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Elon Musk: "Don't advertise. Go f*** yourself"
- wg0 3y agoFlagged because news headline matches the headline posted which match the statement made?
- KronisLV 3y agoI flagged the post because it's extremely unlikely to lead to a worthwhile discussion in any way or form. There will be some who support Elon and will state so. There will be some who don't and will also state so. Both of those people will flame each other in various capacities. For example, if I suggested that the world would be better if he hadn't basically done a right wing radicalization speedrun, didn't endorse people with hateful ideologies, didn't act in ways that even made his trans daughter want nothing to do with him, or if he was just nicer in general. That point of view is known, yet doesn't add much, aside from grounds for disagreement in the eyes of some. As for the actual impact of running a company like Twitter/X is run, a few years are probably needed to gather all the facts - then it can be used as an example of what not to do in business school, or how big/small the impact of certain choices actually is. I look forwards to this being reposted in maybe 2026.
- luc4sdreyer 3y agoAgreed. I'm actually interested in a discussion about his mental health. A change in behaviour towards irrational aggression could be due to extreme stress, lack of sleep, drugs, a brain tumour, bipolar disorder, etc. My questions: 1. Has his behaviour changed, or has he always been this unstable? 2. Are there any evidence of health problems?
- pushingice 3y ago1. At least since 2018. Remember the Thai cave diver?
- neuronerdgirl 3y agoThe problem with this chain of discussion is that no self-respecting expert in the relevant fields would give armchair diagnoses or discuss evidence for them like this on a public forum, so all you will end up with is speculative garbage from unqualified people.
- ryandvm 3y agoI really hate flagging. What is the point of a discussion forum where you're not allowed to discuss things just because a minority of people are experiencing cognitive dissonance every time they get in their Tesla? If you claim it won't be a "worthwhile discussion", what exactly qualifies as a worthwhile discussion to you? Are we changing the world when we talk about Rust or the latest Nvidia GPU? And how is it not worthwhile for the HN community to reason about the impact of a quarter-trillionaire who insists on putting himself in the center of EVERYTHING from kids trapped in mines, to Ukraine/Russia, to Israel/Palestine, to climate change, to space exploration? If getting a handle on this guy isn't worthwhile, what is?
- KronisLV 3y ago> If you claim it won't be a "worthwhile discussion", what exactly qualifies as a worthwhile discussion to you? Are we changing the world when we talk about Rust or the latest Nvidia GPU? Talking about programming languages, hardware or even things like biology, nature and so on can be useful learning experiences, when wonderful people with relevant knowledge drop by and share what they know, how things have gotten to where they are and how they might evolve in the future. Some of the more grounded and practical discussions might lead to actionable advice, such as which languages and frameworks to look into over a weekend, what databases to toy around with for a bit, what coding approaches might save a headache in the future, or even just empathy towards the challenges that someone has faced in the past, or that someone might have to deal with in the future, as well as advice for that. Threads like this won't always lead to worthwhile discussion, because someone like me might be upset at someone like Elon for being rather mean towards others (sometimes bordering on sinister), someone else might celebrate some of his behavior as breaking a very watered down mold, yet not much of that would change as a consequence in the world. It will, however, almost inevitably lead to arguing with one another, even in communities like HN, or just feeling bad about the state of the world. > And how is it not worthwhile for the HN community to reason about the impact of a quarter-trillionaire who insists on putting himself in the center of EVERYTHING from kids trapped in mines, to Ukraine/Russia, to Israel/Palestine, to climate change, to space exploration? I'm just going off of the Guidelines here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity. In that regard, all I can say (aside from the example above, which is probably already over the line) is that there was probably a more tactful way for him to get his message across, that wouldn't be so brash. That the way the company is run is quite far off from how most companies are run and future will show how that works out. I wish people were nicer. That's about it. As for geopolitical events, I guess I can (and have in the past) send donations for humanitarian aid to Ukraine, as well as support initiatives like Wren for carbon offset, in addition to personal life choices in regards to my environmental footprint. I don't need to care about what some rich guy has in his personal agenda, because I have no impact on that, so it shouldn't live in my head rent free. But maybe I'm wrong and someone else will "get a handle on this guy", whatever that means. It feels to me like any sort of progress would most likely be made in the court system, not any comments section. Or maybe I'm just wrong in that what he said deserves to be seen and saved, as a historical record or something.
