• Elon Musk purchased shares of Twitter after unsuccessfully petitioning the CEO to remove a Twitter account tracking his private jet.
  • Musk’s personal gripes played a key role in his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
  • Musk banned the account after promising not to, highlighting his prioritization of getting his way over free speech.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/ttBv9

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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      9 months ago

      Holy shit this dude fucking lives on his plane. Like I feel guilty about the 2-3x per year I fly to see family but this fucker has flown that far already in the past week. Why? Does he not know how to do a video call?

      • PureTryOut@lemmy.kde.social
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        9 months ago

        Ugh, I feel the same. I know the top 1% of the world or whatever emits tons and tons more CO2 per year than the other 99%, but I didn’t know it was this bad. That plane is flying multiple times per day. Sure Musk is probably not in it all the time, but that doesn’t matter.

        Private jets should be banned all together, let’s see how quickly they suddenly find out the internet exists.

        • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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          9 months ago

          Things like this are perfect reminders that we don’t have to change every person on the planet, just eliminate the erronneous emissions.

          • Ænima@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Eliminate the erroneous emissions. Interesting take on the ol’ “eat the rich.” I like it!

        • Neato@ttrpg.network
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          9 months ago

          All air travel should have fuel and emissions tax. Normalize them to commercial airliners. That’ll incentivize larger, more efficient plane designs. It’ll also punish private jets. Also charge a fee for any planes not at least X% full. Also give discounts and waive fees for planes over X size that service under-served airports.

          A bunch of regulations like this should make private planes prohibitively expensive, like 10-20x their current cost. But that’s a lot of legislation that huge corporations and billionaires would oppose.

          • AnAngryAlpaca@feddit.de
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            9 months ago

            Planes are already pretty fuel efficient per passenger. And larger planes are unlikely, because this would mean all runways they want to use must be extended so the can start and land there.

      • Neato@ttrpg.network
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        9 months ago

        You shouldn’t really feel guilty about anything like that. Asking hundreds of millions to billions of people to drastically change their lives and practice austerity is insane while billionaires do whatever they want and corporations push legislation that makes it harder to conserve. Our meager efforts won’t matter much if the biggest offenders go pollute wantonly.

        Individual’s biggest efforts are pushing for legislation and politicians who will curb corporate abuses. Everything is a drop in a bucket that’s already overflowing.

        • FlorianSimon@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          There’s a limit to what is ethical when it comes to the acceptance of one’s own carbon footprint. It’s OK to use plastic bottles every now and then, but fuck flying 3 times a year. This is part of the problem, and something that we’ll need to learn to live without eventually.

        • anlumo@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          That’s why capitalism is inherently incompatible with stopping Climate Change and we’re all fucked.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          Also, many of the flights are empty. The flight will be moved so it’s in position if needed, or it will drop him off and fly elsewhere.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            That seems wasteful, of any flight really.

            It’d be cool if jets doing that could partner with freight companies and move cargo if needing to reposition.

            Uber for flight cargo

            • merc@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              Every private jet flight is wasteful. But, Elon Musk’s wealth fluctuates by up to $5 billion every single day. Even if he spent $5m a day on his jet, it would be an amount he wouldn’t even notice. He could literally buy a brand new private jet every single day and not notice the cost.

      • anarchyrabbit@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Dude takes a 22 minute flight. My god how small do you need to feel to boost your ego to do that instead of video.

      • CurlyMoustache@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        This follows classic maritime law: You don’t have to pay taxes if you live in the air. That is what my lawyer Chareth Cutestory said. I have the best lawyers

    • zcd@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      If Musk saw this carbon would literally be shooting out of his ears like an old bugs bunny cartoon

    • PlainSimpleGarak@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I don’t get this. What is the point? Why would anyone care where a billionaire is flying to and from? Just for kicks?

      • WaxiestSteam69@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I think it’s mostly aboit the massive carbon footprint of a private jet and Elon has a rep for really short frequent flights.

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Yeah, no. Musk bought Twitter because he HAD to. He very publicly made comments about buying Twitter at absolute meme-stock prices, but didn’t disclose that he already owned a LOT of Twitter stock. So, when his comments predictably increased the price of Twitter stock, he had two choices: Either it was just talk, and he was BLATANTLY guilty of stock manipulation and the Feds put a target on his back, or he acts like he totally meant it.

