Business - Social Media
Is Elon Musk Going Bankrupt?
Moral And Financial Concerns Emerge With Free Speech
Starlink loses a government subsidy close to a Billion dollars, leaving Musk (and his mom) furious.
An event that makes us ponder how much would Musk have accomplished without subsidies and favorable loans at the backs of the taxpayers, and how many billions of government support his companies have received.
With the latest overpriced acquisition of Twitter, Musk seems to be betting his entire fortune on a single event: The re-election of Donald Trump.
His free-speech rhetoric has nothing to do with values, the Constitution, individual freedoms, or human rights, but it has to do with politics.
Musk has managed to create enemies where he should be having allies instead.
In Europe, the US, Taiwan, and Ukraine, Musk has drawn criticism over his actions and claims.
Is this a sign of high intelligence, as mainstream media suggested before shifting position, or is he just an arrogant person who got lucky by being at the right time and place?
Or perhaps both factors are at play here, including arrangements with powerful players in the geopolitical chessboard.
Do You Know John Law?
According to financial analysts, X.com may go bankrupt since it lost most of its revenue from advertisers, and the company is stuck in high debt levels.
But perhaps Musk might want to consider that his entire empire could collapse as quickly as he rose to success.
He is selling the narrative of colonizing the solar system, but it also appears it is all a ploy to consolidate his position.
Twitter (now X) seems to be in a dire situation after the advertisers’ exodus.
The company has to refinance $13 billion of debt (bank loans), while Musk seems to have overvalued excessively the company, as X.com now apparently is worth just 1/3rd of the $44 billion he paid.
Hypocrisy
Saying one thing and doing another.
Undoubtedly, this is Musk’s favorite activity, at least on Twitter where all things happen publicly.
We’ve watched how Musk de-emphasized the rapid expansion of AI and even called for a 6-month hiatus in the field, only to find out he was stalling for time.
We’ve seen actual Nazi sympathizers getting restored after years of suspension under the guise of free speech, but apparently, free speech on X does not cover criticism of the platform!
Travis Brown is an example of a person who was suspended on X for criticizing Musk’s decisions.
What Travis Brown did to deserve a ban is not clear, although he had criticized the platform’s decisions to reinstate previously banned neonazis.
Most rights, including free speech, are not absolute and require moderation when abused. Rights do not exist for anyone to abuse them.
The right to free speech does not extend to promoting violence, fostering racial hatred, or advocating ethnic superiority.
However, criticism is not an abuse of free speech but quite the opposite.
Freedom of speech enables diverse ideas to thrive and facilitates communication among well-intentioned individuals.
Yet, it appears that double standards never stopped applying to X.
Twitter’s acquisition favored Tesla the most.
It is no surprise that Twitter serves the personal interests of its owners quite well.
X.com shows a clear preference towards Tesla’s posts and Musk utilizes his new acquisition as a means to promote his companies.
A conflict of interests existed with Jack’s Twitter as well, both with his CashApp platform and his Bitcoin association initiated sometime in 2018.
While not entirely improper for marketing (every CEO is utilizing Twitter to promote their businesses), it is clear that after the acquisition of Twitter, several Tesla-related accounts emerged, and the reach of Tweets favorable to Tesla and Tesla-connected accounts increased enormously.
Musk’s fortune also increased in 2023 despite the vast losses and increased debt Twitter had announced.
The primary challenge is to rescue Twitter while ensuring that the stock price of the rest businesses remains unaffected.
However, Tesla announced far worse earnings per share lately hence the price started dropping significantly (-16%) since the beginning of the year.
Regardless, Musk has big plans for Tesla with growth in robotics and AI, sectors that the global economy would welcome a breakthrough.
In Conclusion
A controversial and often arrogant approach may not match the richest person, but his public posts and outbursts are not the sole reason he and X attract criticism.
Going morally bankrupt is the first step before financial ruin. Maybe that’s how the corporations always worked, yet it only makes sense when it is all public on an internet platform.
What seems bizarre is observing X allowing sympathizers of violent ideologies to crawl out of their holes and promote their extreme perspective.
It is also evident how these accounts support authoritarian regimes and aggressive and militaristic dictators with a terrible track record of violations of human rights.
Worse of all, though, is the attempt of groups following these hateful beliefs to undermine non-violent ideologies by infiltrating and slowly trying to propagate messages of hatred.
Everyone should support free speech, of course, but there’s no way we should allow the abuse of free speech by violent individuals that will eventually cancel this fundamental right entirely if given a chance.
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