- seydor 3y agoWell arguably the latter is more of enjoyable
- extheat 3y agoNothing of interesting value comes out of these soundbite posts or discussions.
- wordpad25 3y agonews on Elon is toxic, but he's a runner up for richest man in the world and leads a couple most prominent companies in the world... there is a lot to take interest in
- ModernMech 3y agoThis man is taking a personal interest in a war zone, that if it spirals out of control, could lead to WWIII. And he’s on stage acting like this days later.
- DeathArrow 3y agoThe man has guts.
- dindresto 3y agoThe man is an idiot
- yawpitch 3y agoThe idiot has guts.
- cal85 3y agoAn idiot who is the chief engineer of SpaceX and Tesla, who transforms entire industries, who gives away his companies’ IP for free to competitors! It’s a shame how the majority HN mindset has shifted in the last few years. People used to have more optimism here. Go on, hit the downvote button and feel better, sort of.
- amitrip 3y ago[dead]
- omgwtfusb 3y agoI am only aware of 2, the Hyperloop concept and recently Tesla’s NACS. what IP are Musk companies giving away?
- cal85 3y agoIn the interview he states that Tesla has open sourced “all” their patents, and that SpaceX doesn’t register patents except occasionally to stop patent trolls.
- CaptainZapp 3y ago> In the interview he states that Tesla has open sourced “all” their patents Yeah, well! But the thing is this guy lies a lot.
- evgen 3y ago[flagged]
- kdwikzncba 3y ago[flagged]
- echelon 3y agoDoes anyone have figures or estimates of Twitter's daily engagement? The people I follow seem to be as active as ever.
- ravst3s 3y agohttps://www.axios.com/2023/10/26/x-twitter-usage-statistics-elon-musk-owner https://www.axios.com/2023/10/26/x-twitter-usage-statistics-... "By the numbers: Engagement metrics are down across the board. App downloads fell roughly 38% globally between October 2022 and September 2023, according to Sensor Tower estimates. In the U.S., mobile app downloads fell 57% in the same time period. Data from Data.AI, another app tracking firm, shows similar trends. Usage has also decreased, with monthly active Android users falling 14.8% globally and 17.8% with mobile users in the U.S. year-over-year for the month of September, per SimilarWeb. Average time spent, daily per user, fell 2% year-over-year globally in the third quarter of 2023. Sessions dipped 4% in that same time period, per Sensor Tower. User churn, or users who stop using the app, increased more than 30% year-over-year as of September 2023, per Sensor Tower. Web traffic was down 7% globally and 11.6% in the U.S. for the first nine months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, per SimilarWeb." Twitter has always been a power-user platform, but lacks mass appeal. MAUs are down 15-20% YoY, gross churn is up 30%, but time spent is only down 2%.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- trojan13 3y agoThe way he looks at the audience, expecting a positive reaction, it seems to me that the memes have really got into his head and he thinks people still love him for being so edgy and 'funny'. Instead, he comes across as a dangerous lunatic with too much power and money.
- giardini 3y agotrojan13 says >"The way he looks at the audience, expecting a positive reaction, it seems to me that the memes have really got into his head and he thinks people still love him for being so edgy and 'funny'."< You can read minds then?
- HlessClaudesman 3y agoElon has claimed to be slightly autistic, as the parent of an autistic kid I believe him, perhaps we all are to some extent. He is an extremely busy man, and the same set of skills that lead to his success at engineering don't translate at all to success in the social realm. To simplify his social interaction decision making he looks for huristics, such as the tried and true: woke = bad! So increasingly in following a simple heuristic he seems to have outsourced much of his personal philosophy to the Joe-Rogan-O-Sphere, and all the anti vax, transphobic, supplement pill pushing, pizzagate conspiracy believing, Jew-baiting quackery that entails. The macho attitude of doubling then tripling down on unforced blunders works well if you are a contrarian podcast host "just following the questions...", but less so when you are CEO with obligations not to rock the boat, not to become a clown presiding over a circus.