    So he went with option two, acted like he was serious and wanted to buy twitter. Then he tried everything he could think of to kill the deal, accusing Twitter of all sorts of wrongdoing and lies, but Twitter was more careful than that. They got their shit right, and Musk couldn’t back out. So he bought Twitter, rather than go to prison.

    The fact that he could also kill the tracking twitter account was completely incidental. Musk is an idiot, but even he isn’t that stupid. Musk initially offered $5,000 to the account holder to stop, and then balked at the return offer for $50,000. Now, I may not be a billionaire tech-bro, but I’m pretty sure that spending $50,000 to achieve a goal is preferable to spending $44,000,000,000. He’s dumb, but he’s not that dumb.

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      9 months ago

      Ah so Musk was trying to increase his profits super publicly and super illegally.

      • Red_October@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I honestly don’t think he was TRYING to do anything but shitpost. It didn’t look like a well thought out plan, it looked like an idiot talking out of his ass and realizing that his memes were also crimes.

        • powerage@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          Elon is the kinda guy to put the meme before the horse

          Or however that goes

    • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I think you’re giving him too much credit. The announcement that he owned Twitter shares already hiked the price. If he wanted to short pump and dump he should’ve just kept his mouth shut, get on the board and then sell his stocks. The initial hike to his 9% ownership was on par with his buy offer hike. If his plan was to pump the company he could’ve done it without the legal trouble. Also the second price hike was after he had already made a public bid for the company and the company had accepted the offer. At that point he was locked in to buying the company. There was speculation if such a deal is allowed to go through, but the reality is that unless someone else steps in Musk had two options, he either buys the company or he gets taken to court and is forced to buy the company.

      He had to buy the company, but not because he was risking going to jail. He had to buy it because he screwed himself over by making the bid in the first place. I don’t get the need to make him seem like an intelligent man. He didn’t have any grand schemes or ulterior motives or someone else footing the bill. He simply made a horrible move, probably because he’s a huge manchild who didn’t like that the CEO of Twitter didn’t completely lick his boot.

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        He wasn’t trying to short Twitter. He was trying to pump and dump. Though the dumping probably would have been done more tactfully than the standard pump and dump. Musk getting publicity for holding the stock helps to keep the value up. Tesla’s been inflated forever, and he thought he could do the same with Twitter.

        Yes, the primary reason he bought Twitter is that he screwed up during his pump and dump scheme. There are several reasons he was looking at Twitter in particular, including the jet tracking, how much he loves Twitter anyway, his hate for being told what he can and can not post, etc. I also suspect he’s lost most of the people who will tell him the truth and is now surrounded by right-wing grifters (for politics and aiming his money, they’re smart enough to not try to take the money directly). All these reasons were part of why the pump and dump was plausible as something else, and why it was Twitter that it happened to. Probably not even Musk knows how much of the intent to buy was legit (though not for 44b) and how much of it was the pump and dump.

        He had a scheme; I don’t know that I’d call it grand.

      • supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        He could had pulled out of the bid as well me thinks. Between presenting a bid and closing the deal there should be **due diligence **.

        This is what I understand Mr Musk failed to do, after that it would have been nearly impt to cancel the deal.

        • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          I don’t remember the specifics but I think it was a sort of a “no questions asked” kind of bid, where he chose to not do the due diligence. He did try to play the “My estimation of Twitter was misled because I wasn’t disclosed to vital information” card and it got him nowhere.

          • Archer@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Yep! He explicitly waived it. Corporate equivalent of waiving a home inspection

    • Archer@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      50k is a rounding error for Musk, true. I suspect his ego/feelings stopped him from doing the smart thing and taking that kid up on the offer

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      If he had really cared about the jet tracking thing, he wouldn’t have burned $44b buying twitter to handle it. He just would have bribed / lobbied politicians to put a “public safety” exemption into effect for public data about flights. Make it so that private jets aren’t available in the public feeds / databases. Getting a law like that passed would have cost him tens of millions rather than tens of billions.

    • Drunemeton@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      IIRC he was fighting “tooth & nail” to get out of the deal…until they made a request for some of his e-mails.

      Suddenly he’s done fighting and carried through with the purchase.

      (Sorry but I’m going into an appointment so no time to look up this new event…)

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yeah whatever the reason given as to why he bought it will never not be stupid or funny.

    • Snapz@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Yes AND he’s desperate for approval from those he sees as peers. Twitter enabled things like the Arab spring and was a useful tool for protest organizing and shining a light on horrific things - it was a lot of bullshit too, but it was also that.

