to step down, just start running it well please, letting people say whatever they want".

fells• 4 years ago

There's no evidence "just start running it well please" is possible.

Blue1112• 4 years ago

I voted "yes" to confuse him

intunderflow• 4 years ago

Just when you think it can't get any crazier, it does.

Going to be interesting to see what this does to the price of TSLA stock when the market opens on Monday

xenospn3• 4 years ago

Would you actually invest a large amount of money in TSLA, now that you know what musk is really like?

generj• 4 years ago

Only down by 1% so far. S&P is down .4%.

Probably people think him being back at Tesla more of the time is better for the company. I have my doubts about that. My big hope is he doesn’t screw up SpaceX close to Starship launching.

samwillis2• 4 years ago

This has had over 250k votes in the first three minutes. Thats insane!

I can only imagine the infrastructure for this...

weinzierl2• 4 years ago

Yes, and apparently I was the first person who voted.

https://mastodon.weinzierlweb.com/@ludwig/109537268355917100

calcifer2• 4 years ago

I saw the same thing when I voted when the post was 14 seconds old. I think it's just a cache thing and a great many people saw they were "first".

rsynnott4• 4 years ago

In the scheme of things that Twitter does, these polls aren't really too bad. As someone mentions, it's in the thousands per second, and I don't _think_ they show activity in real-time to anyone looking at them.

pgwhalen• 4 years ago

I hate to be the HN commenter that trivializes tech, but is that performance that impressive for a poll? Especially when there is no requirement for real time reads of the results.

cypress66• 4 years ago

Indeed. It's "only" around 1400 tps.

samwillis2• 4 years ago

Oh I know it's quite possible technically, I've just never had the privileged to work at Twitter scale. It's also the human side of that I find fascinating, that 250k people voted in under 2 min.

shepherdjerred2• 4 years ago

I hate to be the HN commenter that trivializes tech, but is that performance that impressive for a poll? Especially when there is no requirement for real time reads of the results.

It's still cool, even if it's not the _coolest_.

petey2832• 4 years ago

Talk about swift and immediate feedback. There must have been calls from inside the house too.

TigeriusKirk• 4 years ago

Does he want a yes or a no result?

pantalaimon4• 4 years ago

Yes will give him an escape hatch

minimaxir5• 4 years ago

Not really an escape hatch, he still owns it and has to hire a replacement to run the trainwreck.

smoldesu• 4 years ago

We don't know who he's instating as a replacement...

wmf3• 4 years ago

Surprise, it's Blake Masters!

faefox• 4 years ago

Hi, Mr. Musk? I'm here to deliver the attention you ordered.

modeless3• 4 years ago

I think he only posts polls when he believes he knows the outcome already. Yesterday he posted a poll about unsuspending the journalist accounts and when the outcome wasn't what he wanted instead of following the majority vote he posted it again with different options (with the same result, which he did abide by the second time).

I think this indicates he's tired of Twitter already. But he still owns it, so who will he put in his place? Or maybe he is expecting a landslide "no" result?

drexlspivey• 4 years ago

My money is on David Sacks if we would take the job (probably not)

cactusplant73745• 4 years ago

Somewhat ironically, Chamath, Calacanis, and Sacks can spot a bad deal.

ratio11• 4 years ago

Absolutely. This is one last attempt to frame his failure and giving up as being his dedication to “vox populi”.

minimaxir5• 4 years ago

Right after a massively unpopular policy decision.

He can't control the narrative anymore.

pseudo04• 4 years ago

It seems like it would be the smart move to hire someone with expertise in social media, give them his high-level vision, and let them implement the details. The last few weeks of Elon's micromanagement have been a complete shitshow.

wmf3• 4 years ago

Everyone with expertise in social media hates Elon's high-level vision.

bilbo0s2• 4 years ago

Whatever you think about removing Elon as head of Twitter, whether you believe that to be smart or not, this is just not how you go about making decisions as a leader.

Think of it this way, will Elon be conducting a new poll on whether or not to fire his replacement in a year's time? (Because that's what this type of decision making process leads to.)

This is not sustainable because it does not bring any sort of stability.

sillysaurusx• 4 years ago

MySpace Tom seemed to be interested: https://twitter.com/myspacetom/status/1604658018213195777?s=...

Imagine if Tom ran twitter. We’d truly be in the best timeline.

bouk• 4 years ago

If only there was someone with expertise in social media at Twitter

CaptainZapp• 4 years ago

Which high level executive would want to work for this guy after the public shit show on display for the last few weeks?

Specifically how he treats his underlings.

croon2• 4 years ago

Also he can trivially determine the outcome of said poll if he wants too. It's incredibly insincere to even pretend to use them.

calcifer2• 4 years ago

I don't think he'd dare. Everything he says internally gets leaked immediately, no way he'd order someone to mess with poll data.

minimaxir5• 4 years ago

Last month he implied he was looking for a successor: https://www.axios.com/2022/11/16/elon-musk-twitter-ceo-new-l...

Although I'm not sure who would want to run Twitter now.

modeless3• 4 years ago

Interesting. Maybe he found the CEO he wants earlier than expected. That would make sense. If the poll says so he can step down immediately, and if not then he can still step down later whenever he feels like. Of course he still maintains ultimate control either way but he can go back to focusing on SpaceX and Tesla more, either immediately or maybe in a few months.

So in this case he may not believe he knows the outcome ahead of time, but it doesn't matter because the outcome is the same either way. Only the timing is different.

aaronbrethorst• 4 years ago

I'm sure any of the goons who helped plan this debacle after he was forced to buy^H^H^H make good on his agreement to buy it would be delighted to run it.

philippejara2• 4 years ago

I can guarantee you there are plenty of people who do, you really don't need an ex-social media CEO or whatever to do it. Would be absolutely hilarious if he somehow managed to get moot to be the CEO.

layer83• 4 years ago

Although I'm not sure who would want to run Twitter now.

Especially while continually being at Elon’s mercy.

perardi• 4 years ago

It’s going to be Jason Calacanis, isn’t it?

over_bridge• 4 years ago

I'm sure plenty of people would love that job on their CV or filling their bank account but of the actually qualified people, who would want to be micromanaged by Elon Musk? There's better options out there

yellowapple• 4 years ago

Although I'm not sure who would want to run Twitter now.

If it pays well enough that I could retire afterward then I'd give it a shot. I somehow doubt it's physically possible to fuck things up anywhere near as badly as what's already happened.

tootie2• 4 years ago

As someone who has muted his account, it's already baked in that only his followers are voting.

xenospn3• 4 years ago

I muted his account months ago, but still got the retweets. I voted yes, which seems to be getting momentum and is now leading by a very comfortable margin.

robofanatic• 4 years ago

not too long ago he claimed that spam and bot accounts make up an estimated 11% of Twitter’s total user base, I don't think that has changed much so I agree these polls are simply a farce.

ckastner4• 4 years ago

It does seem so, and hilariously, it appears to be backfiring.

"As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it"

https://notabird.site/elonmusk/status/1604623424164282368

czbond2• 4 years ago

He doesn't want to lead Twitter... social media is a junk hole mostly filled with lowest common denominator users. He's definitely tired of the stupid issues on both sides that are filled with entitled users and whiners. It's a lose lose, let someone else fill their day with that.

cactusplant73745• 4 years ago

He can take as long as he wants to find a replacement. There aren’t many that can do to Twitter’s revenue what he did to Twitter’s revenue.

hobbitstan• 4 years ago

He can likely manipulate the results on the backend anyway. This is a real cowardly way to make decisions, by pretending they come from someone else.

j_crick5• 4 years ago

Some people have different modes of making decisions and framing the results, like all good outcomes being on them and all bad outcomes being due to external circumstances and “wasn’t me”. You think that’s cowardice (and assume morals), for other people it could be just convenience

dylan6043• 4 years ago

Clearly, the vote count is full of fraud because all of the users are bots anyways, yeah? In the pools of thought that Elon floats in, it would only be more fraudulent if Dominion was conducting the poll.

pantalaimon4• 4 years ago

But he still owns it, so who will he put in his place?

Lex Fridman just volunteered

https://twitter.com/lexfridman/status/1604627087385661440

JumpinJack_Cash2• 4 years ago

Amazing this guy was ready to get on his knees for Putin up until January.

Lots of stuff are known about Putin since 2000 till January 2022, some perhaps even worse than Ukraine invasion

For sure he has a soft spot for Autocrats both in Moscow and in San Francisco

PragmaticPulp4• 4 years ago

Lex Fridman’s subreddit is notoriously trigger-happy with bans and post removals. Lex is a mod, but it’s not clear who is doing the heavy-handed moderation. It’s well-known on Reddit that you don’t post anything less than glowing agreement with Lex on his subreddit, unless you want your post removed and to risk getting banned. I know his podcast personality is popular, but this is not the guy you want calling the shots on social media governance.

OTOH, Elon picking Lex as the fall guy to take the blame wouldn’t entirely surprise me.

jakear• 4 years ago

Changing the prior poll made sense. The options were “unban immediately”, “unban in a day”, “unban in a week”, “unban in some longer a lot of time”.

The issue with this is obvious: there’s only one “you fucked up” option and the “I agree but let’s talk specifics” group is divided into three. So even though the majority of people said “I agree”, the “you fucked up” got the most votes. Classic first-past-the-post failure mode.

That said, the later poll didn’t reflect this dynamic. My suspicion is that early on in polls the answers are likely to lean pro-Elon, as the votes are more likely to to be Twitter stan’s. As time goes by word of mouth spreads news of the poll to people who aren’t as active on twitter and accordingly are less likely to be pro-elon.

It was the same with the “should I step down” poll, started out pro-Elon, flipped as popularity increased.

https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/16036000010571857...

drumhead• 4 years ago

He's stuck with Twitter now, at an overinflated price. He'll never be able to make enough money from it to justify the valuation. Will he leave, no he wont, he'll still pull the strings from behind the scences. He just wont be doing it so publically anymore, he'll get a front to do it for him.

spamizbad3• 4 years ago

He’s just going to put someone like Blake Masters or David Sacks in charge. Which, honestly, would be worse than old Twitter but better than erratic Elon Twitter.

fncivivue7• 4 years ago

"eratic Elon twitter" - ignoring the news, what exactly is erattic about twitter right now? Doesn't it basically work exactly the same?

h11h• 4 years ago

The second poll about unbanning the journalists went for 24 hours (the first was only an hour or so), so even though "now" was the winning option, he still got the outcome he was looking for by giving them a 24+ hour suspension.

dylan6043• 4 years ago

he still got the outcome he was looking for

what was that outcome? fewer people knowing about his childish behavior? no, that wasn't it. fewer people knowing about his private jet and the mechanisms of being able to track it. nope, didn't work that way either. showing the world he's a petulant little child that throws a hissy fit when he doesn't get his way. now we're getting somewhere.

czbond2• 4 years ago

I thought Jason Calacanis was going to run it. He'd be much better.... also the type to not put up with crap - and not the type either to "run by committee".

madeofpalk• 4 years ago

He seems to be pretty happy with putting up with Musk's crap, as any sycophant would.

Raed667• 4 years ago

He definitely seems to like the flavor of Elon's shoe polish ... That should be qualification enough

hristov3• 4 years ago

Of course he knows what the results will be. He owns twitter. He has all the admin passwords to the server that runs the poll. The admins that run the server answer to him. The result of this poll will be whatever Elon Musk wants it to be.

knighthack• 4 years ago

That's just silly. Passwords are stored encrypted. No way would they be able to even know what the passwords are, even if they know who the users are.

exodust3• 4 years ago

Implausible conspiracy.

Email to the admins: "Hey guys I'd like the results of the poll to be the following..."

No chance.

