[mambodog]

he doesn’t want experts, he wants people who will be subservient to him. expertise would get in the way of that, because experts would likely understand that he has no idea what he’s talking about, and not respect his dictates. see: everyone who knew how things worked at twitter.

[foobarian]

Speaking of twitter, things were looking pretty grim right after the takeover, with users and advertisers dropping left and right and it seemed like its days are numbered. What happened? It looks like it's still chugging along.

[matteoraso]

>It looks like it's still chugging along.

To this day, it remains rate-limited for people who don't have an account. Also, that fact that you (and most people) keep calling it "Twitter" is proof that the name change was an absolutely horrible idea.

[foobarian]

> is proof that the name change was an absolutely horrible idea

For me I can't stand that the new name usurps the oldschool X windows logo and name.

[snowwrestler]

Musk shrank Twitter until its load (technical and financial) was small enough to be carried by the resources it had available. Revenue is way down but so is traffic, staff, and technical expenses. There’s still a website and app that loads, but it’s not what Musk bought.

Basically, Twitter is sustainable now because so much of its user base migrated away.

[dwood_dev]

Do you have a source?

I have been unable to locate anything even remotely reliable other than the AMARS[0] report that shows that between August 2023 (two months before Musk) and July 2024 the EU user base dropped from 111M to 106M. That hardly seems like load shedding to reach sustainability.

I would like to see global and up to date data, but it does not seem to exist in public.

0: https://transparency.x.com/en/reports/amars-in-the-eu

[thegreatpeter]

Seems like Twitter is bigger than ever.

[ethbr1]

That seems overly reductive. Opposition is more effective when we strongman our opponents rather than strawman them.

It's possible (probable?) Elon actually things "his" people are more talented.

[ryandrake]

It is possible, but not probable. The M.O. of the entire administration has been to replace expertise with loyalty. No reason to believe this group is any different. This was also the case in 2017.

[sjsdaiuasgdia]

It's not like this is new behavior from him. He wants people who agree with him and will do what he asks. He doesn't want pushback, and he definitely doesn't want to be told he's wrong.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-scientist-resigned-twitter-b...

[hooverd]

However, steelman-ing shouldn't imply a lack of object permanence.

[roguecoder]

If so, he is utterly unqualified to participate in hiring or firing.