this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Because it distracts from the fact that leveraged buyouts are almost always meant to kill the business in the long run, and such distraction reduces the chance of regulation against the practice. People don't think Twitter is failing because it had $13bn of debt it could never afford, they think it's failing because Musk is a poor businessman. That isn't to say Musk is a great businessman acting like a fool, rather, he is a clown acting like a fool.
I think if Musk had made a genuine effort to buy Twitter there wouldn't have been so much debt saddled onto the business. Musk was forced to make the purchase, but the nature of the purchase has subsequently been tailored into sinking the ship. One of the first things they did was stop paying rent - if this wasn't a sign of a business doomed to failure I don't know what is. The business will die a death, and everyone it owes money to will be left fighting over the ashes.
Ok, so you're not saying he actually originally wanted to buy it in order to tank it, you're saying once he was forced to buy it the most expedient thing to do was to bankrupt it.
Being pushed into buying it because of his loud mouth is still a MASSIVE blunder, him choosing to steer it into an iceberg after being handed the keys is just him cutting his losses. It doesn't explain why he would have wanted to destroy the company in the first place. If it was because the site was largely critical of him or platformed people counter to his personal worldview, then buying the company and running those voices out (like he did) would have sufficed and he wouldn't also need to tank it. Likewise, if all he wanted was to platform voices friendly to him and his worldview, burning down the house around himself and his new friends is contradictory.
I think you're giving him too much credit, I think he's just an overconfident dumbass that got himself into trouble and is trying to erase his mistake without ruining his reputation as a genius.
For that, you could turn to his old friend, Peter Thiel. Thiel tried and failed to start up businesses that competed directly against Twitter. Aside from Thiel, there are plenty of other people who likely resent Twitter - such as the Saudi prince who now owns a portion of it alongside Musk.
I think the goal is to bring Twitter down, then replace it with something else. Alternatively, they could turn Twitter into what they want it to be by further financing it and covering the debt, though that seems less and less likely as time goes on. However, by sending Twitter down the toilet they can experiment with the kind of things that future platforms might be able to do - anything Twitter gets reprimanded for will ultimately have no consequence if Twitter goes away, but anything Twitter gets away with can be fair game for new start ups.
I agree he's an overconfident dumbass and got himself into this position, and I'm sure he desperately values his reputation - the one aspect of all this that I'm enjoying is how badly his reputation is getting ruined. I still worry about more sinister things happening over the long run that may shape the future of social platforms for the worse, though.