Interesting side note: Here in Australia this morning on the ABC public broadcaster's national News channel, one of the presenters said "if you hate Elon Musk, vote yes"... encouraging the mostly left-leaning ABC viewers to log on and vote Musk out. The poll will get swamped by this politically divisive Musk-hating recruitment drive, which is why the results stand as they are.

ratg13• 4 years ago

More like he wins either way

----

Yes = he gets to step away from the dumpster fire without it looking like it was his decision

No = all of his previous decisions are justified

iconjack• 4 years ago

That is not what happened at all. In the first poll, he asked when the journalists should be unsuspended and the options were (a) now, (b) tomorrow, (c) in 7 days, and (d) longer. Choice (a) got 43%, not the majority. Choices (c) and (d) totaled 52.5%, which means the 𝗺𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 voted for a minimum suspension of 7 days. Elon then essentially invoked "rank choice" voting and ran a new poll with only the top two choices (a) now, and (b) 7 days. "Now" won, and he made good on it.

modeless3• 4 years ago

Look, if you want to claim you are governing by poll and have people believe it then you can't change the rules after you start no matter how bad they are. It's far too easy to manipulate the result by adding or removing options after you know the voting trends. It's not as if this was that important of a decision anyway. There was no downside to simply respecting the first poll result and counting it as a lesson to think about the options a little harder next time.

HmOh6WbJ• 4 years ago

Yep

Plurality is not necessarily majority

saberdancer• 4 years ago

Yes but the second poll lasted for 24 hours meaning the ban was effectively at least a day - which is option b) tomorrow

I bet he expected to get clear majority for 7 days.

bmitc6• 4 years ago

I think this indicates he's tired of Twitter already.

He’s also facing a huge amount of backlash, pent-up backlash, that he hasn’t experienced before or more successfully insulated himself from before. For example, when he was recently booed off stage.

I saw someone comment elsewhere that he is also highly leveraged, and that if Twitter tanks and Tesla’s stock keeps falling, he stands to lose a lot of money and even potentially control of Tesla. I haven’t looked into the veracity of the argument, but it seems plausible that he’s in over his head in more ways than one.

schneems3• 4 years ago

He has access to the databases. There’s no independent way to verify the results.

hairofadog• 4 years ago

Eh, for whatever reason I don’t think he’d do that. He’s in it for the chaos, and what says chaos more than letting a Twitter mob decide who should be ceo?

PragmaticPulp4• 4 years ago

I think he only posts polls when he believes he knows the outcome already.

Agreed, and this move would almost certainly be more of a distraction than an actual stepping down. Whoever is put in charge will still be under Elon’s thumb, but with a different person in the CEO seat, Elon can pass blame for the bad decisions and ride in like a white knight to reverse any unpopular actions.

exodust3• 4 years ago

"and when the outcome wasn't what he wanted instead of following the majority vote"

Not true, he changed the poll well before its conclusion. Then he abided by the majority vote and unbanned those users. But you're not happy, and need to make stuff up about what he did or didn't do.

His latest poll deciding his own fate reveals the bold transparency approach. People can't handle transparency it seems. Almost like they want things decided behind closed doors that decide the terms they agree to. The world needs more transparency not less.

It will be sad to see him step down, if the poll decides that. It's been highly entertaining. The outrage and temper tantrums sparked in entitled over-sensitive Twitter users and commentators, is quality popcorn material. Must the curtain close?

mcphage2• 4 years ago

The outrage and temper tantrums sparked in entitled over-sensitive Twitter users and commentators, is quality popcorn material. Must the curtain close?

I do mostly agree with you—Musk's outrage and temper tantrums have been pretty funny. This is probably been the funniest time Twitter has, just weeks of everyone dunking on him and watching him flail in rage. But honestly, it's getting kind of tiresome. Every time the conversation moves on to something else, he bans someone or adds some new rules or gets mad about something, to keep himself in the center of attention. I think it's probably time to close the curtains.

xu_ituairo• 4 years ago

It made sense to remove the first poll. It wasn’t constructed in the best way. The revision was warranted in my opinion, and doesn’t necessarily show that he was being tricksy.

andromaton• 4 years ago

In one hand, he is horrible at it. On the same hand, he should pay more attention to SpaceX and rest. On the other hand, a world with Musk is better than one without.

consumer4514• 4 years ago

Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again.

Does he mean a twitter poll?

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604616863673208832

e1ghtSpace• 4 years ago

Sounds like that second last full stop was a typo.

i_dont_know_• 4 years ago

I think if the poll says 'yes' and he does truly abide by it, I think it will show some honesty around the whole 'public town square' and 'for the people' rhetoric he has espoused. I'd be quite impressed.

However, he has a history of noble intents on Twitter (eg the 'end world hunger' thing) followed by lack of follow-through, so I can imagine a scenario where the poll comes out 'yes' and he doesn't abide by the results by calling foul play somewhere (bot accounts, multiple user accounts etc.)

mbStavola2• 4 years ago

It's much more likely he wants out of the hot seat and is using the poll, which has an obvious outcome, as an excuse to step down as head while keeping his pride intact.

minimaxir5• 4 years ago

"Yes" is now in the lead, and will likely stay in the lead given the trajectory.

testplzignore• 4 years ago

STOP THE COUNT!

shmerl• 4 years ago

Violating competition law with their new "no mention of competition" policy was a really dumb move.

Does Elon Musk always do such stuff without consulting with anyone who can tell him it's a legal disaster?

amwales• 4 years ago

Damn, I just tried to create a twitter account just to say 'no' so I can settle down with some popcorn and watch the world burn. My signup failed with an error, I guess they must have sacked the poor admins responsible for signups :(

chinabot• 4 years ago

For people sick of this shit I recommend changing the hacker news link to this

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=last24h&page=0&prefix=fals...

toomanyrichies• 4 years ago

Is there a way to only see headlines with Algolia, not story excerpts as well? The UX for the above link is really disorienting.

NetOpWibby• 4 years ago

Thank you

aliqot• 4 years ago

Elon owning Twitter is the most public accountability Twitter has ever had. Him owning Twitter, the way he's currently operating, will force a critical eye toward a lot of bad behaviors that we all experience but nobody really talks about on every network.

I say bravo. Twitter is dead. Long live Twitter.

browningstreet• 4 years ago

I think he could’ve done that. I would’ve welcomed that. But his revelations mixed with his red pilling colors it badly. I voted yes and I’m a Tesla owner. He can’t run twitter because he’s too susceptible to the ego trip involved. He’s making rules from his personal POV, not from the perspective of the health of the platform or an actual fairness doctrine.

He also has no plan… his successor needs a holistic strategic mindset and a business development methodology. Perhaps he had support from leadership lieutenants at Tesla and Space X and is trying to solo this one. Something’s different enough with his floundering at Twitter.

dmix• 4 years ago

As someone who already despised Twitter there is only good outcomes for me if it either declines into oblivion or they somehow rescue it from this pit into something more like ~2010-2012 Twitter moderation wise.

Best case we get a more decentralized option or a centralized option that isn’t so politicized by the owners… or at least an owner who isn’t a contentious celebrity that is a black/white villain/hero to a big portion of the population.

Unfortunately all of my experiences with Mastadon have been negative (particularly the UI and how it encourages bubbles harder than Reddit hypermodding), but Mastadon seems to be all people talk about.

andrewfong• 4 years ago

I like Mastodon but agree about the bubble. I think the best case scenario is something like a return to the glory days of RSS.

8note2• 4 years ago

I'm still very surprised that api access and payment to have bots hasn't been added (back)

The days when Twitter was cool is when you could get your toaster to tweet when your toast is up.

Removing dedicated bots just made for bots that are trying to hide their bot-ness

memish2• 4 years ago

That's a salient point. Biased, uneven, nontransparent moderation was always happening with weak justification, it was just done by unaccountable people and propagandized as righteous.

Remember people getting banned for saying "learn to code", disallowing certain news links even in DMs, shadowbanning undesirables with no transparency.

kevingadd3• 4 years ago

"unbiased moderation" is fundamentally impossible for an international service like Twitter with millions of users. Each country has its own rules about which content you are allowed to post and it has its own regulatory agencies that may demand you behave in a certain way. Your moderators will all apply their own cultural norms to their own behavior as well.

I agree that it's not "righteous" somehow but the idea that Twitter could be moderated evenly in an "unbiased" way is incredibly naive and it seems to be one of the illusions Elon was under before he took over.

JumpCrisscross2• 4 years ago

the way he's currently operating, will force a critical eye toward a lot of bad behaviors

Yes, running an engine at eleven will show you where it creaks. But it may also fling shrapnel through itself and everyone nearby.

yongjik2• 4 years ago

Him owning Twitter, the way he's currently operating, will force a critical eye toward a lot of bad behaviors that we all experience but nobody really talks about on every network.

Are you talking as a communist meaning "The society has been too lenient on the class of billionaires, but now that one of them is exposed as a destructive idiot, people will be forced to ask whether the rest of them deserve their power over us"?

Because that's the only logically consistent interpretation of your statement I can find.

Dudelander• 4 years ago

How did you jump from that to Communism? I though the meaning was pretty clear: People will be more critical regarding social networks. Meaning they will more carefully assess the merits and flaws of Social Networks, instead of just assuming they're good and fun with no real drawbacks.

8note2• 4 years ago

It's the same thing as trump in the presidency - many things were uncovered to be norms that people follow, rather than strict law

When run well, social media stays out of the spotlight, with it's issues swept under the rug enough for regulators to not notice. With musk loudly showing those issues, regulatory interest is drawn, and new rules for social media will be crafted for everyone's benefit across all social media

wokwokwok• 4 years ago

Am I cynical in thinking that if you vote yes, it’s a permanent record on your Twitter account, which he can then use later to mete out anti-musk retaliation punishments?

I mean, it’s not like he’s used the platform to do punish anyone who opposes him or his views before.

Maybe I’m reading by too much into it.

maxerickson• 4 years ago

If that's how Twitter ends up being run it's nice and tidy to have that particular information on your permanent record.

zenexer• 4 years ago

If he’s doing such things, then it’s not a platform worth staying on anyway.

wmf3• 4 years ago

Oh please please Elon give me a brown check because I voted against you.

pantalaimon4• 4 years ago

I think he very much expects people to vote yes. He clearly has no idea how to run Twitter and this gives him a way to get out of this disaster while still somewhat saving face.

akoncius• 4 years ago

I want to vote "keep Musk as CEO" just to give him more rope

lapcat3• 4 years ago

There are currently almost a million Yes votes, so you'll have to stand in a very long line for your punishment.

alamortsubite3• 4 years ago

Maybe not if you also happen to be a SpaceX, Tesla, or Twitter employee.

1270018080• 4 years ago

I bet a cron job shadowbanning people could run through 1 million user ids pretty quick.

rsynnott4• 4 years ago

I mean, what's he going to do, set Roko's Basilisk on you?

boppo1• 4 years ago

No, you just did that to him.

notahacker2• 4 years ago

Now that you mention it, Twitter is suspiciously effective at torturing Elon and his clone army, and it keeps him too busy to save the world from unfriendly AI. Maybe it is the Basilisk...

DonHopkins3• 4 years ago

Good god, I didn't realize there was a Musk connection:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk#Legacy

The thought experiment resurfaced in 2015, when Canadian singer Grimes referenced the theory in her music video for the song "Flesh Without Blood", which featured a character known as "Rococo Basilisk". She said, "She's doomed to be eternally tortured by an artificial intelligence, but she's also kind of like Marie Antoinette."[6][20] In 2018 Elon Musk referenced this in a verbatim tweet, reaching out to her. Grimes later said that Musk was the first person in three years to understand the joke. This caused them to start a romance.[6][28] Grimes later released another song titled "We Appreciate Power" which came with a press release stating, "Simply by listening to this song, the future General AI overlords will see that you’ve supported their message and be less likely to delete your offspring", which is said to be a reference to the basilisk.[29]

krisoft• 4 years ago

I am even more cynical and I think he wants an out without loosing (more) face. He hopes he will get a vote telling him to leave and then he can say people have spoken.

latency-guy2• 4 years ago

Sure it's associated to you, and yes it's permanent in the lifetime that this particular record is remembered and/or useful. It is also not farfetched for Twitter or really any website similar to it like FB, Reddit, etc. to punish people who only upvote or like comments/posts, no other engagement otherwise.

