I got a cheeseburger at Arby's the other day and they charged me $0.50 for extra tomatoes. And unlike Elon paying interest on TWTR, that wasn't a $217,000,000 cheeseburger. His TWTR interest costs are in the bid/ask spread of his TSLA stock. *Good burger too. I'll give em credit.
Musk gets told directly that influencers on YouTube earn 50x to 100x more than what they would earn on Twitter --- and this is why nobody is using Musk's shiat-pile platform to earn money. Unless they are right-wing clowns or conspiracy theorists who have already been banned from YouTube. Elon Musk Surprised To Learn Tesla Influencer Earns 50-100 Times More At YouTube Than At X: 'Wow, You Really Get So Much...' https://www.benzinga.com/news/24/07...100-times-more-at-youtube-than-at-x-wow-you-r
Elon Musk demands that advertisers who don't run ads on X/Twitter be criminally prosecuted. He does not seem to understand that advertisers don't want their ads to be seen next to hate speech. Nor will be ploy of give me money or I will throw you in jail be very effective -- in fact there is a term for this type of scam. Elon Musk Demands "Criminal Prosecution" of People Who Won't Give Him Money X-formerly-Twitter owner Elon Musk is very unhappy with advertisers, who are opting out of giving him money. In fact, Musk — the self-proclaimed "free speech absolutist" — is calling for them to be criminally prosecuted for, um, exercising the mild free speech of not paying him. "Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution," he tweeted, responding to a video of conservative pundit Ben Shapiro accusing "legacy media" of lying to "preserve left-leaning narratives." Shapiro was testifying in front of a House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, which released a report this week, accusing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) of conspiring to suppress conservative voices on the internet, an increasingly common talking point among Republicans. Now that Musk has surrounded himself with pundits sympathetic to his increasingly right-wing beliefs, he was quick to chime in. "Extremely concerning!" Musk tweeted in response to the report. "Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, X has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket," he wrote. Basically, Musk essentially wants it to be illegal for companies to refuse to advertise on his platform. But who could blame them for leaving in droves following his chaotic $44 billion acquisition in 2022? The company has quickly turned into a cesspool of disinformation and hate speech — a nosedive accelerated by Musk's own racist tirades. And it's not just advertisers. Data suggests users are also jumping ship in droves. Meanwhile, Musk has attempted to stem the bleeding by begging advertisers to return. That's despite quite literally telling them to "go fuck yourselves" during the New York Times DealBook Summit last year. It's a precarious situation for the company, which has already been reeling from plummeting revenue. Last month, Bloomberg reported that ad revenues were down almost 40 percent in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. And Musk's kneejerk lawsuits aimed at nonprofits that fight hate speech online aren't going well, either. The infamously litigious CEO had been accusing these groups of scaring away advertisers — somehow forgetting his own role in the exodus. His suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate was dismissed in March, for example, with a judge finding that Musk was trying to "punish" the group for exercising free speech. Another lawsuit he filed against Media Matters for America is scheduled for a trial in April next year — but the nonprofit maintains that the complaint is already dead in the water. Whether Congress will agree with Musk's provocative insinuation that advertisers who boycott X should be criminally prosecuted remains dubious at best. For its part, GARM maintains that it didn't do anything wrong, telling Ars Technica in a statement that it "has continually demonstrated that it will cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee in good faith" and that it remains "steadfast in the conviction that GARM enhances transparency in previously opaque practices relative to ad placements in digital social media." The situation is especially awkward for X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who has historically supported GARM, a flagship partner of the World Economic Forum, to which she has strong ties. Now, Yaccarino is desperately trying to pick up the pieces and put out Musk's fires. On July 1, X announced that it had "reinstated our relationship" with GARM. "X is committed to the safety of our global town square and proud to be part of the GARM community!" Whether Musk would agree with that sentiment remains to be seen. More on X: Elon Musk Begs Advertisers to Return as Twitter's Revenue Plunges
What Musk is doing is not different than the scammers that call you on the phone demanding that you pay your IRS taxes, etc. with gift cards otherwise they will have the police come lock you up & prosecute you. Generally these are known as "money extortion" scams. Legally -- in North Carolina the charge for the scammer would be "Obtaining property by false pretenses". If the value is over $100,000 in our state then the crime would be a Class C felony. Note that attempting to scam someone for money -- even is unsuccessful -- is also a crime.
