[bestbuyer__]

I guess Musk will have to go with Plan B, then. I would guess he will start his own Twitter competitor much like Trump did with Truth Social, and he has the star power to actually create the network effects needed to bootstrap a new social network. In addition to him selling his current 9% share of the company, this is likely very bearish for Twitter's stock price.

[jacques_chester]

Musk starting his own thing and taking the Muskovites with him would be a huge win for everyone. A bit like Ark Fleet Ship B.

[koolba]

The last part of that story involves everybody in ships A and C dying. Careful what you wish for.

[jacques_chester]

Almost worth it.

[eatonphil]

I don't really understand why anyone thinks a Musk social media platform would be much more serious or likely to succeed than a Trump one. Musk is more successful than Trump but Trump was the US president so it kind of seems like a wash. Neither of them seem to have the capacity (by choice) to fully focus on a social media platform the way they'd need to for it to be successful.

[Rapzid]

Most people, even the conspiratorial type who believe Twitter is some illuminati censorship machine, realize when the rubber hits the road that..

Twitter censorship is not a practical problem for them. It's a practical problem for Trump sure lol, but:

"Oh.. I'm not going to be able to @Operah and fool myself into thinking she reads my tweets because she's not on "Disgruntled Social"? ..."

[nemothekid]

Twitter is like the 8th largest social network. That's a lot of work to fight over scraps.

[bdcravens]

Trump had enough star power to get some 75 million people to vote for him, and Truth Social has been a flop.

[jcadam]

Truth Social appears to be stillborn mostly due to technical incompetence. Otherwise, it might have been at least somewhat successful in crowding out the gabs, gettrs, etc.

I believe Musk would hire the proper talent and wouldn't screw up a launch this badly.

[bdcravens]

Perhaps but you're talking a year or more of building. Also, while there are plenty of Muskboys on HN, I don't think he has the star power that guarantees success, so it'd have to be something more than just "Twitter without moderation", resulting in a pretty long lead time to alpha v1.

More likely he would just buy a different platform, since many of his companies he hasn't created from the ground up.

[upsidesinclude]

This should be sufficient evidence that the rhetoric about legions of vitriolic, idiotic "Trumpers" is just progressive propaganda...

[bdcravens]

Could also mean that group isn't one you can build a successful product around, even if they do exist.