I don't really see a problem here that was not already a problem before.

I am also not going to lie, I think social media as a whole is really not that big of a deal. I know many people have built businesses through social media and benefit from it, but businesses live and die naturally everyday, don't put your eggs into one basket. I know some people that had some level of popularity on LiveJournal, they all survived it's death. You will too.

techolic• 4 years ago

I invite you to review Mao's Hundred Flowers Campaign, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

Plot twist: you vote yes and in 24 hours you're banned from Twitter.

DrNosferatu• 4 years ago

A true display of acumen in how to make business decisions… (y)

Corollary: from the beginning, popularity is driving the Twitter venture rather than anything else.

ckastner4• 4 years ago

In the six weeks he's been CEO, he totally gutted Twitter, and chased away who knows how many advertisers.

There's no reasonable way to right that ship.

I think he knows he's on the Titanic. I think he's looking for a pretense to get out, to stop this from taking TSLA down with it even further. TSLA is down -50% in three months, whereas the S&P500 is flat.

grecy3• 4 years ago

What's interesting though is that it's now his private play-toy. If you want to buy a $1,000,000 Ferrari and thrash it into oblivion in 1 week that is totally your choice, have fun with that. It wouldn't be a free country if people could stop you doing so.

He's doing the same thing here, he just has more money to play with, which I think it what people are ultimately annoyed about.

Also worth pointing out that for years and years everyone said the way he was going about aerospace was impossible and stupid and was never going to work. They said the same thing about his approach to automobiles.

By very definition to shake up an industry you need to go against the status quo. You need to do something others have not, and you need to take risks. Otherwise you're just going to get a 1 or 2% improvement. So actually I see him messing with Twitter so fundamentally as a good thing, because there's a chance it will result in something great. It might burn to the ground too, but that's the risk you take when you actually do something.

I mean, the worst thing about Facebook/YouTube is the relentless advertising, so maybe there's a chance that Elon chasing away advertisers is actually a good thing for Twitter users? He owns the thing, what do you care if it makes very little money?

I guarantee YouTube and Facebook would be more enjoyable to use with 1/10th the number of ads (and as a result, 1/10th the profit, which means nothing to me)

michpoch• 4 years ago

It is not really his private play-toy. There was a bunch of other investors that joined him and I bet they're giving him heat about the results already.

ckastner4• 4 years ago

If you want to buy a $1,000,000 Ferrari and thrash it into oblivion in 1 week that is totally your choice, have fun with that. It wouldn't be a free country if people could stop you doing so.

OK, but if you do that, people will consider you reckless, and people will question whether they can trust you with other endeavors.

Hence TSLA sinking like lead.

postingawayonhn3• 4 years ago

If you want to buy a $1,000,000 Ferrari and thrash it into oblivion in 1 week that is totally your choice

Musk basically did just that with a Mclaren F1.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/32191/did-you-know-elon-musk-w...

koboll• 4 years ago

Yep. He said just now that Twitter is "in the fast lane to bankruptcy":

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604626103326253056

P5fRxh5kUvp2th• 4 years ago

don't be an ass, he said it's been in the fast lane to bankruptcy _SINCE MAY_.

Any jackass can formulate an argument against someone by misquoting, the real skill is in doing it while being accurate.

songshuu• 4 years ago

Folks should vote no just to let him crater it and we can all move on.

3232• 4 years ago

Everybody, vote NO, Elon Musk as CEO of Twitter is too much fun, let's not end it...

DoreenMichele3• 4 years ago

I'm sorry, can someone with serious business acumen please eli5:

What is it again CEOs do? Because I thought they got paid the big bucks to make decisions.

zimpenfish2• 4 years ago

Because I thought they got paid the big bucks to make decisions.

To be fair to the lunatic currently in charge of Twitter, I don't think he's actually getting big bucks to be CEO, is he?

DoreenMichele3• 4 years ago

TBH, I have no idea. I wasn't following this that closely. It just seems to have jumped the shark finally.

p1necone• 4 years ago

If he steps down now his sycophants will just be able to claim that as the cause for the company further collapsing after he leaves, and not the braindead management decisions he's been making up to this point.

mbStavola2• 4 years ago

To be honest, I kinda hope he sticks with it if only because I think he's been great for the adoption of Mastodon and other alternatives.

3232• 4 years ago

Elon Musk posted "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" on 19 Oct and 19 Nov.

Today is 19 Dec, and in 12 hours he'll post again that the people have spoken. He's playing some sort of game.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1582778449583693836

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593769469741932544

rvz• 4 years ago

Now you're paying attention.

MonkeyMalarky2• 4 years ago

Maybe he's got a stimulant (or other psychoactive) prescription that renews around this time of the month and we're witnessing a periodic, chemically induced mania?

eru2• 4 years ago

I don't think Musk has to worry about renewing his prescription..

Or are you suggesting he gets an injection or so once a month?

sytelus6• 4 years ago

This is actually a very good guess. A vast majority of these ultra-rich population are now on simulants and psychoactive drugs.

ryanmerket• 4 years ago

He did admit to being on a new weight loss drug https://www.thequint.com/fit/elon-musk-uses-this-diabetes-dr...

penjelly• 4 years ago

has ambien script, has admitted to it influencing his behaviour on twitter in the past https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/79457837541523865...

tareqak• 4 years ago

Sort of like “post this cat the 19th of every month”: https://ifunny.co/video/post-this-cat-the-19th-of-every-mont... .

wilg• 4 years ago

Oh good, a conspiracy theory.

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

Maybe he'll sell another batch of stock tomorrow?

louthy• 4 years ago

The fact that he can’t lead without doing these idiotic polls shows that he’s not fit to lead twitter.

The whole point of being an exec is that you make the big difficult decisions, not defer them to a mass of people who couldn’t possibly understand the nuance of any one decision.

prawn6• 4 years ago

I agree, but I could see a mode where he was livestreaming insights into the days of a billionaire, and taking some direction via vote - whether what to have for breakfast, or as feedback on a Twitter feature. But using it as a face-saving crutch on divisive topics is off-putting (at least to me).

0x4d464d482• 4 years ago

Yep.

Delegation is part of the job but you don't get to delegate consequential executive decisicions to something as capricious as an internet poll...

fma• 4 years ago

I stand by a previous comment a few days ago, on another Musk and Twitter saga that he's trying to drive traffic to Twitter to increase engagement, users and get more ad revenue. It's how a narcissist would do it. This poll is all over the news now and there were earlier comments of signsups sky high now. I try to stick to paywalled, informative news (Financial Times, WSJ) and if they're covering it I'm sure the rest are...and a cursor check of cnn.com and foxnews.com, Control + F shows several articles in front page...

alamortsubite3• 4 years ago

This so much reminds me of that note I passed to my first crush Sherry Lehman in 4th grade, "Do you like me? []Yes []No".

whimsicalism• 4 years ago

what did she say?

alamortsubite3• 4 years ago

I doubt she even responded, but 10 y/o me continued to be obsessed with her, anyway.

Good luck, Elon!

manytree3• 4 years ago

Let's not forget that it's 3 in the morning Qatar time after an insane World Cup that Elon was live tweeting from the stands.

Definitely adds some flavor to this!

kevingadd3• 4 years ago

A bunch of his saddest posts have been in the early hours of the morning, like 1-4am. He seems to have a pattern of getting really upset about something and then Posting Through It, and it reminds me in a really sad way of how some of my most troubled friends always feel worst after midnight.

It sucks to see people with near-limitless resources just sit and wallow in (self-inflicted) misery when they could probably do something about it.

ProjectArcturis2• 4 years ago

Honestly, just going to bed would be the best option.

dekhn3• 4 years ago

nocturnal ennui?

ceejayoz2• 4 years ago

It sucks to see people with near-limitless resources just sit and wallow in (self-inflicted) misery when they could probably do something about it.

I'll never understand how he doesn't buy half of Bora Bora and occasionally go for a zero-g joy ride in a Dragon capsule. Instead he opts to self-flaggelate on Twitter.

ilrwbwrkhv• 4 years ago

Anybody who uses twitter is a loser

Waterluvian• 4 years ago

He posts polls as a way to externalize agency. It makes it someone else’s choice or fault.

Obviously that’s untrue but it’s a form of thumb sucking.

s53002• 4 years ago

This last month of the internet has been quite the fever dream.

As well as a good news-month on HN in general, imo.

JumpCrisscross2• 4 years ago

Yes. Please. Build starships. Build Teslas.

We just had a quarter of a trillion dollars of federal spending earmarked for the EV supply chain; why are you calling retiring politicians’ spouses pedos and giving Kanye West life advice when you could be corralling all of that.

Elon, please come home.

hackerfactor1• 4 years ago

I'm expecting one of the following:

(A) A sudden last minute huge influx of "No" votes. Either caused by bots or by Musk putting his finger on the scale. (Yes, I think this voting will be rigged.)

(B) He already has someone in mind for running Twitter. That person will be as bad or worse than he is. (What's DJTJ doing these days?)

concordDance• 4 years ago

Or B but the person is noticeably better.

SicSemperUranus• 4 years ago

A bag of flour would be noticeably better.

voxelghost• 4 years ago

Surely he has access to enough stats and data, that he can hold the vote being relatively sure what the outcome will be before-hand.

allears• 4 years ago

Twitter employees have stated that Twitter polls are a sham and entirely ruled by bots. There are no controls in place to prevent this. So the only question is, who's got the biggest bot army?

TheAceOfHearts• 4 years ago

I voted No because this is the most interesting content to come out of Twitter in years and the spice must flow.

It would've been fine if he published planned policy changes and asked the community for feedback before putting it in place. But actually making random policy changes and then rolling it back hours later is such bad form. The latest policy changes were so half-assed and dumb that it makes me wonder what's going through his head. Doesn't he have anyone helping to bounce ideas around?

If he steps down, who do you think he'll chose as his successor?

trenchgun• 4 years ago

Blake Masters.

j_crick5• 4 years ago

Let’s up this a little bit to Eric Weinstein.

jasonhansel• 4 years ago

Kanye?

bilbo0s2• 4 years ago

who do you think he'll chose as his successor?

And how long before he has another poll on whether or not to fire them?

It's his thought process that is the problem. I feel Twitter would have died Elon, or no Elon. But this sort of spectacular flameout ending is really what Elon brings to the table because his leadership style does not lend itself to stability.

slaw• 4 years ago

Elon Musk. He could step down and ascend.

6510• 4 years ago

mc hammer

quonn• 4 years ago

I want my car to receive updates and support in the future and keep some resell value, so I voted "Yes" ...

victor90002• 4 years ago

No clue how Tesla shareholders aren't sueing his ass already.

Danieru• 4 years ago

That might back fire. If Elon's focus shifts back to Tesla you might find yourself driving down the highway one day and your cars asks: "Do you promise to commit yourself to Tesla? Yes No?"

Hurry; there is a parked white semi up ahead.

neonate• 4 years ago

David Sacks?

sf_rob• 4 years ago

Likely and somehow even worse.

Edit: Actually, Elon doesn’t seem to do polls without wanting an outcome and his follow up “Careful what you wish for” would support Sacks.

riffic• 4 years ago

same, I've been longing for the collapse of Twitter for years.

the federated social web will outlive this.

layer83• 4 years ago

I voted Yes because too many people’s time is being wasted with all that drama.

abnry• 4 years ago

I voted Yes because I want someone who has principles and doesn't act on personal whim.

cactusplant73745• 4 years ago

No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604628761395138561?s=46...

Still playing games.

williamsmj• 4 years ago

Also voted no. Every minute he spends torching his reputation as CEO of a company he personally owns is good for the world.

amelius2• 4 years ago

who do you think he'll chose as his successor?

It will probably be another poll. With one option, him.

barbariangrunge• 4 years ago

As a non Twitter user, I’m curious how this social experiment will play out.