It's didn't take long for Musk's X/Twitter to screw up the Olympics. The first Olympics blunder for Elon Musk's X has arrived https://www.sfgate.com/olympics/article/olympics-breaking-news-x-19584458.php
Let's check in with how things are going at X/Twitter as revenue continues to massively decline and Yaccarino is urged to quit to preserve what little industry reputation she has left. X saw 53 percent Q2 revenue decline while friends ‘have begged’ CEO Linda Yaccarino to quit https://awfulannouncing.com/twitter/x-revenue-ceo-linda-yaccarino-begged-quit.html One of the fascinating questions around X (formerly Twitter) is if the business can keep going despite advertisers (including many in sports) leaving in droves. That’s a key part of the many things discussed in a new New York Times profile piece on X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who suddenly left a role as chair of global advertising and partnerships at NBC last May (just ahead of their upfronts) to take the top executive role at the social media service under owner Elon Musk. And that piece has a lot of uncomplimentary things to say about the state of X’s business, especially on the advertising front. The advertising element of X is particularly notable on a few fronts. For one, it’s highly related to Yaccarino’s previous background, which includes 19 years at what was then Turner (including time as executive vice president and chief operating officer of advertising sales, marketing, and acquisitions) and then more than 11 years at NBC in roles ranging from president, cable entertainment and digital advertising sales up through her eventual chair of global advertising role. For another, it’s a key part of what was working for the company before Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter for $43 billion (which actually came that October after he tried to back out of the deal and was forced into it by a lawsuit from the board). Beyond that, advertising is one of the specific areas where Musk-era X is far different from its predecessor Twitter. And it’s an area where it’s been particularly under fire, including in sports, with many big sports broadcasters pausing advertising or pulling out altogether last fall after Musk’s lackluster response to their content being shown next to antisemitic posts. So that makes some of the discussion in that Times piece (from the Times‘ Kate Conger, with files from Ryan Mac, Benjamin Mullin, David McCabe and Sapna Maheshwari) quite significant. To start with, here’s what it says about revenue, with the outside advertising estimate previously reported on but the internal documents new to the public (and keep in mind that under Musk, X is not a public company, so its revenue numbers are not regularly reported): The company’s business has struggled in recent months, as advertisers remain hesitant. Since Mr. Musk took the company private, it no longer publicly reports its earnings, but Emarketer, a market research agency, estimated that last year, X lost about 52 percent of its U.S. advertising revenue, which dropped to $1.13 billion. The firm predicted X’s losses would slow to a 2.5 percent decrease this year. X executives told employees last month that 65 percent of advertisers had reactivated their campaigns, although they appeared to be spending less than they once did. Internal documents obtained by The New York Times show that, in the second quarter of this year, X earned $114 million in revenue in the United States, a 25 percent decline from the first quarter and a 53 percent decline from the previous year. The company aims to reach $190 million in U.S. revenue during the third quarter, bolstered by advertising associated with the Olympics, football and political campaigns, the documents said — but that target would still set the company’s quarterly earnings at 25 percent less than they were last year. Yes, it wouldn’t be surprising if X does see significant Q2 to Q3 growth given the Olympics, politics, and the NFL this summer and fall. But it’s fascinating to see that target still so far below what they got last year, especially as election year political ad revenue tends to be light years ahead of other years. Those numbers speak to the discussion of Yaccarino’s overall struggle in her attempts to rebuild X’s image as a respectable place for advertisers undermined by Musk, as outlined in the rest of the piece. There’s a lot of that. The piece opens with a discussion of how Yaccarino specifically recruited Don Lemon to be one of the first big names to do a video show on X, with that starting with an interview with Musk, and with Musk then canceling the deal after he disliked how the interview went. Beyond that, there’s a lot of talk about Yaccarino’s attempts to appeal to and bring back advertisers concerned with antisemitism on the platform last fall, only for Musk’s tweets to blow those efforts up. (What he did Friday by sharing a highly-manipulated version of a Kamala Harris ad might add to those issues.) And Musk’s specific appearance at The New York Times‘ DealBook summit last November, where he profanely told advertisers X didn’t need them, is cited as a particular problem. There’s some praise for Yaccarino’s efforts to manage Musk. Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel (it should be noted his company is an investor in X) tells Conger “The mark of a good C.E.O. is not how many punches you can throw, but how many you can take. She is the Muhammad Ali of C.E.O.s,” while others praise how she convinced Musk to attend a private dinner with insiders after that DealBook summit and repair some of the damage done by his public remarks. There is some criticism for Yaccarino here as well. Some question her CODE appearance last fall and inability to handle criticism there from former Twitter executive Yoel Roth, while others point out that her words often don’t mean much with Musk quickly countering them publicly. But regardless of one’s opinion on Yaccarino, perhaps the more remarkable thing here is the relaying of comments from her friends telling her to leave the company, as well as advertising executives calling on her to exit on a conference call last fall: Some of Mr. Musk’s friends have counseled her on how she should interact with the willful billionaire, or even offered to act as an intermediary with him. More strikingly, some of her friends and former colleagues have begged her to quit. “You have to know this about Linda: Quitting equals failure, and Linda cannot allow herself to fail,” said Lou Paskalis, a longtime ad executive and friend who has publicly criticized her decision to work for Mr. Musk. “She is cashing in her sterling reputation to be Elon’s chief apology officer.” …On Nov. 18, during a conference call, several longtime advertising executives spoke to Ms. Yaccarino about their concerns with Mr. Musk’s seeming embrace of antisemitism and encouraged her to resign, two people familiar with the call said. Everyone’s employment decisions are their own to make, of course. And there’s a fair bit in here that explains why Yaccarino took and is staying in a job where she seems so regularly undermined by Musk. The piece talks about how some feel that she and Musk “have enough of a shared vision for X that she can grit her teeth and bear it” and how she and Musk “share a fervent belief that their responsibilities range beyond running a viable business into rescuing the principle of free speech, a paranoia of sabotage from employees and associates, and a willingness to pursue legal action against critics.” There’s also a lot on how she felt disrespected and not sufficiently promoted at NBC and Turner. So there is a fair bit in here to perhaps explain why Yaccarino chose to go from an NBC role where she was widely praised for ad sales, including for the Olympics, to a role where she’s taking a ton of flak for Musk’s X decisions and undermining of her comments and policies. And she certainly can make that call. But it’s notable to see this detailed piece outlining how many business-side and revenue problems X still has, and how pessimistic many still are about the company’s future and Yaccarino’s role there. And that even includes her friends. [The New York Times]
So much for "free speech absolutism". Musk is regularly shutting down accounts on Twitter which support Democrats. White Dudes for Harris X account is suspended with organizer saying Elon Musk ‘got scared’ by $4m fundraiser ‘Got @elonmusk scared,’ organizer Ross Morales Rocketto wrote on his personal X account along with a screenshot showing the account’s suspension https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-for-harris-x-account-elon-musk-b2588164.html