120 points

It already served its purpose. He bought it so he could control a narrative, used it to boost right wing voices, used it to capture media for the purposes of suppressing dissent to win an election. He took Russian and Saudi money to buy the platform for the expressed purpose of getting Trump elected.

permalink
report
reply
34 points

According to analysts at Emarketer, from when Musk acquired X in 2022 until 2025, they expect X to have lost 7 million monthly active users in the U.S.

The declining user base pales in comparison to the decline of X’s brand and value. According to a recent report from Brand Finance, X’s brand is now worth 673 million. The brand was valued at $5.7 billion before Musk’s takeover in 2022. When it comes to revenue, X’s revenue fell by 40 percent when compared to the prior year based on internal company data from June 2024.

permalink
report
reply
34 points

X as a brand was worth $0 in 2022.
Twitter as a brand was worth $5.7 billion in 2022.
Elon took Twitter to the back of the shed and Old Yeller’d it.

permalink
report
parent
reply
42 points

Or if you prefer to be a lot more cynical, he Old Yeller’d it, but he burned it’s equity to get himself elected Co-President, and is worth like a hundred billion dollars more than he was before he did that.

So really, it was a Very Wise and bigly Smart business move.

permalink
report
parent
reply
19 points
<angry_upvote>
permalink
report
parent
reply
18 points

Dude he doesn’t care Twitter did exactly what he bought it to do. It can burn to the ground far as he is concerned. He bought himself a president and will be put in charge of the government that reglates his businesses. Dude going make more then he loss on Twitter .

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Which is exactly what the people who gave him the money wanted him to do with it.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Am I missing something? He bought it for $44bn

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points
*

“Brand” means the value attached to the name, not the value of the company as a whole. With that being said, yes, Elon massively and hilariously overpaid for Twitter (around 50%-100% over the odds IIRC). He offered an absolutely insane price per share as a stunt to get them to change their hate speech policies, and the Twitter shareholders said “Deal” and took his money. That’s why he sued them to try to get out of going through with the deal; he never actually meant to buy the company in the first place, he just made a really, really stupid attempt at a power move and it blew up in his face.

permalink
report
parent
reply
34 points

He’s already used it to buy an election. He’s gotten plenty of value out of it.

permalink
report
reply
32 points

There is a clear successor to X now, Bluesky, which means anyone not happy with X knows what their best option is.

My guess is, when X and Bluesky are roughly even in terms of active users, X’s user base will start to collapse and there will be a mass exodus to Bluesky.

permalink
report
reply
17 points
*

I’m guessing the worst of the worst will hang back at Xitter because they’d otherwise be banned elsewhere, and it will be a cesspool not unlike 8chan.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points
*

Which is a nice change, usually every alternative starts up exactly because the worst of the worst got banned from the original and had to migrate to somewhere else, and then it’s an uphill battle for anyone else to make use of that platform.

*cough* Lemmy *cough*.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Oh definitely, although the federated nature of the platform means it’s easy to block the angry Internet communists.

Personally, I just block all the ML domains, nothing good comes from there.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

I like to think we’re the best of the best, at least on some instances.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Yep, nothing but the dregs will remain.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

My guess is that the user base shifts will vary by nation and language. The rate of X enshitification and migration has hit different regions at different speeds.

The writing is on the wall for US users though. Twitter is the AOL or MySpace of this decade. It’s lame and not fun anymore, and Bsky is fun and very active.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I think Elon might try to intervene in that, either by regulations favoring his platform, or industrial sabotage. Maybe even try to get into the fediverse game, so X accounts could interact with Bluesky or Mastodon ones.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

I don’t see how regulations can help him there, especially given the nature of the Web. Bluesky can always move offshore, beyond the reach of the US authorities.

I also imagine both Bluesky and Mastadon users will tell x users, loudly and clearly, to fuck off.

permalink
report
parent
reply
30 points

Good! Some good news in my feed for a change.

permalink
report
reply
8 points

That should be a lemmy community :) I would read a good news focused lemmy, although moderating something like that would be subjective and potentially difficult.

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

Maybe !upliftingnews@lemmy.world could work.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points
*

Not quite the same, but we do have “andfinally” for quirky and silly news.

https://feddit.uk/c/andfinally

Named after the tendency on TV to put lighthearted news pieces like these at the end, to give people something to smile about after all the depressing stuff.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

oh interesting! subed.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

You might like the !UpliftingNews@lemmy.world community.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Technology

!technology@lemmy.world

Create post

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


Community stats

  • 15K

    Monthly active users

  • 6.7K

    Posts

  • 153K

    Comments