Elon Musk is considering taking Twitter out of Europe amid EU compliance investigation
As Twitter, renamed X, faces increased scrutiny in the EU and usage falls, Elon Musk has floated drastic action.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-considering-taking-twitter-x-out-of-europe-dsa-2023-10Open linkView original on kbin.social426
Comments97
Well, mostly to take it away from the libs and hand it to fascists.
Expect a fire sale to Trump Social.
Except he bungled that and now it's dying
Oh no! It's just resting!
Pining for the fjords!?
Hush little Twitter don't you cry;
Papa Elon Musk won't let you die.
Hush little Twitter don't say a word;
Papa's gonna make you a mocking bird.
His point of purchasing Twitter was to pretend that he was purchasing Twitter. He never intended to go through with it.
Remember that he tried to back out but courts forced him to go through with it.
Since he was an idiot and gave a no reservations or conditions bid for the company. At way overpriced at that. The existing biard and owners must have been fainting from shock and glee.
No one sane ever gives no reservations and conditions bid. That is insanely stupid thing to do.
Twitter didn't make Elon buy Twitter. Elon did that to himself. Under normal bid, absolutely he could back out by arguing one of the conditions his lawyers would have put in.
Either his lawyers were highly incompetent, he didn't use them or he ignored their advice that it would be highly unusual and monumentally stupid to issue such bid while waiving ones right to have terms and conditions included. Well negotiate in terms and conditions. Since obviously otherside might refuse to accept the buying contract, if they don't like the terms and conditions.
In this case all the judge did was looked at the bid contract and went "Mister Musk, you signed bid to buy with no terms and conditions. So you have to honor the bid."
Sorry but that's dumb. You don't spend $44B to ruin it, when you can use it for own benefit.
EU doesn't like the changes he did and started investigation. Melon hopes that by threatening to withdraw they might stop, or be easy on him.
I mean if the goal was indeed so ridiculous as shutting Twitter down, it would be easy as shutting it down. He would save his image by just doing that instead of what he is doing right now.
His goal is to turn Twitter around and use it for affecting next elections, he is running into pesky EU and their regulations.
He didn't plan on spending 44B. The plan was to manipulatie stock price with pretending to buy, but Twitter management saw that one coming and let him sign a document for 44B that the rich idiot didn't read.
So when the "I changed my mind" phase of his master plan started, Twitter pulled out the document and forced him to cough up the 44B. So yeah, now he pretends it was the plan all along.
It’s trying to give him a little credit to justify messing up a purchase that large.
If the intention wasn’t to shut it down or disrupt then everything that’s happened is literally just Elon being a complete dunce. Which is definitely more likely, but scary to think someone can be that reckless with 44 billion dollars
Which is yet another reason to add to the list of reasons no one needs that much money. That $44b could have positively changed thousands of lives (at least). Instead, it just continued flushing things down the Xitter.
But that wouldn't work. If the community was snuffed out in a day then it would move to some clone pretty easily. It dying slowly means the community is divided and diluted many ways.
EU is waking up to the danger to democracy that is unregulated social networks ruled by trolls and dysonformation. They would be glad for them to leave.
He owns it though, he doesn't have to respond to shareholders anymore it is his company, so he can just shut it down if he wishes.
He took some debt to purchase it, but in case of debt, when coolant goes down lenders don't care if it was his fault or not.
It is ridiculous to think that he is doing this purposefully.
I think some people still have hangups, because how somebody who created Tesla and SpaceX could be this bad. The thing is that those companies are run by different people he is just their face.
Immediately after purchasing the site state "during this time of transition for Twitter, we're going to take the service offline for a period of time while the team evaluates the best way forward." then never turn it on again and eventually say "after extensive deliberation, we cannot determine a viable method towards profitability and will not be resuming services."
No one looks bad and the service is totally destroyed from day one.
That's not what was done, actions were taken with some other non-obvious goal. Although, it may be charitable to suggest that he's got a goal.
When company is go longer public and you own it, what argument somebody would have to sue you for?
The theory that he is purposefully destroying his company is just dumb, there's no upside for him to do that.
Nah, he never wanted to buy it.It was a pump and dump and then the SEC forced him to actually buy it.He tried to back out but was forced to complete the sale.
Now he has no idea what to do with it and is just digging himself deeper and deeper and deeper.
He signed a contract to buy it, then tried to back out.
Good point, you are correct. I worded that incorrectly and have edited it.
