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What do you mean despite?

It seems Elon Musk has bought a company for $44 billion despite thinking it fundamentally unsound, and with about 50% excess staff.

Thinking it has 50% excess staff is a reason to buy it. Because you get to fire the 50% excess and transform the cost base.

What the hell is this “despite”? The man was an accountant, wasn’t he?

16 thoughts on “What do you mean despite?”

  1. Two separate things being conflated.

    If the business model is “fundamentally unsound”, then no amount of job-cutting will fix it. This includes buggy-whip manufacturers, underpants gnomes, and Toys R Us.

    If the company is merely unprofitable because it has “excess staff”, then it’s fairly trivial to fix.

  2. “If the company is merely unprofitable because it has “excess staff”, ”

    In this case the excess staff are actively trying to reduce the number of customers the company can have……..

  3. The Sage of Ely comments:

    “Will Musk’s incomprehension first cull Twitter and then his financial empire? I fear it will.

    I will regret losing Twitter if that happens: it has overall been a force for good. But I wonder how long it can survive.

    I think the fall may be very quick. The advertisers will kill it by pulling out.

    I am waiting to see what happens to decide my own next step”

    I’m looking forward to the interaction between the world’s most successful businessman and the P3!!!

    And perhaps to Musk’s tweet calling Murphy that “Pedo Guy in Ely”

  4. “The advertisers will kill it by pulling out.”

    Just like they killed Substack, right? What does he think the $8 subs are for?

  5. “Pedo Guy in Ely”
    Now there’s a meme to get started. Lives on his own. Member of an obscure religion. Two exes. No proper job. Involvement with students. The train set
    Pretty well writes itself.

  6. Have to laugh at the ‘Musk ‘s disgraceful behaviour over firings by locking employees out of email/accounts’ stories when that’s standard IT practice, in fact you’d need those sort of procedures to pass various audits, seem to recall we had to document that type of stuff for Sarbanes-Oxley when it came in

  7. Hootsuite which I think offers some sort of management console for using Twitter for advertising/campaigns is laying off people. If I was offering a service built off Twitter I’d be concerned about someone like Musk being a bit more proactive in building his own version as part of a premium paid service

  8. I am waiting to see what happens to decide my own next step”

    Translated:

    “I’m far too fucking vain to give up my following on this platform and, despite my continual grandstanding about how victimised I am, Musk doesn’t care about me at all.”

  9. ” The customers are the advertisers. The product is Twats”

    Well yes, in which case the staff have been actively working to reduce the number of eyeballs that the advertisers can sell to. Which is definitely to the detriment of the business.

  10. “Have to laugh at the ‘Musk ‘s disgraceful behaviour over firings by locking employees out of email/accounts’ stories when that’s standard IT practice”

    Yes I don’t recall the Left getting all het up when investment banks cull workers and they all get escorted out of the building with their belongings in a bag.

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