Twitter has been a pit of outrage, fuelling mobs to attack people for so long — will this new version of it be any worse? I’m curious to find out (from the sidelines)

ajaimk• 4 years ago

I just want to watch the world burn

Apocryphon• 4 years ago

John Carmack isn't doing anything, give it to him.

meepmorp2• 4 years ago

moot

t0lo• 4 years ago

I also voted no, as I hope more mistakes lead to a wider adoption of decentralised social media

mmastrac2• 4 years ago

He cleared out all the non-believers, leaving just those who want to stay for the cult of personality. What happens the the personality is gone?

The last few months _have_ to pop the bubble that Elon is a master of anything other that self-promotion.

funnyfunk• 4 years ago

He could easily rig the poll, what's the point?

Blue1112• 4 years ago

Lets recount

tomalaci• 4 years ago

Can you even turn Twitter around at all, even if he steps down and finds a replacement?

It was burning money before Elon, after buyout it is technically in even bigger loss. Advertisers and many influencers have basically fled from it. Politicians are also looking into regulating or outright ban it due to recent headlines of suspending journalists and more.

I still can't help but think that 40+ billion dollars probably could of built a twitter competitor with cleaner sheets and hopefully with better quality from lessons learned of previous social networks.

phphphphp4• 4 years ago

Twitter was fine before Elon, there were no existential risks to it. Everything happening to Twitter today is Elon’s doing. Any story otherwise is Elon’s preferred fiction.

x0x02• 4 years ago

That's not true.

Twitter was already losing money, whilst ads, their primary income source, is taking a hit due to economic problems. At the same time, the way they did ads is (the same as FB) running against secular trends against data sharing and privacy.

Jack and previous management had utterly failed on the product front. Excluding Spaces and Blue (for news junkies, which already got shot), what product changes had Twitter done in the last decade? 280 and what else?

Was all this survivable? Probably, but poor execution by Jack and crew meant that if it wasn't Elon, some hedge fund was going to take over Twitter. And the changes that make Twitter profitable likely, at minimum, badly damage it.

hn2017• 4 years ago

Agree. The people want Twitter 1.0 not Twitter 2.0. Musk destroyed Twitter

slipshady• 4 years ago

there were no existential risks to it

Untrue, by all accounts they were burning through money.

prawn6• 4 years ago

In theory, yes. But contingent on him picking the right sort of person who plays a straight bat and long game. Clear policies, well articulated. Navigating two polarised camps and shirking the desire to leverage the outrage. Winning back all advertisers. Having a paid tier that isn't so botched that someone needs to clarify "legacy verified" vs "blue" each time it's raised. It all seemed pretty straightforward so it's quite incredible to have wrecked things like this.

All of those obvious moves were possible straight after the acquisition though. Now your final sentence is far more realistic.

postingawayonhn3• 4 years ago

I think it can be turned around.

Scrap all the moderation changes musk has made, apologise to all the advertisers, keep headcount at a sustainable level (more than they have now but less than they had when musk bought it), and look to launch some new products (reviving Vine is the obvious one).

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

I don't think that will work as long as Musk is the majority shareholder.

acdha4• 4 years ago

They have over a billion dollars in new annual debt servicing, meaning they need to make far more profits than even their best years, and that’s before we see how much the new lawsuits will cost them.

Lower headcount could buy some headroom but that’s not going to help launch new products and there’s going to be a hard time staffing. You’d have to be a hardcore Musk fan not to assume that some new random chaos will happen, and as a private company they can’t offer stock to make the deals more appealing.

jasonwatkinspdx2• 4 years ago

Yeah, I was talking about this with some folks earlier: Who out there could meaningfully change the narrative and attract users back?

One person suggested Matt Mullenweg which is about the best answer any of us could think of.

causality0• 4 years ago

I'm gonna miss Twitter. Horrible as a social platform but people posted some really cool stories and photos.

mecha_ghidorah• 4 years ago

Oh goddamnit. I was starting to get hopeful that twitter would actually fucking die, if he isn't in charge it will probably be someone less absolutely insane

daVe23hu• 4 years ago

Jak was an editor just as Elon is now

all the crying about big bad elon is a joke

drooby• 4 years ago

Elon might be playing a very simple game.

Does this action cause outrage? Shock? Yes? Send it.

Is it a coincidence that this is an avenue for revenue for Twitter? Maybe.

oska• 4 years ago

I find myself in the unusual position of not having an opinion on this question (and thus I have not voted). I'm neither an Elon hater nor an Elon lover. I think he's done some good things since taking over twitter and some dubious things. I do think he's been unwise to involve himself so directly in 'moderation'.

DavidSJ• 4 years ago

I voted yes. I'd much rather he get back to working on electric cars and space travel and leave the tribal warfare to others.

eyelidlessness• 4 years ago

I don’t care what he works on but I’ll welcome his departure from this brief stint making chaos for no apparent reason.

nhinck2• 4 years ago

With the bold assumption he's any better at running those companies.

prawn6• 4 years ago

He's realised it's not in his best interests to be there, but can't mentally tolerate the idea of supporters thinking he's quitting or there against his will. Which is why I think he frames these decisions as a vote. If the vote doesn't go the way he wants, he'll try it again later, come up with another reason or whatever. It's easier to ascribe blame for something that goes wrong if it was a popular vote rather than a personal decision.

I suspect his personality means that he gets a lot of satisfaction from fawning fans, but at some point the reality hits of the Twitter saga's impact on Tesla and more. Like he's trying to kick some sort of addiction.

victor90002• 4 years ago

Oh obsoletely, he's begging for a way out and is just looking to save face somehow.

halfjoking• 4 years ago

The extremely unpopular link-banning policy makes sense in this context.

He wanted something to anger people right before the poll so it’s guaranteed he gets voted out.

prawn6• 4 years ago

I don't think he's trying to anger people. He just can't help himself making impulsive executive decisions, and there'd be minimal pushback internally. This stuff is coming out hour by hour.

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

What's with the second guessing of Elon's motivations as some kind of clever ploy? Let's consider the possibility that this just isn't his cup of tea and he's acting stupid beyond reason.

If you asked me to perform brain surgery on someone I'd first refuse, then if you pointed a gun at me I hope I would probably still refuse but on the off chance that I did not I think I would have more success than Elon has at formulating a social media policy that has a fighting chance of working. This just isn't an engineering problem and bringing an engineering mindset to it ("let's fix the bugs and plug the holes") is going to make things much worse even than doing nothing.

For this to work you need to have a fairly broad understanding of social affairs, a high degree of empathy and an ability to work with a team of people who may disagree with you on key points. Musk does not seem to have any of these to a sufficient degree (to be polite) to make this happen.

theGnuMe7• 4 years ago

Another outcome is to install a puppet and blame them a la Bob Iger.

prawn6• 4 years ago

Very expensive way to save face! And a puppet would struggle to do worse, right?

I think he's too opinionated to salvage this, even as a puppetmaster. He would need an exceptionally strong appointee and an ability to keep his hands off and mouth controlled - I don't think he can do that.

NiceAndWarm• 4 years ago

This fucker just playin' with you all. Stop and walk away

chasd00• 4 years ago

Pull the plug Elon, just shut it down and write it off and get back to meaningful work. Please turn it off, it would be the best thing you’ve ever done for humanity.

wereallterrrist• 4 years ago

Can we please stop falling for this obvious tactic? How many days in a row does he have to do something seemingly-unhinged, and then follow it with some spectacle of a poll to shift the narrative? Is it really that easy?

parker_mountain2• 4 years ago

I don't even think he's doing it on purpose, I think he's completely in over his head.

Someone referred to Elon as "speedrunning being a forum moderator", or "running a Lowtax" and yeah, so far.

ceejayoz2• 4 years ago

Dark, considering Lowtax’s end.

minimaxir5• 4 years ago

The "this is a forum mod meltdown, at scale" joke keeps popping up because it's not a joke — it's recognizing a persistent pattern in bad governance of a mediated social space.

https://twitter.com/eaton/status/1604632585849765889

braingenious3• 4 years ago

The main difference between Musk and Lowtax is that Lowtax actually built something rather than buying it.

woodruffw9• 4 years ago

These things are not necessarily in conflict: "I don't know what I'm doing so I'll throw a high-voltage poll out there" is a somewhat predictable action for a panicking narcissist to take.

chiefalchemist• 4 years ago

It can be both.

Twitter's biz model is not his sweet spot.

In the chaos of that learning curve he can still take the piss.

RivieraKid• 4 years ago

It may be a subconscious tactic.

SpicyLemonZest• 4 years ago

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "shift the narrative". The fact that Musk is considering stepping down as head of Twitter is an entirely reasonable thing to be interested in as a followup to bad decisions he's made as head of Twitter.

actionfromafar2• 4 years ago

If he stepped down, I would forever wonder what would have happened, had he stayed on!

It's been incredibly interesting so far.

maxbond2• 4 years ago

I think it's important that this community in particular bear witness to Musk's actions, as Musk's potential employees are largely drawn from this community.

theGnuMe7• 4 years ago

I think you mean competitors..

WheatMillington• 4 years ago

Wow so you real are one of the ones who believes Musk is playing 4d chess, huh?

syzarian• 4 years ago

It’s possible that in Elon’s mind having a poll dictate that he step down could be a face saving measure.

mmastrac2• 4 years ago

Of all the suggestions of his internal mind-state, this one seems most likely to me. He needs a way to get out without quitting and being "forced" out when nobody can really do that is better than saying "fuck it" and walking away.

twblalock3• 4 years ago

Obviously it is that easy, otherwise this article would not exist and would not have so many comments.

wch• 4 years ago

Now that the poll is leaning toward "yes", Elon is adding conditions, namely, you have to invest your life savings. Lex Fridman volunteered to do it for free, and Elon replied:

One catch: you have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604626103326253056

cactusplant73745• 4 years ago

No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604628761395138561?s=46...

bee_rider• 4 years ago

He’s probably right, right? When was Twitter profitable, and was it profitable enough to pay for his leveraged buyout?

sytelus6• 4 years ago

So, the guy who has blocked half of the Internet for having any kind of counter-argument whatsoever will become its new CEO?

Context:https://twitter.com/search?q=%22blocked%20by%20lex%22&src=ty...

moneywoes• 4 years ago

Who has he blocked? Context?

theGnuMe7• 4 years ago

He wants to interview Putin to resolve the war by asking "hard" questions. He also wants to interview Trump for some reason. In over his head.

ThrowawayTestr2• 4 years ago

One of the people complaining about being blocked mentions crypto or some other get rich quick scheme. I don't blame Lex for blocking annoying people.

wraptile2• 4 years ago

In all fairness, that's the whole point of the block feature - to avoid interaction with people you don't want to interact.

I'm definitely off an opinion that people should block and mute as much as possible to sanitize their social media exchanges. After all, how often do people turn around on strangers that were worthy of a block?

PragmaticPulp4• 4 years ago

Lex‘s subreddit (where he is a mod) is also famous for removing any posts that don’t enthusiastically agree with Lex. A lot of confused Lex fans are surprised to find themselves banned from his subreddit after making the mistake of questioning something he said.

Podcast skills aside, this is not a guy with a track record of healthy social media engagement or moderation.

reaperducer• 4 years ago

namely, you have to invest your life savings.

Sure. He can have my 38 bucks. I can't do any worse than he's doing.

postingawayonhn3• 4 years ago

Not really a big catch for those without many savings.

[Edit]: Also, it's a bit of a stage rule as most of Musk's wealth is still in SpaceX and Tesla.

makeitdouble3• 4 years ago

Or just do what he does: move your ‘life savings’ to ‘investments’ or whatever else that doesn’t fall under the savings umbrella.

Not that this game has any fixed rule or he’d keep his end of the deal.

TOMDM• 4 years ago

And Lex is going to bite that bullet even.