To people like EM, laws are only there to force others to do what they want, not to bind or limit their actions. When he decided to back out of the deal, as far as he was concerned, he should have been allowed to.
When they sued to force the sale, it was the legal discovery that scared the shit out of him. So he had to go through with the purchase.
What was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter?
Well, he is kinda following a random message he got from an unknown person:
Seems he's killing it to get cheers and adulation from the far right.
Why try to back out then? If this was some catch and kill op why did he humiliate himself and involve a fuck ton of bank loans??
Also it’s not like that text is some grand fuckin plan lmao
It’s a damn copy paste from the fascist playbook, reverse victim and offender/gaslight/silence those you don’t like with your new power
Frankly he's a fucking idiot. He and his parents have been wealthy enough that he's never actually had a meaningful consequence of any decision he's ever made.
And, if he's sad about it, he just cries into a mountain of money until he feels superior again.
If he wanted to kill it, this whole charade would be utterly pointless. He could literally just pull the plug.
porque no los dos?
I think he found himself between a rock and a hard place having to buy Twitter, but now he is realizing he can't make his money back and his attempts to alter the platform to his liking are failing miserably as well, he is probably dead set on killing it for good.
I'm not so sure.
He owns it outright now.
There are no other shareholders to answer to.
If he wanted to close it down tomorrow, he could just turn off the servers and sack everyone.
I also think as he doesn't align politically with a lot of ppl on Twitter, he might wanna phase it out slowly, so there's no sudden jump in other platforms trying to take over the role of Twitter.
Ofc I have no evidence for that, but I could see him doing that.
I like this take, too. I also see him spinning this into major tax write offs, or something. Even losses benefit billionaires in this country it seems.
Anyone that believes this is truly brain dead. He was humiliated when he didn’t look into the deal signed the contract and then tried to pull out when he realized what was happening. He had to beg for loans for fucks sake, putting up Tesla shares and other things as collateral.
He’s just a dumb rich piece of shit who is desperate for control and power. He will say or do anything to get what he wants (especially if he thinks it will garner attention) - that doesn’t require a master plan or any real preemptive thought for that matter
He’s a fucking piece of shit with a golden parachute out his ass and a silver spoon in his mouth since he was a child. He has ALWAYS bought his way in, look at damn near every business venture this piece of shit has had. Shit, he literally bought his way into Tesla, then OUSTED THE OGS AND LABELED HIMSELF A FUCKIN FOUNDER.
It has always worked for him so he kept trying to buy his way thru shit. Just look at his little spat with Zuck. He is ALL talk; especially when his money gets to do the talking. When shit hits the fan he scrambles. Always has always will
That makes No sense. He's just bad at busniess
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
You're giving Musk way too much credit.
I'm sorry, but I've heard him talk. He's not stupid. He's a troll though, and has more than enough money to treat Twitter as a toy that can be destroyed for the lulz or as a vengeance / tantrum for having been forced to buy it. Almost every change he made seems specifically designed to destroy the platform.
I've heard him talk a few times too. It is possible to be intelligent in a couple of areas, and remarkably dumb in the rest. People struggle to understand this, because they equate wealth with skill.
It's also painfully obvious if you have some technical knowledge. You cannot observe the man to be the dumbest person in the room, too many times, before you reach the conclusion that perhaps instead of being a misunderstood mastermind, he is just a bit dim, with a bit too much money.
What kind of technical knowledge are you referring to, that makes it obvious that he's dim after hearing him talk?
Most of the things he's said about Twitter. Most of the meetings he shared while CEO of Twitter. The stupidity behind hyperloop.
So none of the work he's been involved with that actually matters.
What do you mean? He devalued Twitter pretty impressively by both being involved, and being incompetent. What kind of example do you want? Or is your argument that it doesn't matter, because twitter no longer matters?
Maybe hes just using it to hide something.
Ok then, that was always allowed.
LOL he's Jerry
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
the truth is I kept crawling buying companies with the golden parachute sticking out of my ass and the silver spoon in my mouth and it kept working!
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
As a European: yes please. Fck off and never come back Elon
Elon Mosqito
You're welcome to leave!!
"If you don't like it then leave" never felt so satisfying and justified.
I see we're back to the land border between Canada and Denmark already.
With the Canadian-Danish territorial disputes settled one more obstacle to becoming European has been achieved. Next on the agenda to show European values: win, then host the Eurovision followed by an abyssal performance on home ground not directly qualifying for next year's event.