- ModernMech 3y agoAs an autist myself, I’ve never acted like Musk. My autistic family and friends have not either. Musk may be autistic but he is also extremely narcissistic and egotistical, that much should be clear. Let’s maybe focus on that instead of autism causing his bad behavior.
- HlessClaudesman 3y ago
- lentil 3y agoHe admits the company will die if advertisers pull out, and his solution is to document it and let the world know that the advertisers were the reason the company died. Curse you advertisers for ruining his company!
- Freedom2 3y agoThe impact to free speech will be insurmountable!
- kmlevitt 3y agoHe seems to contradict himself. On one hand he says “fuck you“ to anybody pulling advertising like he’s throwing caution to the wind because he just doesn’t care, but on the other hand, he says the company is doomed if advertisers pull out, and that seems to really upset him. So… Twitter is shutting down? There’s really no other plan other than blaming advertisers for pulling out, and ranting about how earth will judge them?
- reportgunner 3y agoYou're taking the "fuck you" out of context, blackmail is the keyword here. > "If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself,"
- ryandvm 3y agoYes, not paying someone to show pictures of your product is blackmail. We're not talking about the blackmail bit because it's utter nonsense.
- TheCleric 3y agoJust because he misuses the word blackmail, that doesn’t mean it’s the keyword.
- tim333 3y agoHe's saying he'd rather let the company go bust rather than give into blackmail. Which seems nuts to me. I mean they are not blackmailing as far as I can see, just not wanting to be associated with him endorsing anti semitic stuff and pizzagate conspiracies.
- huijzer 3y agoI find it sad that almost nobody is willing to take a nuanced view on Elon. I can highly recommend people to read Isaacson‘s biography of him. You don’t have to like him (you won’t), but it’s good to have a well formed opinion.
- strken 3y agoI have a reasonably nuanced view on him and admire his ability to cut through bullshit and build, but he needs to stop visiting the website formerly known as Twitter and go back to working on real concrete problems.
- AYBABTME 3y agoTwitter is this thing he's most ill fitted to be on and work on and also what he can't get away from. Hope it isn't his undoing because that would be a pathetic end.
- DemocracyFTW2 3y ago[flagged]
- strken 3y agoI disagree with this. I think there's believable evidence from people who have worked with him that he's an effective technical administrator who focuses on learning his area of business[0], but also a bully and a braggart whose opinions on broader society are awful. [0] E.g. the quotes from https://www.astralcodexten.com/i/136923606/is-musk-smart-does-he-understand-the-stuff-his-companies-are-building https://www.astralcodexten.com/i/136923606/is-musk-smart-doe...
- DemocracyFTW2 3y agoOK let's look at one of those quotes: The main answer to the paradox of “how does he succeed while making so many bad decisions?” is that he’s the most focused person in the world. When he decides to do something, he comes up with an absurdly optimistic timeline for how quickly it can happen if everything goes as well as the laws of physics allow. He - I think the book provides ample evidence for this - genuinely believes this timeline, or at least half-believingly wills for it to be true. Then, when things go less quickly than that, it’s like red-hot knives stabbing his brain. He gets obsessed, screams at everyone involved, puts in twenty hour days for months on end trying to try to get the project “back on track”. This is from a person who has failed to understand that most of what Elno says e.g. at those big Tesla day events is just baits for his followers and baits for investors. He's regularly promising the impossible. He's a confidence artist a.k.a. con man a.k.a. notorious liar, someone who lures people into giving him money in exchange for things he'll likely never deliver, and if and when he delivers, it's rather too late, too little. He's done that countless times with e.g. the Tesla semi, including his ~2017 assertion "this is something we can do now, right now". He could not do it then and he hasn't done it since. This is just one example. He feels entitled to say like anything he feels he can get away with and gets mad if his minions don't manage to get it done. This guy's a fraud in and out.
