this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
289 points (82.5% liked)

Technology

59143 readers
2907 users here now

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


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 341 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It was the paid blue checkmark for $8 back in 2022.

Kinda old article info without much current stuff except the lawsuit against the ad trade group.

[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 59 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Still makes me gleeful reading about his stupidity.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 77 points 2 months ago (3 children)

It does, until you realise that his monstrous wealth insulates him from any consequences, deflecting them onto the heads of mortals. No matter what he does, he’ll be alright.

[–] billiam0202@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

Not only that, but there are thousands of people insulating him from those consequences. People at Xitter working to keep what functionality they can, despite years of knowing what a shithead Musk is. People who keep the operation of SpaceX separate to make it successful despite his involvement. The Russian and Saudi investors who gave him the money to buy Twitter when he ran his mouth off about it.

[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I felt a little better reading today how many of his children are conceived IVF or surrogate. I can’t fathom having anyone having sex with him.

[–] finley@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

And now we don’t have to!

[–] Infynis@midwest.social 13 points 2 months ago

He's so insecure though, all the mocking he receives online is pretty satisfying

[–] hightrix@lemmy.world 53 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

And that's why I never click. At this point getting Rick rolled would be fresher news.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] tilefan@lemm.ee 170 points 2 months ago (1 children)

please just put the interesting part in the title.

[–] bcgm3@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

But then there would be no title.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 80 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This a beautiful story. Bankers get shafted lending money to apex capitalist.

🤌

[–] tja@sh.itjust.works 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Some days ago I read an article here that said that a lot of the money came from Russia and that they are getting exactly what they wanted: chaos

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago (3 children)

No one has ever explained how bankers are losing. They say they've lost money. Yet the only details are Musk has to make payments and put up Tesla stock as collateral. That a no lose for the banks. They don't care if Tesla stock crashes, they are making money from selling it.

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 29 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If Tesla's stock crashes, then the value the banks could get from selling it is much lower.

If Twitter and Tesla go bankrupt, the banks will have loaned out billions to own something worthless.

At least I would assume that's how it works.

[–] Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The bankruptcy scenario is correct but the first part isn't: you don't have X shares as collateral that you can liquidate. Instead, you have collateral to cover sum Y.

As long as the collateral contract covers enough stock positions the bank won't lose.

That said all of this is assuming standard contracts. If y bank wrote "0% interest and instead 50% of the revenue growth of Twitter" then this would be an easy way to lose money.

Haven't heard of a stupid banker yet, though, so what would the chances be?

[–] femtech@midwest.social 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I mean, the 2008 housing market was done by greedy and stupid bankers.

[–] curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 months ago

Who also made massive profits.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Stupid? It was a masterstroke by them.

They made a fortune, then governments had to throw more money at them or risk a complete economic crash.

After the crash, people were poorer, and credit was cheap, so they came to banks for loans and financed everything more and more, handing even more to the financial sector.

Houses temporarily crashed in price, but the poorest were too risky for banks to lend to, leading to houses being bought up en-mass by people who were already wealthy.

Bankers in 2008 were greedy, yes. But certainly not stupid.

[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

IMO they should not have been bailed out. For most people the economy has already failed and it should be allowed to crash fully so that it can be rebuilt and restructured in full. That might sound extreme but I don't see many other alternatives. Something has to be sacrificed for the sake of the vast majority of people and the real economy and I think it should be the financial sector.

[–] femtech@midwest.social 2 points 2 months ago

I mean, I feel like the banks that failed still should have done some research on what they were putting their money into. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_acquired_or_bankrupted_during_the_Great_Recession

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ah! Thank you for the explanation

[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Careful there, bud, you're singing the siren song of bank bailouts.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The proletariat is still sore about the ones in 2008. They revealed plain the stratified economic system.

[–] lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's because when banks make loans, they sell of the debt, but nobody has wanted to buy the debt for Musk's loans. My understanding of this is essentially, if someone takes out a loan of $100 million, the bank will sell that debt to an investor for $101 million, and the investor will make back $102 million once the loan is paid off due to interest. But no investors are confident enough that Musk will pay back his loan so no one is ponying up the dough to buy it.

[–] ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's easy, just give him a AAA credit rating and call it a bond, some pension fund will buy it.

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 months ago

Take it a step further, bundle it with a bunch of other subprime loans and then pass it around like a hot potato.

[–] walter_wiggles@lemmy.nz 8 points 2 months ago

I remember reading that the banks who loaned him the money haven't been able to sell off the debt.

[–] frunch@lemmy.world 80 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 31 points 2 months ago

The fact that this tweet caused their stock price to dive really shows what a joke the stock market is .

[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 54 points 2 months ago

I'm GLAD we don't tax Billionaires like Musk! Imagine if instead of buying a Website for $44BILLION he instead bought kids $44BILLION worth of School Lunch! The HORROR!

[–] spyd3r@sh.itjust.works 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Watching Twitter die the slow agonizing cancerous death it deserves makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

[–] wurstgulasch3000@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is it dying though? It is getting worse and worse but I don't think people are leaving in huge numbers

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

Ugh... it drives me nuts!

Musk had to borrow around $13 billion for his doomed $44 billion acquisition.

Had he spent that ~~$57~~ $44 billion on developing space hardware instead of going insane and squandering it on social media bullshit, he might have done something worthwhile. I mean... fifty seven billion! What even is that much money? He could have had his own space station for that much money! He could fly up there for weekends, just for funzies.

[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 26 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That $13 billion is part of the $44 billion, you don't add them together.

He spent $31 billion of his own capital, and borrowed $13 billion to cover the rest.

[–] androogee@midwest.social 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Oh great, I added all the numbers in your comment together and now it's $101 billion?? When will this madness end???

[–] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

With all that money, he could have given every person in the world $12.625 billion!!! It's unfathomable!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] AnarchistArtificer 3 points 2 months ago

You've bamboozled my attempt to make the same joke at your expense by only mentioning one number in your comment, giving me nothing to add to it. From this point on, I conclude we should only ever mention one number in each comment, for clarity.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Oh thank you, my mistake. Still the numbers are huge!

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"own capital" probably more like stocks from Tesla, I doubt any actual money moved

[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's why I used the word "capital" instead of "money", but I had a feeling someone still was going to deliberately misunderstand me to try to sound smart.

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Well now that you mention it I agree and feel dumb.

Anyways, I'm still right so it means I can double down.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Why didn’t he just spend his own billions to prop up his venture? Oh, because he doesn’t want to pay taxes.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I do English, but your math is wrong

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Haha everyone keeps saying that! But it's pretty funny how wrong everyone is about where the mistake was.

The math is just fine, I did the simple addition correctly. It's the reading comprehension that I got wrong, I misunderstood what the sentence was saying.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Liz@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's not how math works.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

No, my math is just fine, it's my reading comprehension that needs work, because I totally misunderstood what that sentence was saying.

[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (6 children)

he might have done something worthwhile

No, he wouldn't have. Musk is an incompetent billionaire parasite, even more incompetent than the average billionaire parasite, and would have simply squandered his ill-gotten money on something else.

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›