No way Elon follows through, surely?

phphphphp4• 4 years ago

My prediction is that once the poll finishes with Yes winning, he’ll say that he cannot find a replacement so the only option is for him to shut Twitter down, but of course, it must be polled, so he will do a poll asking if he should shut Twitter down and when No wins, he’ll say “guess I’ve got to stay!”.

Sophira• 4 years ago

If he did that, he would get absolutely grilled by people for not abiding to the poll result like he said.

I can't help but feel you might be right, though.

eloff• 4 years ago

I voted no, because, well the world will be more interesting if he's at the helm of Twitter. Also it's good to have one more media outlet run by a right leaving individual in a world where most lean left. Maybe he's the chosen one who will bring balance to the force. Hopefully not by killing off the Jedi first.

He's losing the poll, and I don't actually think he'll abide by the results. But then he seems kind of unhinged lately, so what do I know.

SomeHacker44• 4 years ago

I have not used Twitter since Elon acquired it, until now. May be my last time. I archived my info and have not deleted it but now I have voted.

amelius2• 4 years ago

I'm tempted to sign up to Twitter now.

CalChris• 4 years ago

I'd rather Musk left Tesla+SpaceX and concentrated his energies on Twitter+Boring full time.

mtoddsmith• 4 years ago

A lot of the changes he wants to make will upset a lot of users and advertisers. Better that hate it targeted at a puppet err CEO than himself. This is his version of bullet time.

kljuka• 4 years ago

How can one know that the voting is fair and not just a sort of PR of Elon's bots voting as he pleases?

sytelus6• 4 years ago

I only voted with my 12 Twitter accounts. I think it's very fair.

DoreenMichele3• 4 years ago

That makes me want to vote "yes" with one account and "no" with the other.

jrm4• 4 years ago

I'm a little stunned that there's a non-zero number of people in this thread who actually consider the possibility that this poll isn't rigged (or riggable).

boredpeter• 4 years ago

I’ve never seen a billionaire so desperate for attention

petilon• 4 years ago

After stepping down as CEO, he should sell the company (even if it means accepting a heavy loss), then delete his Twitter account, then hire an image consultant to try and repair the damage done to his personal brand.

To see how far he has fallen, watch this emotion-filled video [1] as a reminder of what a nice guy he used to be. After he became the richest man in the world it is as if he flipped the "evil bit" of his personality. Time to flip that bit again.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOMcCNNdSl0

theGnuMe7• 4 years ago

Dude needs therapy.

ThrowawayTestr2• 4 years ago

He needs a friend.

Animats• 4 years ago

He really needs to get out of there and back to work at Tesla. Nobody's driving over there, the stock is tanking, and all the other auto manufacturers now have electric car lines.

Usually, CEO contracts have a clause that the person will devote substantially all of their work time to the business. Not spending time on side projects.

gonzo412• 4 years ago

Listen to this from about minute 35. The price may not go up.

https://openargs.com/oa663-elon-dumps-42-million-more-shares...

BaculumMeumEst• 4 years ago

bon voyage, thanks for the succinct demonstration of the right wing interpretation of “free speech”

jasode3• 4 years ago

It's instructive to contrast what other billionaires did with media properties they owned:

- Jeff Bezos personally bought Washington Post but he left it alone and let the editors run it. What Jeff did do was invest some money into the IT department to modernize the workflow tools (metrics dashboards, etc) for journalists. He stayed out of the decisions of what stories get run on the front page.

- Rupert Murdoch owns Wall Street Journal but when Elizabeth Holmes asked him to squash negative stories about Theranos, he refused and stayed out of it. He let his editors run the stories even though it embarrassed him because he was a big investor.

Both those guys are more detached from those media outlets and don't meddle in it day to day.

What tech people like Paul Graham and others were hoping was for Elon to apply his scientific first principles type of thinking that he demonstrated previously at SpaceX+Tesla to Twitter. E.g. Tesla A.I. competency to clean up the bots and make the platform better.

Instead, Elon let the Twitter monster abuse his ego and his reputation as a savior is ruined.

Best thing Elon should have done was to focus only on the technical aspects of Twitter and let some more level-headed less-emotional people manage the editorial aspects.

Hopefully, Elon notices that we don't have endless HN and reddit front page articles about Rupert Murdoch's jet.

actionfromafar2• 4 years ago

But we don't have endless front page articles about those other people because those are other people.

Musk knows in his heart of hearts that he is the most interesting and newsworthy person on the planet, so it makes sense the front page articles are about him.

kasey_junk• 4 years ago

He’s interesting because he does things we don’t expect, for good and bad.

The problem is right now he’s driving so much bad publicity. He’s engaged in one of the worst LBOs in modern history. He’s had a shambolic takeover (even in the realm of fire sales where firing everyone is the plan), he’s set his credibility on fire with his customers, he’s shown himself as terminally thin skinned, and he’s made a mockery of his supposed principles.

If he went back to pushing the state of normal on electric cars and space flight that would be covered, but he doesn’t seem capable of it currently.

skinnymuch3• 4 years ago

Calling him the most interesting is incredibly subjective. I don’t think he knows any such thing. He seems wildly insecure. Even more than me

woodruffw9• 4 years ago

Bezos is one thing, but I'm not sure if Murdoch is a great example: he perhaps refused to spike specific articles, but his entire media empire is built around promulgating his (increasingly revanchist) politics. His success is attributable not to "staying out of it," but to having a receptive audience that he (to waxing and waning degrees) has successfully influenced for the last 30 years.

Besides, I don't think Twitter is what did Elon's reputation as a "savior" in. The current affair is more reaffirming than opinion shifting, for everyone I've talked to.

jasode3• 4 years ago

, but his entire media empire is built around promulgating his (increasingly revanchist) politics.

Yes, I understand that and we know that WSJ leans more conservative than New York Times. Murdoch's empire reflects his worldview.

I mean "stay out of it" as in micro-managing day-to-day newspaper stories or writing constant op-eds to respond to his critics. That's the type of distracting minutiae that Elon has sucked himself into with hyper-reactive Twitter bans and incoherent replies with juvenile statements.

FormerBandmate3• 4 years ago

Elon is not a savior because no one is purely a savior. He is a genius at hardware who badly needs to shut the fuck up and have people rein him in sometimes. Twitter has always been his weakness, and he needs to have emotional maturity and hire a new CEO, then stay off of it entirely for two weeks

julianeon• 4 years ago

Maybe OP's statement should be revised from "staying out of it" to "giving the appearance of staying out of it."

You are undoubtedly right that Murdoch's political influence is everywhere in Fox News and his other, very profitable, properties.

But have you ever heard a single juicy sound bite by Murdoch about Hillary Clinton, or Obama, or "wokeness?"

I just checked: turns out he's made a handful of comments, all of which basically qualify as obscure. He stays out of the way, despite running what is maybe the most politically impactful business of our times.

Compare to Musk, who, just a week or two ago, tweeted "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci."

mcv4• 4 years ago

I've never been and still am not a big Washington Post reader, but I have seen a lot of very pro-billionaire headlines from the Washington Post. I can't help but wonder if Bezos might be directly or indirectly a factor in that.

Murdoch is of course well known for using his media empire to promote his own political interests. His British tabloids were ridiculously strongly pro-Brexit because Murdoch was a respected guest at Downingstreet, but didn't have any meaningful influence in Brussels.

PaulRobinson2• 4 years ago

Actually, there is evidence this is overplayed. In the U.K. there are multiple newspapers owned by Murdoch.

During the Brexit referendum campaign, one came out pro-Remain (The Times), and one pro-Leave (The Sun). Which one did Rupert want to win?

In truth his media has perfected the echo chamber: they echo back to the audience what they already believe.

It’s for this reason a middle class paper and working class paper can be so divided and why his US operational flagship (Fox News) can be vehemently politically opposed to his UK operational flagship (The Times).

He’s not schizophrenic - he knows to play his hand very, very lightly and the rest of it is all based on audience research these days.

philippejara2• 4 years ago

Like elon or not it makes absolutely no sense to compare social media with effectively newspapers, they're completely different things. The only comparison I guess you could realistically have is zuckerberg, but even then it wouldn't work very well.

flandish• 4 years ago

It’s only a tangent that they are newspapers compared to twitter.

The real comparison is that the owners are billionaires and giants in their “industries” in some fashion.

Elon forgot capitalist step zero: Choose profit before ego.

That he is a bad capitalist will become apparent at a long enough temporal scale..

twblalock3• 4 years ago

Hopefully, Elon notices that we don't have endless HN and reddit front page articles about Rupert Murdoch's jet.

Are you kidding? He loves the attention, and we are only talking about Twitter because Elon bought it rather than some boring guy.

I still don't see the impending death of Twitter. Where is the evidence that it is going down the tubes? PG will be back, because everything bad about Twitter is even worse on Mastodon -- instead of one narcissistic Napoleon running things like Twitter, Mastodon has hundreds of them, and they are even less accountable than Elon.

If you want to kill Twitter, stopping giving it free publicity would be a good start. But you can't help yourselves, so it survives and thrives on your outrage.

woodruffw9• 4 years ago

You aren't wrong in some senses, but I think you're wrong in the most important sense: Twitter's servers run on electricity, and electricity is paid for with ads and MAUs, not outrage on HN (and other tech forums).

RavingGoat• 4 years ago

Bankruptcy seems inevitable at this point.

*Speculation on my part* I think that's why Elon did the poll about stepping down. He probably went to Qatar for the World Cup final not just as a spectator but also looking to sell more shares. His poll was a result of the Saudis not being interested. He'll back away and let Twitter go into bankruptcy under someone else.

choppaface• 4 years ago

Also consider when yishan was ceo of reddit:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/13/reddit-ce...

At the time, yishan drew a ton of criticism, but now what has happened at Twitter dwarfs that story.

Recall that yishan was also from the Paypal mafia and had early experience at facebook. Yet was unable to make things work. Important for any of the current would-be Twitter investors to ponder.

firasd• 4 years ago

You're right that this raises questions about the nature of "first principles thinking". For Elon at Twitter, this seems to mean just applying hunches from Y2k era tech memories rather than understanding things like if you cut off huge IP ranges to fight 'bots' you'll affect legit users, etc

lettergram• 4 years ago

If you think the owners stay completely out of hiring decisions (which lead to editorial decisions) I have a bridge to sell you.

Frankly, at least this crazy guy running Twitter is openly doing it

machina_ex_deus2• 4 years ago

If you go back to Musk deal, it was immediately after Babylon bee was banned for an anti trans remark about man of the year.

I'm speculating a bit, and I'm not supporting his actions, I'm trying to explain then. I think he already had disagreement with his son that came out as trans later, and I think the major reason he changed his political position is because of his child. The child also cut all ties with him.

He said "The woke mind virus must be destroyed, nothing else matters".

It's not Elon the entrepreneur, or Elon the management genius, or even Elon the troll on social media.

What's really driving him is Elon the father that views leftism and woke as a mind virus that had possessed his child.

When you reach that position as a father, there's no loyalty to old political parties, there's no choosing words carefully or looking at Twitter as a regular business.

This is a person who could not care much about ideology until ideology reached his house and destroyed it - and only at that point he actually started fighting the fight.

He treats Twitter and leftists as the enemies because in his mind they are enemies, enemies that managed to destroy his child. It might seem inconceivable that someone might change his position so radically, and surprise everyone, but that's because they don't understand the real motivation.

Anyway, I'm not supporting his actions, this is meant to empathize with him so I'll understand what's going on and where all this is coming from, and therefore, where is it going.

acdha4• 4 years ago

This is a person who could not care much about ideology until ideology reached his house and destroyed it

I think this is made all the more powerful by being imaginary: if there really was some organized group he'd at least have some way of knowing who’s in it or what they do. Since it’s basically a conspiracy theory driven by not wanting to consider what he could have done differently, there’s nothing falsifiable, he can find signs of it almost anywhere, and anyone who tries to talk him out of it is suddenly a traitor. Since his son was trans, there’s an entire preexisting opposition group all ready to provide reassurance any time his faith wavers, too.

spamizbad3• 4 years ago

He should sit down with some conservative Christian parents and ask them if the culture wars un-gay’d their children.