- oceanplexian 3y agoAnyone with access to an internet browser can see that what Media Matters did was orchestrated and coordinated among the media and engineered as a hit piece. It was done exclusively for political reasons. Media Matters doesn’t care about anti-semitism, they’re a political lobby and their purpose is getting Democrats elected. My opinion: it will backfire more on the advertisers than it does for X, with so much of the country taking Elon’s side.
- ravst3s 3y agoI doubt it will backfire on them at all. No one cares about who is spending money on Twitter. Moreover, Twitter is an irrelevant advertising platform and also an atrocious one as well (still lacks DR). Twitter's influence is exaggerated by media dependence and loquacious users. Twitter has 360m MAUs, 225m DAUs globally. That's less than what Facebook does in Europe.
- orwin 3y agoDoes your really care about that? I mean, I'm on HN so I know I'll hear about him here, but isn't Twitter mostly irrelevant ? The only people who use it are politicians, journalist and grifters anyway? I think I've read twice about him in the last 6 months, and I read 3 different weekly papers.
- Timon3 3y ago> Anyone with access to an internet browser can see that what Media Matters did was orchestrated and coordinated among the media and engineered as a hit piece. I have access to an internet browser. How can I see that? Who orchestrated it? Which companies were coordinating things together? > It was done exclusively for political reasons. Media Matters doesn’t care about anti-semitism, they’re a political lobby and their purpose is getting Democrats elected. How do you know that? What was wrong with their reporting?
- kmlevitt 3y agoThe argument is that you had to press refresh on your browser several times before a neo-Nazi post coincidentally lined up with an ad from Disney, and media matters just kept on doing it until they got the desired result. But aside from that, Musk isn’t even disputing it happens.
- ranting-moth 3y ago>Musk responded that the advertising boycott is likely to kill the company. "What this advertising boycott is going to do is it's going to kill the company, and the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company and we will document it in great detail," Musk said. The level of entitlement and social disconnect this guy has is astonishing.
- pr_nik2 3y agoThis is such an instructive story in how social media messes up discourse. Yes, fine-tuned shadow banning of stuff one does not like politically is BS (point taken, Musk). But promoting a bunch of randos with personal endorsement so they run important debates is also a very questionable service to democracy (see https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/10/20/new-elites-twitter-x-most-influential-accounts-hamas-israel/ https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/10/20/new-elites-twitter-x-most-...). Overreacting to some of the stuff that then floats to the top on the part of advertisers and commentators is again not right, but calling this reaction "blackmail" is probably a little over the top. So what have we learnt? Make time for reading paper books and sniffing the flowers sometimes maybe?
- f30e3dfed1c9 3y ago"[C]alling this reaction 'blackmail'" isn't "a little over the top," it's petulant and incoherent. The basic idea of blackmail is "I know a secret about you and I'll reveal it if you don't give me money." Musk's present position is that he keeps saying and promoting repulsive stuff in public and so some advertisers prefer to stop supporting or being associated with his business. This isn't remotely like "blackmail": the repulsive stuff is all public to begin with.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pr_nik2 3y agoCorrect, and the basic pattern persists: Someone in a larger group of people does something objectionable, and this is then attributed to one "side" in the debate (fundamental attribution error). This transgression of the "side" is then interpreted as being indicative of its intentions (ultimate attribution error). The imagined intention is then being fought with polemic and exaggerations. I'll stick with my flowers and I appreciate your correction.
- kmlevitt 3y agoThe Sorkin guy said maybe advertisers don’t want to be associated with it, and he said “let’s see what the courts say“. So he’s going to sue people for not advertising with him? How can anyone who says this kind of thing claim to believe in free markets, libertarianism or capitalism?
- threatofrain 3y agoWhat would happen if Twitter died tomorrow? Would its community simply reform around the next-biggest clone or fragment into many platforms? And where would people go?
