Plunging U.S. revenue at X risks opening up a "massive hole" on its balance sheet that Musk needs to plug to stave off its financial collapse.

Musk’s repeated outbursts against advertisers have dried up the main source of revenue for the loss-making company formerly known as Twitter. A recent decision to sue them for heeding his own advice to not buy ads on the platform hasn’t helped. At some point, he will have to provide a fresh infusion of cash to salvage his $44 billion takeover.

  • John Richard@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    I have to give Musk credit. At least he help narrow my car buying decision to know at least one brand that I’ll never buy.

      • DesertCreosote@lemm.ee
        0·
        1 month ago

        I was talking with a solar company about a solar install with battery storage last year, and they only offered the Powerwall as an option. I literally laughed at them and said there was no way I was tying an enormously expensive piece of home infrastructure to Tesla, because they couldn’t guarantee it’d keep working if Tesla decided to shift direction.

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          I have rejected every one of the endless stream of door to door solar panel sellers primarily because not ONE would leave me substantial documentation of any kind to decide if I wanted to talk to them - the only thing they wanted was a full “consultation.” My view is that if you can’t give me something that illustrates genearlly what you are about to pitch to me, then you probably just want the chance to apply some shady sales tactics.

          Were these door to door guys? Did you go with them? Do you have any opinions on the door to door guys? 🙂

          • DesertCreosote@lemm.ee
            0·
            1 month ago

            No, this was part of a group buy program in my area, which was designed to reduce prices. I ended up turning them down because it was still more expensive than it seemed like it should be, and they were going with an older single inverter system instead of a newer and more efficient micro inverter system.

            I’ve heard the door to door guys tend to massively upcharge. I haven’t had any come through here, though, so I don’t have any direct experience.

            • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
              0·
              23 days ago

              Thanks! (Sorry for the late reply.) Any particular resources you’d recommend for research? Everything I find googling is either immediately clearly an advertisement, or becomes clearly an advertisement as I continue reading.

              • DesertCreosote@lemm.ee
                0·
                17 days ago

                Honestly I don’t have anything specific I’d recommend. When I was looking into it, I just did a ton of reading on forums along with articles about how to get everything set up. I also looked at the prices I was offered compared to the prices I’d be able to pay elsewhere, and got quotes from several different companies.

                In the end there were a bunch of reasons I didn’t go with solar. I really love it as an idea, and I really want to do it, but it’s enormously expensive. There are lease options, but they’re also expensive and many of them seemed predatory. My utility ended their purchasing program for solar-generated power, and I’m still required to pay a large monthly fee to be connected to the grid, so I couldn’t plan to offset my costs there either. The tax credits are helpful, but you still need to pay up front.

                • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  0·
                  17 days ago

                  Thanks! I appreciate this analysis - and predatory is exactly how I felt about the people who came to my door, even if they were polite and friendly, and even though I couldn’t seem to dig out that word.

    • Nollij@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      There are many reasons to avoid Tesla, regardless of Musk. The complete lack of independent repair was my deal breaker, but you’ll find your own. Their competition is looking pretty good these days, too.

    • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      You can sue anyone for anything. It’s just a matter of how long you fight it before it gets thrown out.

    • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
      0·
      1 month ago

      From what I understand, they’re trying to (mis)use a law to the effect that companies cant all get together and boycott a competitor in order to try to drive it out of the market. If my understanding is correct then, for example, if say Ford and GM and such happened to also run electric taxi businesses, and those taxi businesses bought cars off the open market where in theory they should buy whatever they think gives them what they need at the best price, even if from another car maker, then it wouldnt be legal for them to all go and say “we make electric cars, and Tesla does too, so lets not buy anything from Tesla, regardless of how cheap or good their products are, so they lose business” (Assuming that the Teslas in question would in fact be perfectly suitable for said taxi companies needs that is). They’re trying to sue an advertising industry group, claiming that they’ve done this kind of thing. Except the members of the group in question arent really competitors to Twitter, and in any case, the quality of advertising is thought to diminish if the ads are next to objectionable and bigoted content, since its thought to hurt the advertised company’s image, so if my understanding is correct, it should be simple enough for them to argue “We’re not colluding to hurt your company, your product just isnt up to our standards so we arent buying it”

  • skozzii@lemmy.ca
    0·
    29 days ago

    Anything short of Elon Musk distancing himself as far from Tesla as possible is breaking his fidicuary duty.

  • Talaraine@fedia.io
    0·
    1 month ago

    Why do you think he strongarmed Teslas shareholders into that big pay day? He’s known this was coming, y’all. Tesla’s just paying for his misadventure.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      I get challenged to provide a motive every single time I say this, but I’ve been convinced since just a few months after the purchase that the entire goal has absolutely been to destroy it. And with some of the moves he has made, I’m frankly surprised it took this long.

      He continues to be hostile to most of the user base that made twitter popular, all the censorship/freezepeach stuff, how he destroyed verification, his bullying of advertisers, etc etc. I’m NOT a business genius but these seem like obvious glaringly awful business moves and they just keep coming.

  • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    Is this why he’s kissing trump’s ass? Does he think the orange sandwich has the ability to help him if orange shit stain becomes president?