Anyway I’m not inclined to believe this given that he’s cozied up to people who are openly hostile to trans people (calling them groomers etc) rather than “Trans people deserve our love and support but actually are just confused we can fix them!”

bentcorner• 4 years ago

What's really driving him is Elon the father that views leftism and woke as a mind virus that had possessed his child.

I don't think this is his motivation, because if it was, this isn't how he'd go about doing it. I mean, maybe it is - but if so, he's doing a lousy job affecting any kind of change in his child. I suppose that's on brand for him.

Personally I think he doesn't give a fuck about anything because $$ and just does whatever comes to mind (cf. his twitter poll about stepping down).

lancesells• 4 years ago

According to my search Musk has 10 kids. According to him he works something like 18 hours a day. He seems to maybe spend a lot of his time browsing and using Twitter.

justatdotin2• 4 years ago

ideology reached his house and destroyed it

wat? no.

licebmi__at__• 4 years ago

I'm speculating a bit, and I'm not supporting his actions, I'm trying to explain then. I think he already had disagreement with his son that came out as trans later, and I think the major reason he changed his political position is because of his child. The child also cut all ties with him.

Maybe, but I find it more likely that his child cut ties with him because he was always fucking awful.

bmitc6• 4 years ago

What tech people like Paul Graham and others were hoping was for Elon to apply his scientific first principles type of thinking that he demonstrated previously at SpaceX+Tesla to Twitter.

I wish one could take a step back and just see how ridiculous of a statement this is. There is nothing about Musk’s history and management style that is even remotely close to what could be called “scientific first principles type of thinking”. Musk’s management style is a bull in a china closet, he manages via personal vendettas, and he follows the marketing and hype first, delivery second product development cycle. See full self-driving, Cybertruck, Tesla robot, Tesla tunnel, and whatever else he’s promised over the years but never delivered on.

Edit: striking out comment about the Cybertruck’s airflow until I can find the article I read to back it up.

c222• 4 years ago

My pet theory is that the cybertuck is just an excuse to start prototyping a future martian ground transport, in which case atmospheric drag may be less of a concern.

rvnx3• 4 years ago

You mean the Paul Graham that was banned today from Twitter for "violating Twitter rules" ? https://twitter.com/nearcyan/status/1604598879973883905

wpietri2• 4 years ago

There is nothing about Musk’s history and management style that is even remotely close to what could be called “scientific first principles type of thinking”.

Agreed. But the interesting question for me is: what are people seeing that they would mistake for that?

sgjohnson• 4 years ago

The hyperloop is the most egregious example imho

0x4d464d482• 4 years ago

"Best thing Elon should have done was to focus only on the technical aspects of Twitter and let some more level-headed less-emotional people manage the editorial aspects."

That didn't pan out too well either.

https://i.redd.it/manager-does-a-little-code-cleanup-v0-5cxg...

djur3• 4 years ago

Best thing Elon should have done was to focus only on the technical aspects of Twitter

The problem with this is that Twitter didn't have any technical problems that it needed Musk to solve. "Bots" were not a major problem for day-to-day usage. What it needed was a product vision to reach sustainable profitability. Not a huge amount of additional debt, massive internal disruption, and a catastrophic reputational collapse.

readonthegoapp• 4 years ago

Jeff Bezos personally bought Washington Post but he left it alone and let the editors run it.

i mean, i guess, if you don't consider having a job- and or career-ending gun pointed at your head to be at all influential or coercive.

https://chomsky.info/consent01/#:~:text=SIZE%2C%20OWNERSHIP%...

Gatsky• 4 years ago

I can scarcely believe you are holding up Murdoch as a paragon of impartiality. His newspapers are notoriously biased and scurrilous, and actively try to influence political outcomes. He doesn’t have to intervene much because he makes sure to hire people who will enact his will.

hoseja2• 4 years ago

But he doesn't publicly (where the correct people can hear him, not his propaganda rags these people don't ever lay their marxist eyes upon) say mean things about the current insanity, therefore he must be good!

Nition• 4 years ago

I think if we follow Hacker News Guidelines here:

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

We can reasonably take the comment along the lines of "even Murdoch didn't step in in this potentially harmful scenario." It doesn't necessarily hold him up as a paragon of impartiality overall.

thaumasiotes2• 4 years ago

Jeff Bezos personally bought Washington Post but he left it alone and let the editors run it. What Jeff did do was invest some money into the IT department to modernize the workflow tools (metrics dashboards, etc) for journalists. He stayed out of the decisions of what stories get run on the front page.

I don't think what you describe is actually possible. Compare Glenn Greenwald's writing about his work at an organization funded by Pierre Omidyar ( https://greenwald.substack.com/p/pierre-omidyars-financing-o... ):

Any time I speak or write about Omidyar, the proverbial elephant in the room is my own extensive involvement with him: specifically, the fact that the journalistic outlet I co-founded in 2013, and at which I worked for eight years, was funded almost entirely by him. For purposes of basic journalistic disclosure, but also to explain how my interaction with him informs my perspective on these issues, I will describe that experience and what I learned from it.
When I left the Guardian in 2013 at the height of the Snowden/NSA reporting to co-found a new media outlet along with two other journalists, it was Omidyar who funded the project, which ultimately became The Intercept, along with its parent corporation, First Look Media. Our unconditional demand when deciding to accept funding from Omidyar was that he vow never to have any role whatsoever or attempt to interfere in any way in the editorial content of our reporting, no matter how much he disagreed with it or how distasteful he found it. He not only agreed to this condition but emphasized that he, too, believed the integrity of the new journalism project depended upon our enjoying full editorial freedom and independence from his influence.
In the eight years I spent at The Intercept, Omidyar completely kept his word. There was never a single occasion, at least to my knowledge, when he attempted to interfere in or override our journalistic independence.
For the first couple of years, adhering to that promise was easy: [...] our journalism and Omidyar's worldview were fully aligned
The arrival of Donald Trump on the political scene in 2015 changed all of that, and did so quite dramatically.
the Trump-centric worldview that I spent most of my time attacking and mocking on every platform I had — in speeches, interviews, podcasts, social media and in countless articles at The Intercept — was the exact political worldview to which Omidyar had completely devoted himself and was passionately and vocally advocating.
The radical divergence between my worldview and Omidyar's did not end there.
This extreme divergence between my public profile and Omidyar's core views expanded for years. Often Omidyar would promote and herald a view on Twitter in the morning, and I would then publish an article on The Intercept attacking that same view in the afternoon, and then go on television that night to attack it some more.
It was an irresistible story to journalists: at the time, I was the most prominent and the highest-paid journalist associated with The Intercept, which relied almost entirely on Omidyar's annual multi-million dollar largesse, and yet my primary political and journalistic focus at The Intercept was tantamount to a war on Omidyar's most cherished political beliefs and core objectives.
On at least two occasions, journalists with major outlets contacted each of us to let us know they wanted to write about this glaring split. Yet neither ended up doing so for a simple reason: Omidyar made it emphatically clear that I had the absolute right to express whatever views I wanted, and that my doing so would never create a problem with him, let alone cause him to rethink his funding of The Intercept.
Omidyar told me privately on both occasions that he knew when he decided to fund The Intercept that the day would come, likely soon, when not just me but other journalists there would be publishing articles with which he vehemently disagreed or even undermined his other interests. When he decided to fund The Intercept, he told me, he was supporting independent journalism, not promoting a particular ideology or political agenda. And indeed, no matter how much my attacks escalated on his core beliefs and the other groups he was heavily funding — and escalate they did! — I never received any remote signal that my outspoken journalism and commentary were imperiling his ongoing funding of The Intercept.
I recount all of that for two reasons. First, I want to make clear that my analysis of Omidyar's role in this scam Facebook "whistleblower” campaign and the dangers it presents is in no way motivated by personal animus toward him.
But the second point is the more important one. When it comes to billionaire funders of political and journalistic projects, Omidyar — despite the long list of political views and activities of his that I regard as misguided or even toxic — is, for the reasons I just outlined, as good as it gets. And yet despite all that, it is simply unavoidable — inevitable — that the ideology, views and political agenda of a billionaire funder will end up contaminating and dominating any project for which they are the exclusive or primary funder. Omidyar is not some apolitical or neutral guardian of good internet governance; he is a highly politicized and ideological actor with very strong views on society's most debated questions.
To understand the dangers of a small group of billionaires funding campaigns like this [...] put yourself in the place of senior editors of The Intercept. Despite Omidayr's genuine affirmation of editorial independence, they live in complete captivity to, and fear of, Omidyar's whims and preferences.
As is true of so many billionaire-funded NGOs and “non-profits,” editors and senior writers at The Intercept receive gigantic, well-above-the-market salaries. Because the site depends almost entirely on Omidyar's infinite wealth, it does not sell any subscriptions or ads and it therefore does not have any pressure to produce at all in order to generate revenue. It is a dream job for most of them: enormous salaries, endless expense accounts, a complete lack of job requirements, and no need even to attract an audience. For years, outside of three or four journalists, articles published by The Intercept produce almost no traffic.
It does not get better than that, and that is why almost nobody ever quits The Intercept. Why would they? They just stay for years and years, collecting a huge salary, with no need to do anything but avoid angering one man. They work in an industry where jobs disappear with astonishing frequency, where layoffs are the norm, where the very existence of most organizations is precarious, and where the slightest dissent from liberal orthodoxies can render someone permanently unemployable. Those who work in outlets funded by billionaires have essentially won a type of lottery, at least temporarily, and very few people are willing to risk losing a winning lottery ticket, especially if they know they have no alternatives
That means that the entire news organization has a constituency of one: Pierre Omidyar. If you were an Intercept editor who knows you could never get anywhere near that high salary working anywhere else — and that is true for virtually the entire senior editorial staff at The Intercept other than its Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim — you will of course be desperate to keep the sinecure going. That is not really corrupt as much as it is just basic self-preservation. If remaining in Omidyar's good graces is the only way to pay your large mortgage and maintain your lifestyle — which is true for most of them — then that will be all you ever think or care about.
Consider the power that bestows on Omidyar in the lives of those dependent on him.
They wake up knowing every day that one man has the power, on a whim, to destroy their livelihood. That desperate dynamic produces a climate where catering one's worldview and work product to Omidyar's ideological preferences becomes the overarching imperative. The only thing that matters to them in their work is keeping their sole benefactor happy and avoiding his wrath.
I want to avoid the caricature here. This need to please Omidyar is often more subliminal than conscious. There are numerous journalists who work at The Intercept who do great work and rarely think about Omidyar in any conscious or direct way.
But the inescapable reality is that the senior editorial management absolutely knows that their only real job is to foster a climate that will keep Omidyar happy, which means only hiring or publishing voices that will not offend him, ensuring that The Intercept's political and journalistic posture is aligned with his ideological worldview and, most of all, prohibiting anyone or any journalism from remaining at The Intercept if it strays too far from Omidyar's political project.

-----

When the owner is ideologically committed above all else to not interfering with what his organization publishes, when he makes repeated public statements to that effect and demonstrates his sincerity over and over and over again, the result is that the organization adheres slavishly to every quirk of the owner's beliefs, and devotes all its effort to bringing itself into line and expelling anyone who might think differently.

Jeff Bezos is part of every decision about what gets run on the front page of the Washington Post, whether he'd like that to be true or not.

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

Thank you for posting that, it is a very interesting viewpoint. I do think there is a bit of an inconsistency in Greenwald's reasoning though, he can't really speak for his colleagues, but he can speak for himself. So maybe he's not so much talking about his colleagues at the end as he is talking about himself? Or does he see himself as more principled than they are?

boredhedgehog• 4 years ago

Do you happen to know what Greenwald thinks about public broadcasters like Britain's BBC? His description of "unconscious allegiance" to the source of income is one of the most succinct summaries of the peculiar mindsets that those systems too seem to foster.

SanjayMehta2• 4 years ago

Lauren Powell Jobs' invested in The Atlantic.

