Elon Musk, the owner of X, criticized advertisers with expletives on Wednesday at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit.

  • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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    I loved him telling advertisers to fuck off and all the people listening just laughing at him like the moron that he is. He thinks his edgy, middle aged man schtick is cool, but everyone’s laughing at how pathetic he is

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      What he doesn’t realise (which most middle aged men don’t realise, myself included) is how far the culture has moved since 2001. The values, the mores, the basic morality has shifted. It isn’t tight jeans past 40 that make you look old, it’s your outmoded relationship with the world that does that.

      • CynicRaven@lemmy.world
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        I don’t care about right jeans making me look old because I just can’t wait until baggy pants become more acceptable to wear again. Much more comfortable!

        • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
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          I’ve never stopped wearing baggy jeans. It was my first “I’m too old to give a shit” moment.

          It’s become true in recent years that I’m also I’m too, uh, husky for skinny jeans to really work.

          But honestly don’t give a shit. I’m pretty sure my wardrobe screams middle aged guy with no fucks to give and I’m just fine with that.

          • dumpsterlid@lemmy.world
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            I have heard uncool middle aged guy with the “not a bigot though” upgrade package is a great overall build. You would think, not that sexy right? However, surprisingly being a nice person gives you lots of buffs on your sexy skill check so even though it is low on paper, in reality you can rack up a lot of points quickly. Best part you don’t even need expensive gear to buff your stats like a cool car or nice clothes.

            • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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              The Be Kind To Kids and Animals action is really OP in those key years from around 20-50. Lots of straight guys sleep on that play.

              • dumpsterlid@lemmy.world
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                Seriously, if you do the math out you get sexy bonuses that easily outstrip other strategies like buying a stupid sports car or impractical big truck, for essentially zero dollars, minimal effort AND as an added bonus the people you increase your sexiness stat with the most also happen to be the kind of person that is the best to sex with (a genuinely kind person who cares about your pleasure as much as theirs, not someone who just starfishes and calls it a day).

                You basically get a free asshole filter thrown in, no extra cost. Crazy deal, and you can drive around an old beat up corolla that costs nothing to maintain, wear shit clothes and still be absolutely demolishing the competition.

            • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
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              I have heard uncool middle aged guy with the “not a bigot though” upgrade package is a great overall build.

              How sad is it that there are so many middle aged white bigots that it’s something I could list like “over six feet tall” and “has a stable job” if ever I’d find myself single again. (Not that I’d really be looking for love at this point I think.) Crazy world we are living in.

              Regardless, I will walk a little straighter having read your kind words. 😁

        • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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          I honestly think skinny jeans are more comfortable than the material that they’re making baggy jeans out of. My skinny jeans stretch so much that I can sprint in them.

  • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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    It’s very funny that his single biggest failure is so public. Like if The Boring Company couldn’t find customers, it would just quietly shut down. Newsworthy, but only for like a day.

    This is monthly stories about severe incompetence and petulance.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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          As much as Musk is an idiot these days with his antisemitism and MAGAism, I don’t think the Vegas Loop is a failure. It was never a HYPER-loop, just regular loop (low speed). The city of Vegas likes it enough they are planning on expanding it even more.

          • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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            It’s not about if Vegas likes it. Because Vegas is one of the worst cities for transportation in the US. The main strip is a disaster. Walking as a pedestrian is dangerous and insanely confusing. The trains are underfunded and misplaced. Buses get stuck behind billboard cars in traffic.

            And instead of funding train or bus development, Vegas spent wild money to get the loop built. The loop is a safety hazard, it holds very few people, and it achieves far less than what a good subway system could do.

            Basically Elon may have made money, but the world mostly lost.

    • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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      Like if The Boring Company couldn’t find customers, it would just quietly shut down.

      If? Besides a few small projects have they ever scored anything significant?

      • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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        Ha I didn’t want to put this in my comment to complicate the point but no they’ve only done one actual thing so this could have happened and I don’t know that we’d know.

      • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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        There are different levels of “public”. Musk doesn’t need to publicly announce he’s telling all the advertisers to fuck off, he could tell it to them on a private call and then the public would most likely only know what advertisers are pulling out. The whole “fuck off” statement never needed to be public, Musk made it public because he can do whatever the fuck he wants. The same goes for a lot of things you see about Twitter. He didn’t need to do his things in public, he simply did.

        • nutsack@lemmy.world
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          that is not what I’m saying. the failure of twitter is a public issue. it affects the public. nobody should give a fuck about the boring company.

    • milan616@lemmy.world
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      The Boring Company is a line item expense so Tesla can keep selling cars while stalling rail projects. It was never meant to do anything.

  • Christer Enfors@lemm.ee
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    I thought this guy was supposed to be right wing? Doesn’t he like the free market? Because, I mean, the alternative is regulation. We could make antisemitism illegal, but in the west we have largely decided that we will instead rely on free market forces (read: public shaming) to root that shit out.

    It’s almost as if… and this might sound crazy, but hear me out… it’s almost as if this guy wants the advantages of capitalism, but none of its disadvantages?

    • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
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      He’s a libertarian. That means he thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants but will squeal like a stuck pig at the slightest sign of pushback.

      • ours@lemmy.world
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        And as any “proper” libertarian, he depends deeply on State money (SpaceX + Tesla).

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      Everyone loves capitalisim until it’s inflicted on them. Oddly enough, this includes Musk.

      • Djad2410@lemm.ee
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        What advertisers are doing isn’t capitalism it’s collusion to manipulate the market.

          • Djad2410@lemm.ee
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            Obviously you don’t understand capitalism and your just going off what people who want communism and socialism are saying.

            • cheesepotatoes@lemmy.world
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              Please explain to me how advertisers exercising their agency in choosing who to advertise with is “communism” or “socialism”.

              • Djad2410@lemm.ee
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                When I mentioned communism and socialism I was pointing to the mischaracterization of capitalism. Capitalism is just the free and open market and when companies collude together to manipulate the market that’s not capitalism. Capitalism has built in rules against market manipulation and monopolies unfortunately that requires the government to do it’s job to enforce it, which it’s been doing a piss poor job of.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  Capitalism has built in rules against market manipulation and monopolies

                  It most assuredly does not. Addressing these externalities is the responsibility of government.

                • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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                  What evidence is there that the companies are colluding? Are there communication logs where they all conversed and decided to pull ads? Is there any evidence at all that the companies had any interaction with each other about this and made a unifying decision to cancel their ads?

                  Collusion requires entities to work together to achieve a mutual goal. Otherwise, it’s just a coincidence of timing.

                • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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                  I think you might be having difficulty grasping the idea that people have marketing budgets and if say the ceo of a company you advertise on very publicly endorses hate speech it does create a brand management problem.

                  You want your products to not be associated with things like, say, racism, which are kind of “yucky” to a lot of people.

                  As a result you might refocus spending. If a bunch of people do this at once this doesn’t mean there’s collusion. For example, during a thunderstorm you might see less people outside. This isn’t because they all colluding - people don’t like being struck by lightning. Similarly, companies don’t want their brands to be “yucky” to the average consumer and often its just a matter of moving the ad spending to another platform without the baggage.

                  You could ONLY limit this effect by banning advertising entirely.

              • Djad2410@lemm.ee
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                I’m not conflating the two I’m simply saying the people that have an issue or misunderstanding and capitalism usage fall in either camp.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              I’m entirely pro-capitalism. Why should the free market not be allowed to act here?

              • Djad2410@lemm.ee
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                In this context if they disagree so much they should just leave the platform and then it would fall under capitalism. What they want is to stay on the platform and dictate how it should be run and if they don’t get their way they make threats and ultimatums, which is a form of manipulation, I.e anti-capitalism.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  It’s not manipulation to say “we’re leaving because you did this thing and won’t be back until you don’t do this thing.” This is simply the market forces articulating their preferences.

                  If I stop buying a company’s products because I disagree with the direction it’s going, I am voting with my wallet, not manipulating the company.

              • Djad2410@lemm.ee
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                Government regulations. Capitalism is a component of the government so it should take government action to enforce it.

                • frezik@midwest.social
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                  Really? Because I’ve been repeatedly told by libertarian types (not socialists or communists) that any government regulation is not capitalism.

                  You’re free to disagree with them, but then I’m going to ask what your definition of capitalism is that assumes this regulation (not just allowing it, but mandating it).

        • DeepGradientAscent@programming.dev
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          Collusion implies the advertising clientele of Twitter conferred with each other, implicitly or explicitly, and decided to stop paying to advertise there in concert. That, more than likely, didn’t happen.

          • Djad2410@lemm.ee
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            I simply made a claim to why something is happening whether or not is true is yet to be proven but that doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility. These companies want a hand in how the company is run and if they’re not getting what they want them calling each other up to coordinate an ads pull is a tool in their toolbox.

            • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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              Either bring facts, or state it as an opinion, don’t try to do both or you will get called out.

              • Djad2410@lemm.ee
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                It’s to early to state facts so it’s a given that most things mentioned this early would be opinions.

  • Crow@lemmy.world
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    So when twitter actually dies will people finally start using mastodon then? Or they too eager to use another billionaire owned social media and migrate to threads?

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      I’m going to invent the perfect social media system where you type a comment and then a bunch of LLMs just argue with you forever and nobody has to read anybody else’s stupid bullshit.

      • dumpsterlid@lemmy.world
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        You forgot the most important part? You need to have notifications pop up every 15 mins so you get a dopamine hit for checking how many bots liked your devastating own of another bot in an argument.

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      They’re already going to threads or bluesky if they’re able. Honestly though? I don’t think we want THAT many people flooding the fediverse. There’s already a bunch of accounts here that exist only to troll or have bad takes.

      • Pacmanlives@lemmy.world
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        Hey now! I already created my own fediverse servers in Panama and registered to a local domain provider down there and am behind 7 proxy’s at all times for my Shit Posting aS a Service or SPASS as it’s commonly called. You can’t take that away from us!