- kmlevitt 3y agoBluesky is pretty lively and active considering how slow they roll out invites. Closest thing I’ve seen to a credible Twitter replacement so far. Lots of good accounts have already migrated there.
- lexandstuff 3y agoI finally got an invite code to Bluesky. During onboarding, it gave me a list of feeds to choose from. For some reason, they've decided to have no tech whatsoever in that list of feeds. I guess I'm a bit of a loser, but I don't have many interests outside of tech, so I picked nothing and now I have an empty feed. Is that the goal of Bluesky, to be Twitter for non-tech people? Seems like a surprising approach, given that the first users of Twitter were exclusively tech peeps.
- kmlevitt 3y agoYou need to teach it what kind of stuff you like. If you go on Twitter and look at peoples’ bios, they often list their blue sky handles. Start following tech journalists such as https://bsky.app/profile/gergely.pragmaticengineer.com https://bsky.app/profile/gergely.pragmaticengineer.com Then, peek into their own “following“ lists, and follow everybody you recognize/like. Then go into their “following” lists, and do the same. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, the algorithm will take the hint and start recommending you more tech stuff.
- ranting-moth 3y agoSounds like the classic "See what you made me do!"
- GaryNumanVevo 3y agoHe's speaking like he's been drugged or something. Bizarre.
- kmlevitt 3y agoI think I’ve figured out what he’s doing. He knows Twitter is going to flop due to its tremendous debt, dwindling audience and the failure of his paid premium subscription scheme. But this way, when it happens he gets to blame all of that on “woke corporations“, rather than on himself.
- tim333 3y agoYou could be on to something there.
- shrimp_emoji 3y agoYep. He didn't want to buy it in the end. Once he was forced to, he fired almost everyone to lower overhead as much as possible. He also pulled some heroics in doing so, if you read about the "moving the servers" fiasco, which was an impressively intrepid bit of "getting your hands dirty" getting shit done. I don't know to what extent he has made or could make it profitable, but I don't think he wants it to die. It dying, though, isn't the worst thing, and here he can turn it into a Braveheart moment to boot, winning hearts and minds -- like mine. I see what he's doing, but I love it; fuck advertisers. They've ruined the Internet. Or, rather, monetization in the abstract has. It's disgusting to me how he was asked about trying to bend the knee to suits like Iger, turning the platform into some anemic, anodyne corporate candy world of devout Good Behavior, an eternal kindergarten where we're all trapped forever with the advertisers as our mental jailors, since that's how profits can flow most frictionlessly. What he's doing is stupid -- people's 401ks are on the line. But it's wild how it doesn't seem to bother anyone how that's an argument for spinelessness. It's a New Hampshire license plate "live free or die" moment, and 90% of posters here are advocating for content slavery with tone policing and personal attacks.
- sleepybrett 3y agoHe was NEVER forced to buy twitter. At any point he could have cut a check for a billion dollars and walked away. He just couldn't swallow his goddamned drug fueled pride.
- 3y ago
- distracted_boy 3y agoThe title does not reflect what he said.
- greyface- 3y agoThe article links to a video, in which he addresses advertisers, saying "don't advertise", followed shortly by "go fuck yourself": https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1729996181756129724 https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1729996181756129724 Is your contention that the headline should have included an ellipsis?
- hnburnsy 3y agoAgreed without the word blackmail, it is out of context and misleading, although techincally accurate.
- Gud 3y agoI used to big a big Elon Musk supporter, way before it was fashionable. When SpaceX sent supplies to the ISS using their brand new dragon capsule, I was in awe. This was before the mass production of model S had started. I loaded up the boat with Tesla shares and made a lot of money(that I’ve since spent on drugs, alcohol and women, no regrets). I figured a man who can kickstart our space ambitions like Elon did, he can build a car, a toy in comparison to a rocket. Elon restored my hope in humanity. I reevaluated my views on him when he called the diver trying to help those lost boys in the Thai caves a pedo and wasted everyone’s time with some dumb contraption. When he purchased Twitter for $45B is when I lost faith in him as a businessman. Elon is flying too close to the sun, and I hope he makes it back on track. For all his faults, Elon Musk is a great engineer, I just hope he stops with this X nonsense and get back to working on things that matter. Sorry for the long rant
- Communitivity 3y agoThe person I most feel sorry for is Linda Yaccarino, CEO and head of advertising at X. She was sitting in the audience when he did this. Imagine how awkward her near-term conversations with advertisers who were with X as of last week will be.
