As a disclaimer, I am a passive hater of Twitter/X ie I don’t like it as a toxic social media platform and haven’t used it but I am not asking the users to move to Threads or some other fediverse alternative as a paid promoter. Also I don’t really intend to keep a strict tab on its status since I get any related major developments from other news outlets and Lemmy.
Seeing how it would be almost a year since the acquisition and all the decisions he took, people were speculating how it would only take a few weeks or months for it to shut down under the leadership of Elon Musk. Even I believed so after I saw the introduction of extremely high fees for API access, verification mark etc, thinking it may be under a financial crisis. But even now I am seeing no signs of it actually coming close to shutting down, as seen by the uninterrupted flux of screenshots/memes/posts of tweets in other social media platforms and its continued use for marketing by other brands and announcements by authorities. I did see some posts by Musk stating his issues with Twitter/X, news of his companies’ stocks going down, and some reputable figures announcing their departure from the platform among some other minor related events, however I feel these aren’t concrete evidences for me to come to a conclusion.
Could anyone clarify what the actual status of Twitter/X is, and if it is actually going to collapse anytime soon as rumored? Am I missing out on something crucial, like some secret funding to keep it alive or all of the rumors of it collapsing being just a huge overreaction by the internet in the end?
Musk is the richest man on Earth, give or take a few billion here or there. He can keep it running as long as he wants. It’s nothing but a toy to him. The problem will start when he finally gets bored of it, because he has already broken it to the point that nobody else will want it. He has killed it, it’s just not dead yet as long as he keeps swinging it around and paying its bills. But one day he’ll stop doing that, maybe once he finds a new, shinier toy. We just don’t know when.
I don’t think Musk is too happy with this purchase. The price was a significant premium and he knows it. I am not sure if he is cash positive or profitable yet. But if not, putting even more money into an expensive purchase is a hard pill to swallow. Even for someone of his wealth.
Most of his wealth is on paper. This was a pretty large purchase even by his standard.