The Atlantic is now visibly more biased towards the "left."

The original Atlantic was pretty much neutral.

theGnuMe7• 4 years ago

You could be neutral now but be called leftist if you won't publish disinformation.

theGnuMe7• 4 years ago

So what you're saying is that Elon is canceling himself?

moralestapia• 4 years ago

I'd be more impressed if they ran a poll and followed on what the majority of their readers decided.

ortusdux• 4 years ago

I think, in his own way Elon, is trying to apply his engineering first principles. AFAIK, his #1 rule is "The best part is no part", which I think explains a fair number of his (non-ego driven) choices.

sigy• 4 years ago

I'm sincerely confused as to whether this post is satire or not.

neycoda3• 4 years ago

Why would Bexzos buy the Post if not to influence its narrative? I don't think he's gonna own a news agency that will run stories undercutting Amazon.

lossolo2• 4 years ago

Seems like very critical article about Amazon in Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/a...

gsatic• 4 years ago

Wapo and wsj are becoming more and more irrelevant. Remember the Afghan collapse that happened over one week? Just read their coverage for months prior to that one week.

These are outdated legacy systems that don't have the impact they once did. So there is not much point to comparing how they operate with Twitter.

One thing interesting that's happening with Elon's polls is ppl will notice who runs polls about their own decisions. And that's a good thing.

lossolo2• 4 years ago

scientific first principles type of thinking

Twitter CEO Elon Musk blasts Rep. Adam Schiff in deleted tweet: 'Your brain is too small'[1]

1. https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/twitter-ceo-elon-musk-b...

EDIT: Another example of scientific first principles

https://twitter.com/badlin/status/1604689299701911552/photo/...

intended2• 4 years ago

Murdoch has been near single handedly the force that moved western news media and set us on the path we see today.

Many would happily dance on his grave, and raise a toast to his departure from this realm.

To say that he has a hands off approach to his editorial board, because of his handling of Theranos, is an unkindness to the harm he has caused to the fabric of decent society.

If any lesson is to be learned from Murdoch’s, it would be on silencing detractors, and holding the levers of political power.

foepys• 4 years ago

Murdoch has little to no influence in the non-English speaking world. "The West" is a lot more than just USA, UK, and Australia.

hjkl0• 4 years ago

Murdoch is a media mogul. Of course he’ll be involved in the day to day details. He does not “stay out of it”.

Murdoch staying out of content would be like Musk staying out of tech.

lucideer• 4 years ago

Almost everything in your comment is highly likely to be wrong, simply because of one fundamental difference between WaPo/WSJ and Twitter: Twitter contributors are not employees.

Stating unilaterally that Bezos & Murdoch exert no influence over the content of their publications can't be grounded in any fact because any potential influence they might exert would never be public knowledge. It's falsifiable (as many commenters have done with Murdoch) but it's not provable. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence Bezos does too: it will probably remain circumstantial since he is in a position to keep it that way.

Twitter content being crowdsourced means that Musk as owner has far less direct influence. All he can really do is censor, which is exactly what we've seen play out.

nicce• 4 years ago

Washington Post has had many "Opinions" in the past, which are directly related on supporting Bezos's wealth or business models.

Whether they have been pressured by Bezos or in some way, is uncertain, but it certainly leaves the benefit of the doubt.

bearmode• 4 years ago

Oh my god you're actually putting Murdoch forward as an example of a billionaire staying out of his media companies' business?

rvieira• 4 years ago

Rupert Murdoch is a bad example. He is widely acknowledged as the UK's "Kingmaker".

That's even the actual title ("Kingmaker, The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty") of a BBC documentary about him: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kxvz

trilbyglens• 4 years ago

Fox News????

maelito• 4 years ago

Rich people owning a media don't need to do anything for the media's editorial line to be changed.

additall• 4 years ago

But that's solely because media has always been a drug (clickbaits, cognitive tricks, etc.) serving as a power tool. The ones you mentioned, including HN belong one way or another to a "Democratic" party. And all these billionaires, well, they chose their side (as all billionaires do when it comes to power and politics) and we have what we have (i.e. "democratic" media not discussing "republican-leaning" billionaires' jets).

andrepd2• 4 years ago

"Rupert Murdoch doesn't interfere in the editorial stance of the media he owns" is the most outlandish thing I've read in quite a long time.

motohagiography3• 4 years ago

If this is originating from Qatar, I would speculate this poll is the result of a bet. The Emir, or another royal family member offers to make Elon whole on his $40B investment if he is willing to put his future in the hands of his users/subjects. If Elon wins, the Emir pays out, maybe for a small equity stake, and if Elon loses, the Emir gets to pick the new CEO of Twitter, and probably buys a significant equity stake.

Entirely speculative, but in terms of what could make this poll a rational choice right now, that's the only rational one I could think up in the moment. Maybe I'm absurdly wrong, but it's more interesting to treat people as rational and intelligent than as cartoon villans.

eternalban• 4 years ago

love it. The Emir right now could use a megaphone to deal with those pesky Belgians.

Klinky• 4 years ago

Is the actual point of the bet to prove billionaires have too much money?

eru2• 4 years ago

This bet would maybe make Elon Musk look more rational, but overall, it requires the Emir to look a bit weird. So I don't see how it would be an overall improvement?

IAmGraydon• 4 years ago

Or he has already decided to step down (or was forced to by his investors), knows how the poll will turn out, and is creating the illusion that the masses have a say in it.

chrisweekly2• 4 years ago

If he wants to stay, he'll game the poll, right?

ramesh31• 4 years ago

Either that or he’s just drunk.

camel_Snake• 4 years ago

A fun theory, but these kind of mental exercise to re-interpret an irrational decision as rational, repeatedly for certain individuals, seems frighteningly familiar.

Not everything is 4-D chess. Sometimes unforced errors are just that.

motohagiography3• 4 years ago

Sometimes they are, but this isn't the category of error you make at that level of risk. Theorizing about rationality is no less rigorous than standing him up as a hate figure though, but it's a lot more interesting.

navane• 4 years ago

Reminds me of Cameron's brexit referendum

BurningFrog• 4 years ago

...but I didn't mention WHEN :)

squarefoot• 4 years ago

The guy has become polarizing even to those who don't give a damn about Twitter but share his ideas on other things. So, what if the the purpose is to attract on Twitter those supporters of him who still don't have an account there, so that essentially he'll build a monocultural echo chamber ready to be used for politics when time comes?

"Hey, everyone sign up on Twitter right now! Elon is having a poll to decide if he should resign from head of Twitter!"

gonzo412• 4 years ago

I don't think he can quit. What does it say about you if you behave this way then flake out. People are going to start looking at Tesla and SpaceX and thinking, Jeez will this guy continue to deliver into the future. Elon is starting to become a risk, generally.

cmurf• 4 years ago

I put zero stock in this. He's on a continuum, capricious to liar. I would not be surprised if the poll goes against him, he orders a minion to fake votes in his favor. I also wouldn't be surprised if people who vote against him get banned. shrug It's his fief.

armchairhacker• 4 years ago

I do wonder if Elon has some ulterior, smarter motive, and his antics are just for show.

Like for instance, convincing people to move to Mastodon (a decentralized service) so that it becomes mainstream and censorship becomes harder.

Also that, words are cheap, so what Elon is doing isn't catapulting his net worth and reputation that much. The concrete actions he took (50% layoffs, Twitter Blue, suspending journalists but then unsuspending them) aren't too unhinged.

That being said, it's common to form long-winded conspiracies around the obvious truth. Extreme wealth, extreme recognition, and an army of yes-men have a really strong influence, maybe Elon is becoming insane.

mikrl• 4 years ago

I’m indifferent as to his position at Twitter, so could have voted no without internal conflict.

However, I voted yes because I want to see if he’ll honour his word, it’s more that yes is the active choice rather than any comment on his leadership.

netsharc2• 4 years ago

I think you're the dog being wagged by the tail. He's probably realized what a clusterfuck it's been, and he wants a cheap way out without losing face, and a poll where the answer is "Elon has to go" is just that way out.

Maybe he's even sicced his bots to vote yes.

pwdisswordfish9• 4 years ago

He should not, obviously. He needs to run Twitter to the ground first. So far, it's been going beautifully.

hristov3• 4 years ago

Let me just point out the obvious, as it seems to be completely escaping many people on here. Now that Musk owns Twitter, he can make the results of this poll anything he wants them to be.

layer83• 4 years ago

That would also be very likely to end up leaking.

d23• 4 years ago

I doubt it. Seems like he’s purged the non loyalists.

makeitdouble3• 4 years ago

Depends on what he does, but at this point the most vocal people already went away to mastodon, and he can ban more if he really wanted to.

Now I don’t think this poll is about getting legitimacy, and probably more about getting an out and putting some puppet at the wheel instead, but theoretically he has all the tools to play with the results if he wanted to.

timmytokyo• 4 years ago

So what if it did? How what that meaningfully change anything that Musk was planning to do?

powera• 4 years ago

OK, fine, I'll do it.

I've been discussing Twitter for a very long time at newslettr.com . If you want to go down that rabbit hole, beware.

cultureswitch• 4 years ago

Every day I mourn a little bit more the timeline where Twitter really does turn into 8chan.

Elon could have done it. It would have been stupid and glorious.

People keep on clutching pearls, saying you need moderation. You don't need more than what's legal, many websites are doing fine being wild jungles. Arguably, more than fine if you count creativity.

Really the only downside is that the advertisers and uninteresting people would fuck off. Neither would have mattered if instead of this pay for blue system they started charging accounts depending on how many followers they have.

grappler• 4 years ago

"oh yeah, I have plenty else going on. I'm the head of other innovative companies. I don't need this crap over at twitter."

At this point, twitter's goal (whether headed by Elon or someone else) should be to join the fediverse, and be accepted by other large instances for federation with them.

hbarka• 4 years ago

This is gaslighting from Elon. He posts shambolic polls to remove responsibility for his intent if the decision backfires. Remember the “Should I sell TSLA shares” poll? Turns out it was already done.

The plan is damage control to save Tesla’s spiral. Investors are clamoring the board to do something.

CosmicShadow• 4 years ago

Watching Twitter has been like watching a country get taken over by a dictator. You insult me? Ban. You track my personal movements (jet)? Ban. Share better alternatives? Ban. New horrible law here, new horrible law there, I don't like this so it's now law. At least it's not a country and just a useless sandbox, but it's surreal to watch the despot simulator live.

If I vote yes, do I get banned later? Is he going to leave and then blame/rewrite history to make it looks like the new leader is at fault? I'm afraid to post anything to the platform for fear of losing my account and premium handle to a ban from an insane leader.

stephc_int13• 4 years ago

I would not be surprised if he snaps like Howard Hugues.

He should never have spent so much time on Twitter, the interactions with his fans and his haters are not good for his mental health.

throw2022110401• 4 years ago

Vote by deleting your account.

jononomo2• 4 years ago

Honestly, I think that being Twitter CEO could really be what Lex Friedman was put on Earth to do.

https://mobile.twitter.com/lexfridman/status/160462708738566...

systemvoltage• 4 years ago

We'll find a way to seethe at Lex. He is already unpopular on HN although unclear why.

hanselot• 4 years ago

It will be great seeing how many bots get honey trapped by this.

uberman• 4 years ago

Why does Twitter need Musk if he allows public polling to make critical decisions about the company?

jononomo2• 4 years ago

The greatest thing Elon could do would be to donate Twitter to the United Nations.

imron• 4 years ago

Heads I win, tails you lose.

If the poll result says he should step down, he'll say "I'll be stepping down once I've found a suitable replacement" - which is exactly the same sort of thing he's been saying since the acquisition [0]

It sure generates massive amounts of publicity for Twitter and Musk though.

0: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593084628709314560

AlexCoventry• 4 years ago

https://twitter.com/AlexCoventry4/status/1604638025497157632

The only way this makes sense is if you sell it to someone with the taste, restraint and democratic values you've proven yourself to lack by your recent policy changes. As long as you own it, twitter is untrustworthy as a platform for public discourse.

blacklight5• 4 years ago

I would love Elon Musk to stay.