        All joking aside I hope you’re wrong but it’s probably gonna go that way. Really want Mastodon to take off here

      • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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        Not to mention that one of the most active instances is pretty much just open information warfare at this point. .ml has become a complete dumpster fire

    • yamanii@lemmy.world
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      The second one, a number of people that I follow are going to blue sky, they learned nothing.

    • SRo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      No they won’t. The federation system like it’s currently implemented will never be mainstream.

    • nucleative@lemmy.world
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      Can you think of a single open source, open community spcial platform that has gained anything more than early adopter adoption?

      Mastodon has a terrible name that sounds like masturbate

      There is no charismatic leader

      There is no method to advertise on the platform, so the platform will suffer from no commercial incentives or correlation (e.g. find us on Twitter)

      It’s confusing to the vast majority of people that you can join from more than one location

      There are other platforms that do the same thing, why this one?

      • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
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        if you didn’t learn anything in school, Mastodon might sound stupid. You might confused it with a Mammoth but you’d be a fool to think it was anything other than awesome. Like the war elephants in LotR

  • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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    Elon: Go fuck yourself advertisers

    Advertisers: Understandable, have a nice day [doubles spend on other platforms]

    I don’t see how anyone expected this to end. I for one am hoping for a fatal ketamine od.

  • RozhkiNozhki@lemmy.world
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    "Hours later, Linda Yaccarino, X’s chief executive, tried to mitigate the damage. In a post on X, she shifted attention to Mr. Musk’s apology for associating himself with antisemitism and appealed to advertisers to return.

    “X is enabling an information independence that is uncomfortable for some people,” Ms. Yaccarino wrote. “X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street — and the X community is powerful and here to welcome you.”

    It’s called information independence y’all, look it up. Kinda like alternative facts but better.

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    “why are the companies leaving after I told them to fuck themselves and right after spreading nazi propaganda? It’s a mystery.”

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    “X is enabling an information independence that is uncomfortable for some people,” Ms. Yaccarino wrote. “X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street — and the X community is powerful and here to welcome you.”

    Wow, the mental gymnastics. Someone call the Olympic committee.

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      it’s incredible to see the lengths they will go to, all of the new phrases and euphemisms they’re willing to conjure up, before admitting they’re doings things badly and everything is on fire

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      uncomfortable for some people People like me, who got tired of the firehose of ultra-right-wing lies, conspiracy theories, and propaganda. Oh, and nazis.

  • YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca
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    He’s trying to find a scapegoat to blame for destroying the company, and he seems to think he’s found it in the advertisers that are withdrawing their money.

    • root_beer@midwest.social
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      Benny “Dry Humping Only” Shapiro is calling it an attempt to silence Musk and an attack on free speech

      These guys never showed up for fifth grade civics

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      I heard David Samson (former president of the Miami Marlins) suggest that he wants the advertisers to all bail so that he can entice his sycophants to boycott the companies who pulled their ad revenue.

      He suggested that if you have the type of f-you money to waste that Musk does, then it’s simply an ego move. He’s not going to succeed with XTwitter so he might as well let it burn, and scorch as many people as he can in the hopes of getting petty revenge on those who crossed him.

    • hemmes@lemmy.world
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      And all it took was him telling them to go fuck themselves.

      Not sure who’s dumber, Elon or the advertisers.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        Letting Nazis stay on the platform? Not enough.

        Unbanning Kanye? Not enough.

        Elon personally agreeing that Jews were going to destroy white people? Not enough.

        Telling them to go fuck themselves? HOW DARE HE?!?!

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      This.

      There are so many media institutions and slebs who have and still are giving twitter all its content .

      They are complicit in this.

  • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
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    The most hilarious thing about the whole thing to me was the way he said, “blackmail me with money?” as if he’s definitely automatically wealthy to a level that he doesn’t have to worry about being bullied.

    Leave aside the whole framing where the only reason people might be pulling out is to blackmail Elon Musk personally, and just assume that that’s true and analyze the question of whether he’s big enough to be immune if they decide that’s what they want to do. Musk is worth somewhere around $100-200 billion personally. I picked, totally at random, a single one of the advertisers who have pulled out, and learned that Eli Lilly has a market cap of around $565 billion. Remember this? Back from a year ago?

    Eli Lilly and Co. stopped showing ads on Twitter the day after an account impersonating the pharmaceutical company — complete with a purchased blue check mark — posted, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.”

    Eli Lilly asked Twitter to take it down, but the tweet remained up for hours, because the platform’s staff was stretched thin due to recent layoffs and resignations. The tweet garnered hundreds of retweets and thousands of likes, and Eli Lilly’s stock soon took a dive.

    • HarkMahlberg@kbin.social
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      as if he’s definitely automatically wealthy to a level that he doesn’t have to worry about being bullied.

      “One of the indulgences of great wealth is freedom from other peoples’ opinions.” Trump and Musk both seem to have missed this memo. They’re so self-absorbed and insulated that they can’t imagine there are people out there that they can’t buy, can’t bribe, and can’t silence. Their lives must be so empty they can only hear the echoes of their critics… or maybe that’s just my imagination.

      • Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world
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        Maybe a little bit your imagination but I think I get your point. Would anyone here concern themselves with this nonsense given Elon Musks means? I doubt it.