My understanding is that the SEC would have fucked him if he just shut it down, because it would indicate that he never intended to buy it in the first place and instead was just trying to manipulate the stock market (which is definitely what he was doing).
It’s not. He never wanted to buy twitter, he just wanted to pump and dump the stock, but because he is stupid and the plan was obvious they sued him to make him honor the deal.
So if he just turned around and shut the company down, it would give the SEC legal grounds to argue that his intention all along was market manipulation.
This here is the real answer; Elon doesn’t want X now and he never wanted Twitter. Much like Trump falling arse-backwards into the US Presidency he never actually wanted, he’s now just manipulating the thing he didn’t actually want, but now has, to follow his ego and whims. Trump’s presidency and Elon’s ownership of Twitter share a lot of similarities. Far, far too many similarities.
He could have just done nothing with the company, hired someone to put in charge and say “you have a year to make Twitter profitable”, and when that inevitably fails shut it down.
He didn’t have to tank his reputation. All the time he’s spending running Twitter into the ground he could have instead done nothing, and still shut it down in the same time frame for being “not-profitable”. Enough time would have passed for him to get away with it, and would have lost less money in the process.
So even if his plan is to destroy Twitter, he’s still an idiot doing it in the dumbest way possible.
My understanding is that the SEC would have fucked him if he just shut it down, because it would indicate that he never intended to buy it in the first place and instead was just trying to manipulate the stock market (which is definitely what he was doing).
How is this benefiting him in any way? Even financially?
It’s not. He never wanted to buy twitter, he just wanted to pump and dump the stock, but because he is stupid and the plan was obvious they sued him to make him honor the deal.
So if he just turned around and shut the company down, it would give the SEC legal grounds to argue that his intention all along was market manipulation.
This here is the real answer; Elon doesn’t want X now and he never wanted Twitter. Much like Trump falling arse-backwards into the US Presidency he never actually wanted, he’s now just manipulating the thing he didn’t actually want, but now has, to follow his ego and whims. Trump’s presidency and Elon’s ownership of Twitter share a lot of similarities. Far, far too many similarities.
For what purpose would he attach his baby of X to the Twitter he is intentionally trying to kill?
Trying to make the best of a bad situation, I guess?
He could have just done nothing with the company, hired someone to put in charge and say “you have a year to make Twitter profitable”, and when that inevitably fails shut it down.
He didn’t have to tank his reputation. All the time he’s spending running Twitter into the ground he could have instead done nothing, and still shut it down in the same time frame for being “not-profitable”. Enough time would have passed for him to get away with it, and would have lost less money in the process.
So even if his plan is to destroy Twitter, he’s still an idiot doing it in the dumbest way possible.
If he were smarter and/or not a walking ego then yeah, that would have been the move. Though if he were smart he probably wouldn’t be in this mess.