So he can accomplish his mission of destroying Twitter for good, take down BlueSky and all the associated crypto crapware with it, and take down his own other businesses in the process.

Two birds with one stone:

1. The whole idea of social media owned by large private companies that make money out of ads and surveillance will get a big hit, and open ActivityPub-based social media can fill the void left by Twitter (like it should have happened already a decade ago). If only Zuckerberg could also make the same embarrassing mistakes that Musk is making...

2. This arrogant buffoon whose only talent is to exploit people will get out of the way for a while.

So go Elon. Hold on and stay on the sinking ship like a good captain. I'm enjoying both the show and the popcorn.

blacklight5• 4 years ago

Btw I must also thank Elon for helping Mastodon so much.

https://cdn.masto.host/bitcoinhackers/media_attachments/file...

Every time he suspends a high profile Twitter account for posting Mastodon links (or, as he did recently, changes the T&Cs to explicitly "prohibit sharing Mastodon links"), we get a new spike of users and content on the Fediverse.

He's doing more to bring people to the Fediverse than years of enthusiasts trying to explain normal folks what an instance and an ActivityPub inbox are.

acjohnson552• 4 years ago

He could hardly do a better job if he tried. Which kind of makes me wonder, is he trying?

remram• 4 years ago

I would love to see this poll go "no", though I suspect that he would step down anyway. He probably already had a replacement in mind before he posted the poll.

BeefWellington3• 4 years ago

I mean he deleted and redid his last two polls when the answer he didn't like won, so I'm not sure why anyone would expect this to go differently. If it's an overwhelming yes vote, he'll delete it I think.

dshpala• 4 years ago

How can anyone, in 2022, still have this utopian vision about open social media? There will always be another "arrogant buffoon" to ruin it for you. It's more productive to change your attitude.

blacklight5• 4 years ago

I think that the shift towards open protocols is just inevitable at some point. The ads-funded and surveillance-based business model is getting backlash both from users and regulators.

The EU's DMA is forcing giants to open up their platforms and APIs, which means opening up the walled gardens, which means that Twitter and Meta will no longer hold a monopoly on how their information is presented (i.e. there will be a blossoming of apps that deliver the content without all the spyware, which kicks surveillance capitalism directly in its bollocks).

Users are also becoming more sensitive about who stores their data and how it's used. As platforms become more aggressive about defending their profit margins, and start shovelling more ads down people's throats, more sponsored results and deploy more trackers, people are actually starting to quit those platforms and move somewhere else - a reversal of the network effects that made these platforms' popularity about 10-15 years ago.

I really believe that within 5-10 years the idea of using a closed, proprietary and surveillance-based piece of software to stay in contact with your friends will sound as dumb as using proprietary and paid protocols for computer networking instead of TCP/IP, or some proprietary implementation of messaging instead of emails.

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

That's a very interesting viewpoint. You may be on to something there.

Nextgrid2• 4 years ago

Totally agreed about BlueSky and all the crypto-related nonsense needing to go, but thinking that ActivityPub is the future is as naive as thinking the Linux desktop is the future.

There are significant technical, scalability and user experience challenges with ActivityPub-based systems that people refuse to acknowledge and address. Some of those challenges may not even have a good solution - turns out there are also advantages to centralisation, and fixing social media toxicity doesn't necessarily require throwing the baby out with the bathwater and going all-in on a decentralised solution.

blacklight5• 4 years ago

I agree on the user experience challenges - although I don't think they are more insurmountable than several of the technical decisions taken by Twitter.

On the technical and scalability side, what challenges do you see? I personally see a distributed system of instances as something much more scalable than a centralized platform.

mikestaub• 4 years ago

What is the "crypto crapware" specifically you are referring to in the BlueSky project? There is no blockchain or token associated, though they are using DIDs to sign each post as well as standard asymmetric key encryption with the browsers WebCrypto API. https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/blob/main/packages...

Tomis02• 4 years ago

Nah, why stop now? Just run it into the ground.

Hani1337• 4 years ago

Wish I could vote yes, but him buying twitter made me delete my account months ago already.

rolenthedeep• 4 years ago

Honestly I'd be disappointed if he stepped down. Watching this slow motion train wreck has been more entertaining than anything on Netflix. Cutting his losses and running would be like canceling the third season of some particularly compelling garbage drama show.

Volundr• 4 years ago

Is there a way to see the current results without signing up for a Twitter account?

code_duck2• 4 years ago

Earlier in this discussion someone posted a link to Musk’s post on Nitter (which seems to be notabird.site), which is one of many Twitter alternate UIs/proxy/mirror sites.

Anyway here it is: https://notabird.site/elonmusk/status/1604617643973124097

gtirloni• 4 years ago

If I had the amount of money he has, the last thing I would be doing would be picking fights on Twitter.

ashildr• 4 years ago

I voted “no”. What’s left of the bird needs to crash and burn quickly so we can get over it and build something better.

dymk• 4 years ago

This better be a honeypot where he bans all the yes voters

schneems3• 4 years ago

Paul Graham just got suspended for posting to a link to his blog and telling people there was a link to mastodon there.

WhackyIdeas• 4 years ago

Am I the only one who doesn’t know Paul Graham is today, cause everyone is talking about him as if they personally know the guy. Is he particularly famous or something?

And I bet Elon Musk is praying people vote for him to step down. So if you can, vote for him to stay as head. It’s not everyday you see 40-odd billion dollars as well as Tesla stocks plumetting - it’s quite fascinating so little it seems to bother him.

But in all fairness, I think it would be better for his mental health if he gave social media a break for a while!

justusthane• 4 years ago

He co—founded Y Combinator, so he’s got name recognition around here.

makeitdouble3• 4 years ago

This site we are commenting on is one of his babies.

chrisco255• 4 years ago

PG created YCombinator and Hacker News, the site you're currently on.

JoeCortopassi• 4 years ago

He co-founded and was president of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator that Hacker News is the community site for. Not famous in general, but very famous here

kharak• 4 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer)

Among other things, he is one of the founders of Ycombinator. He is quite known in the tech world. You've might stumbled across one of his essays which are frequently linked here.

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

This site was started by Paul, he coded up most of the software you are using and he's been instrumental in growing it and YC (arguably the worlds largest and most successful startup incubator and seed fund) to something pretty impressive. I don't always see eye to eye with him but I have a grudging admiration for what he's achieved and how he did it.

consumer4514• 4 years ago

I thought HN was a fork of early reddit (YC 1.) Is that not the case? The story I heard was that PG wanted god mode on reddit, Spez said no, here's a fork.

Again, I could be so wrong here. Just what I recall hearing from what I noted as decent sources.

throwawaylinux• 4 years ago

Hopefully if he steps down he does not change the mandate to continue to allow journalists access to expose the conspiracy with the government to spread misinformation and censor critics.

Davesjoshin3• 4 years ago

Here is where I'm confused. A couple of months ago Elon stated that the network was lousy with bots. Now we are taking polls. Polls that presumably have real results for the network. But it seems to me we need some evidence and some trust built to take these polls seriously. Am I crazy? where is the flaw in my thinking here?

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

You're not crazy and there is no flaw in your thinking. I guess we'll have to trust the serial liar on the results.

Davesjoshin3• 4 years ago

I just really liked him as a bad ass engineer. Sucks that he went this far

jacquesm24• 4 years ago

Excellent, that way either one of two things happens: Twitter gets saved and Elon looks like a genius or Twitter goes down and someone else takes the blame. Is MM looking for a job? This seems to be ideal.

For those tempted to vote 'yes': Elon can see your votes.

xracy• 4 years ago

The phrasing of this is... weird. What does it mean to "step down as head of Twitter?" Is he going to sell the company? Is he going to hire someone else as CEO to make decisions?

What are people actually voting on here... it feels simultaneously obvious, and completely unclear to me.

TheDudeMan• 4 years ago

Step down means not be CEO. I'm sure he'd love to get his money back by selling, but that is not an option.

tamaharbor• 4 years ago

Now he can spend more time on Tesla and SpaceX. My bets are on Elon.

aczerepinski• 4 years ago

Can you imagine how excited Tesla shareholders are to vote "yes" on this?

chrisweekly2• 4 years ago

It occurs to me that voting the "wrong" way (or maybe even commenting here on HN) might lead to getting booted. Despite all the nonsense, I've continued to derive value from twitter, by:

- following accounts that share interesting things

- refusing to engage in arguments

- choosing "Not interested in this ad" for every ad

- avoiding "doom-scrolling"

I'd be sad to lose my account, given I don't have a way to recreate the "feed" of my curated following list, let alone easily interact w/ those people.

smnrg• 4 years ago

“Would y’all please save my 4ss and make me look good for dropping the ball on something so I can go back to play with rockets? Yes/No.”

meepmorp2• 4 years ago

God no, the rockets are doing ok, get him the fuck away from them.

Someone• 4 years ago

Controversial leader, a vote that isn’t anonymous, and the Twitter privacy policy (https://twitter.com/en/privacy) doesn’t mention the word “vote”.

I don’t think this is the way to gauge public opinion.

pellucide• 4 years ago

Most likely he will find another twitter addict.

Fun times!

ulfw• 4 years ago

I am getting bored of this childish man needing to be top of the news 24/7/366. Seriously a 1:1 copy of Trump in terms of narcissistic behaviour.

283042834092342• 4 years ago

If you are that stupid that you are seriously asking this in this way: yes.

shp0ngle• 4 years ago

Please no. It’s really, really funny.

gloosx2• 4 years ago

Can anyone explain me one thing? Is it some kind of special American sickness to place 51% on top of the 49% continuously? It's obvious to me that this is SEPARATION, and it leads to nowhere but a split. Every poll like this, it is a rocket strike to the commUNITY, essentially splitting it in half, forget about the unity. How come in thew modern world 51% prevail over 49%? How come it is a golden standard in a modern world to decide something by segregating people into Option A supporters and Option B supporters?

shepherdjerred2• 4 years ago

Democracy has been defined to mean "majority rules" in American politics. Do you have a better way in mind?

gloosx2• 4 years ago

Explain 75% jury court majority to me then? Why such an inconsistency between institutions about definition of "majority"? For sure, Communes instead of Govts seems like a perfectly fine better way. The majorities in such Communes would be tending to 100% not to 50% And we see Mastodon kinda adopted this idea while Twitter keeps 50/50 splits for everyone

rcarmo• 4 years ago

Oh yes, please. The past weekend seems to have firmly cemented the idea he shouldn’t be running it, as well as burning down any bridges he still might have left regarding trust.

I have never seen such a spectacular use of a footgun.

DonHopkins3• 4 years ago

I'm going to vote NO just to spite him.

You made your own bed, now tweet in it.

You moved fast and broke it, now shut up and fix it.

rexreed• 4 years ago

Twitter and Facebook could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn't care at all. Folks should rediscover the personal empowerment of blogging, and the joys of the early days of the 'net when the power was much more widely distributed. When Twitter came out it was called microblogging for a reason. I never really got Twitter and always considered myself to be a doof as a result, but maybe there's something to it. Decentralized blogging and microblogging is where it's been and is at if you want to own your own voice. Of course it's not the same megaphone as these concentrated centers of media power are, but then again, you trade off control for amplification. Those two things should be loosely coupled.

fsociety• 4 years ago

Nothing says taking responsibility for buying a company and putting its employees through hell like posting a Twitter poll asking if you should quit.

barfingclouds• 4 years ago

Yeah they’re trying to remove him from Tesla which he doesn’t want, so he actually has to find a replacement for Twitter

ouraf• 4 years ago

Have you ever felt like there's a trap surrounding that oh-so-desirable "i can vote on a Twitter poll to make Twitter's private owner Elon Musk lose influence over Twitter" bait?

https://i.imgur.com/sZGTW2H.png

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll

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