- TheCleric 3y agoI felt this way at one point, but after a certain point of her covering for his erratic behavior it’s just enabling and collecting a paycheck. I’d have quit months ago.
- giardini 3y agoTheCleric says >"I’d have quit months ago."< But no one gave you the chance. Why not, pray tell, since you were by far the better choice?8-))
- shrimp_emoji 3y agoThose emoticons are like a hilarious and alarming comorbidity of the personality required to make the posts you're making. NB: I love the posts you're making.
- rsynnott 3y agoShe signed up for it; I mean it's not like it was a secret what he's like. Yaccarino was apparently at NBC for 12 years. This leads me to suspect that 30 Rock was a documentary.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38466496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38466496
- thisisit 3y agoThis is such a bizarre interview. Musk is free to run his company as he sees fit. If he decides to follow a particular ideology to run his site, that is his prerogative. And lets say left wing users find it terrible. They can't say - "Hey Musk, you are *blackmailing* us to use this site with this right wing nonsense". If they did others would kindly remind them that one, no one is forcing them to use the site. and two, if they don't like it, they can go somewhere else. And the left wing users can try to "document" all the right wing stuff on Twitter which they think is nonsense. Except some hardcore left wing users, no one would care. Same logic goes for the advertisers. They can spend their money as they see it. Saying GFY and "it is blackmail" is pure nonsense. Except his hardcore followers no one is going to care for his "documentation".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ModernMech 3y agoAre we all ignoring the part of the interview where he gets the reporter's name wrong after calling him a "good friend"? Personally I think that's way more interesting. Like, who does that?
- mitaphane 3y agoDid someone forget to tell Elon that for social media platforms *advertisers are the customer*? Good luck building that everything app out of pure spite for your real customers.
- aniken 3y agoElon is literally exercising his “f*ck you money” position: https://youtu.be/XamC7-Pt8N0?si=NlT0ZRjgLbwtZcSG https://youtu.be/XamC7-Pt8N0?si=NlT0ZRjgLbwtZcSG How can a true source of truth free speech platform be anything other than a non profit model like Wikipedia? Free speech requires speaking the truth, and the truth makes most people, including companies / advertisers uncomfortable.
- lexandstuff 3y agoIt was Musk endorsing antisemitic conspiracy content that caused advertisers to pause, not "speaking the truth".
- andrelaszlo 3y agoHe bought the company for 43 billion? Then he can't sell it for anything less without losing face, but now it makes him look weak since advertisers are pulling out and he can't deliver on his promises. This seems like him trying to turn the narrative around in order to kill the company without making it look like a failure. He was just trying to save the world, but these companies were blackmailing him and he had to put his foot down. Better scuttle the ship than to let it fall into the hands of the enemy!
- sys_64738 3y agoHe doesn't seem to be mentally all there. Is he suffering from some type of condition, as this isn't normal behavior.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoThis is someone who people suggest is the wealthiest person on Earth saying he cannot afford to run a personal website without others financing it. WTF. He is calling this a "business" but what were Twitter's profits. Perhaps it's not a business. Perhaps it's just a website having special agreements with some cellular carriers that has grown too large. Regardless of whether the Twitter "business" survives, the ability to run a "Twitter"-like website is never going away. And the cost of doing so should continue to decline. Website size and inclusion of other peoples' content is a separate issue. "I want to control a website with hundreds of millions of pages of content uploaded by other people" <--- If this is prohibitively expensive then perhaps that is rightfully so. What are the damaging effects of so-called "social media". Why are advertisers pulling out. "Blackmail". No doubt Zuckerberg is similarly delusional.