Don't threaten me with a good time
so his plan is to give another platform a chance... get it popular in EU and then have it spread globally. cool.
Can he take it out of Australia as well?
Do it, pussy. I dare you to follow through with that
I see this as a perfect win.
Best idea he's had so far....twitter is dead anyway...💥
Just shut down the damn app by this point, man.
Ah business genius. Take your product out of a massive relatively rich population. EU 450 million people, Europe 740 million.
It's Brexit all over again.
Bye Felicia. Nothing of value will be lost.
Man, Europe gets all the breaks! Wish the rest of the world did too.
A few years ago Facebook made the same threats and they are still there, screwing up. They are still empty threats and we all know that they will not do it
oh no not that
This is off topic, but I really like the facial hair that he has grown. It looks really awful, and makes him look more like the 50 something-year-old capitalist that he is rather than the 30 something year old epic meme lolzer he was trying to portray himself as a couple years ago
Kind of Alex Jones-y I thought
Don't threaten us with a good time.
Do North America next plz
He should take it out of America too!
How often have we heard that empty promise now?
C'mon... you can do it!
Thanks Rob!
Keep it in Saudi Arabia where it belongs.
Please piss off Musk
Musqito
That works with either meaning of 'piss off.'
Can he take it out of the US too? And the news was well?
Promises, promises…
Dumpster fire.
I don't care what Phony Stark is "considering" - I only care whether he fucks off or not.
Yes please
Don't fucking tempt me like this Elon
As much as I’d like to see this happen, I don’t think he’ll actually do it. His ego will not allow retreat.
Then again, if he spins it as a moral act of defiance against “woke” and “overreaching” Big Government regulations, I could see it. I still don’t think it’s likely, but it’s more of a possibility than it seemed when I started typing this comment.
His ego is why I hope to god he starts charging money for access to the service. I can imagine the number of likes, retweets and follows taking a huge nosedive as the musk fanatics stop using bots to prop him up.
Yeah, that'll show them!
Cya
Good riddance!
Bye Felicia!
👍
LOL, so much for new EU users at a $1 a year.
Meelon Husk
So while we all rightfully hate Musk, what does "removing twitter from the EU" even look like? Does he just stop doing business with all European ad-agencies, get rid of the safety blanket that twitter installed to molify the German government, and basically through inaction allow European users who want to user twitter use it without materially supporting Musk through ads at all? That sounds like a win for european users who still want to use twitter.
Does the EU step in and trip over their collective dicks trying to censor twitter from EU users? That doesn't like something that anyone should desire, or support, it would also be ineffective. Does Twitter try to trip over their dicks trying to censor twitter from EU users? Given how well twitter is run, I look forward to most EU users who want to use twitter being able to do so almost trivially after just a few months. So basically Musk can't make money from twitter in the EU, but who cares? It's already losing astounding amounts of money. It's not a sustainable business, and it never was going to be.
So it sounds like even if this was going to happen (it won't, he'll just shut down all of twitter when he realizes he can't pay for it anymore,) that it will improve the experience for everyone who still uses it, including those in the EU, and twitter will have even less oversight then it does today.
I expect a "This page is not available to European Users" page setup by X when entering and that's it similar to some pages that didn't want to to deal with GDPR did. Maybe since this is Elon Musk some rant or some crazy shit on it but that's basically it.
The thing with European ads agencies side not sure, the issue of X with Europe doesn't have much to do with them or in any case European Users wouldn't be effected by their ads anyway if the page is blocked and they might have ads for the USA I guess? So not sure if that would stop.
Of course regarding access VPNs and similar would still work... But really at least in my case I don't see myself using a VPN just to check Twitter... I will simply stop using it I barely use it already just as an RSS alternative to get some notifications.
The issue is that in order to block a website on the internet from a subset of users, there is a huge amount of work that has to be done to make it effective. I can't imagine twitter would bother with any of that, and why would they? It doesn't cost them anything to just shut down their EU offices/operations, stop complying with all EU laws they have to comply with in order to do business there, and make twitter (even more) American-centric. EU users can still use it if they want, since at the end of the day it's just a website on the internet.
Eu feels very much like they don’t want any balls in their ball pit. I hate their garbage cookie compliance spam they forced on all of us crapping up the internet
I hate musk and his handling of twitter, but i also dont like EU's anti-privacy push online