      The Saudis and other authoritative, fascistic dickheads with billions all over the world benefit from a useless Twitter and the decreased threat that it can be a tool used to coordinate where the guillotines get set up. And long story short, we now have a useless joke of a Twitter.

      It was win win for him and the people propping him up, either his delusions that he would be successful with Twitter came true (they didn’t) or his likely failure makes all those ghouls happy and he sees indirect benefit from unrelated investment/contracts and someone telling him, “you’re the coolest, bro” and him replying, “watch, hey look, are you looking? Look how fast I can run, are you looking? I’m probably the fastest dinner ever actually” [Proceeds to run slow, trip and fall on his face]

    • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Likely story. Rich people don’t go to prison, you think I was born yesterday?

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    Just fucking stop.

    Elon Musk was forced to buy Twitter after doing several incredibly stupid things publicly.

    Quit assisting this fascist dumbass in his attempt at laundering his reputation.

    • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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      9 months ago

      I don’t see how claiming he bought Twitter to try and shut up a teenager does anyting to help his reputation.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 months ago

        It re-enforces the idea that he is a “genius” who is playing “4D Chess” and that he “has a plan” and not that he’s a fucking drug addled freak who is making decisions based on his emotional state at the time.

        There was no plan, there’s never a plan. Rich people just play this game where, because they have enough money to insulate themselves from their bad decisions, they pretend that “this was always their plan.”

        Pretty much Musk:

        • Evkob@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          Anyone who thinks spending 44 billion dollars on shutting up a teenager constitutes a “genius plan” is already fully on-board the Musk cult. I don’t think there’s really much reinforcement happening.

          I agree we shouldn’t pretend he’s anything less than a dumb asshole who got caught with his pants down.

        • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          It re-enforces the idea that he is a “genius” who is playing “4D Chess” and that he “has a plan”

          No, it does not. It makes him look like a kid without any kind of self control (which he probably is anyway)

          And it does that on a platform where it reaches hundreds of people! :D

          So just calm down, no one cares

  • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I think he was trying to get out of Twitter and wanted to do a real life version of his Dogecoin pump and dumps. You know, talk a big game, hype up how the stock is gonna go to the moon after he brings his genius to bare on the company, then dump the stock and pull out of the deal. However, during the hype phase he managed to say some legally binding things and suddenly found himself forced to honor what he thought was going to be empty hype.

    • underisk@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      He did more than say legally binding things. He signed a contract. That had a clause in it to prevent him from backing out, because the management at Twitter fully expected him to try it. I think he had made several gestures at buying before to try and get some kind of influence over how it was being run, so they drew up the contract to make him put up or shut up.

      • Quadhammer@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Makes you wonder what the og twitters guys are doing now besides drinking mai tais on the beach

    • PoliticalAgitator@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I’m also convinced the entire purchase was an accident but I think he was doing the usual far-right “try and shame people for standing up to nazis”.

      • Scrof@sopuli.xyz
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        9 months ago

        That’s his entire business model. Just look at starship, hyper loop, solar roofs and Tesla semi. Overblown Tesla stock bubble too. All complete vaporware, but he profits greatly from the hype alone. He belongs in prison as he is a classic conman.

        • laverabe@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          As much as I personally dislike Musk, Starship does not belong on that list. It is the largest and most powerful space vehicle humanity has ever launched successfully and landed! It is re-usable and can potentially carry up to 100 people or 300,000 lbs of cargo.

          Nothing like that has ever been done before, and the advancements in science that will follow humanities expansion into space cannot be overstated.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        So is racking up debt in shell companies and claiming bankruptcy on them but it didn’t stop Trump either.

  • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Elon Musk burning billions of dollars to not have his public information publicly posted is one of the biggest Ls he’s ever taken and that’s a long list to fight to the top of.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    9 months ago

    For perspective, $30 billion would afford the food and freight to feed every human on Earth for a year.

    Less than that would make him a god in Haiti (that is, elevate the nation out of crisis and put a bronze statue of Musk in every state park commemorating how awesome he is.

    A few billion could provide free high-speed internet to everyone worldwide. Curiously Musk considered this, but then wondered how to get everyone to pay fees for it.

    ETA I got these values when we were discussing Bloomberg’s wealth in 2019 when he was trying to Secret Hitler the Democratic party, and how much could be bought with the $500 million (at the time only 200 million was declared) he spent on his campaign. The $30 billion to feed the world value came up in in one of the news articles.

    Well, the economy is much different and we’re dealing with considerable inflation (and our billionaires, including Bloomberg are much richer.)

    • BillSchofield@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I’m having trouble figuring out the math for this. My assumptions lead me to divide $30b by 8b people, which is about $4/person. I’m not confident that people can eat on $4 for a year.

      What am I getting wrong?

      • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I just did the math myself before seeing your comment and you’re right that math is fucked lmao.

      • nnjethro@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Maybe it’s to provide food security just for those who don’t already have it

        • CALIGVLA@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          9 months ago

          They clearly stated

          food and freight to feed every human on Earth for a year

          It’s a shit load of money, but let’s be honest you need way more than that to feed everyone. If Musk decided to donate all of his fortune, then maybe that’d be true.

          • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Musks fortune was only 340b at its peak, and the moment he tried to access 44b of it for Twitter it collapsed the price.

            Even 340b is still only $41 a year for everyone.

            • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              9 months ago

              Yea even assuming the 340b a 25 pound bag of rice was about 22 bucks when I googled it and about the same for cheap beans. Maybe between the two a person could survive a long time but it wouldn’t be pleasant. I’m sure if you buy in those bulks you could get it for way cheaper too but still, math doesn’t add up.

              • sundray@lemmus.org
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                9 months ago

                Based on the prices I looked up you could feed everyone on Earth 1,800 kcal of potatoes for one day for around 40 billion USD. So… lets do it! Global spud day! Don’t ask me where to get a pot that big for boiling all them taters though.

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 months ago

        That the costs scale down the more massive the production. If you’re in the industrialized world, the money you pay for food is almost all profit. Not the cost of agriculture, not the cost of harvesting and packaging, not freight time, maintenance and fuel, not logistics and accounting. Profit.

        Most of our money spent is bribes goes in the pocket of each of the capitalists along the way taking their bit of rent.

    • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      A few billion could provide free high-speed internet to everyone worldwide

      Since there is about few billion people on earth, does that mean that high speed internet costs about a dollar per person? You did not think this through, did you?

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 months ago

        There are eight billion people on earth, so it’s even cheaper. Internet access is one of those things that requires infrastructure that gets cheaper per user as it scales up. At a global level, yes, internet should be ridiculously cheap per capita.

        The cost we pay here in the US is mostly profit for the oligopolies that control the last mile. Licensing fees because they control access via legal obstruction. If I were to create a community server, it could be much cheaper as a non-profit cooperative, but for the cost defending from litigation from the established chains.

        In other words, cost of the internet is inflated by force, not because internet access is expensive to construct and maintain.

    • clgoh@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      For perspective, $30 billion would afford the food and freight to feed every human on Earth for a year.

      Let that sink in.

        • clgoh@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          Funny how federation works. I deleted the comment almost immediately. And yet here we are.

  • gregorum@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    this is so astoundingly petty, it might just be true.

    although i doubt that’s the only reason he bought it, i wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a major factor that got him serious about buying it.

      • jtk@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 months ago

        Infrastructure control. Transportation, communications, banking, etc. He’s going after it all. I’ll never touch anything he’s even remotely involved in.

  • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Or really, he wanted to talk shit and pump and dump, and he got caught by some savvy lawyers at twitter.

    Then he tried to turn it into a political tool sprinkled with his narcissism, hoping foreign governments would pay him to manipulate narratives. But now nobody gives a shit, he has lawsuits left and right and is likely going to go broke, and he’s scared away all the advertisers who were his life blood.

    He tried to pull a trump but nobody actually backed him up, and they’re likely going to let him fall.

    • ares35@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      it had to be politically motivated. even elon must be smart enough to know that kicking the kid off twitter wouldn’t stop the tracking of his plane… which is still readily available via multiple sources. he could have been dumb enough to spend $billions just to steal the @x handle though.

    • Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz
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      9 months ago

      Twitter was the main tool in the Arab Spring revolutions. Whatever the Saudis paid to buy and destroy it was cheap for their goals.

  • Additional_Prune@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    LOL. There’s a silicon valley bigwig jet tracker that I see pop up on my Reddit account, and I’m not even that interested in it.

  • BlackPit@feddit.ch
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    9 months ago

    If they weren’t doing anything wrong they shouldn’t care who watches where they go, right?

  • kandoh@reddthat.com
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    9 months ago

    I’ve read all his texts. He definitely bought it because d-list celebrities in his chat groups begged him to.