Elon Musk has dented his super-genius, miracle-maker reputation to turn into a blundering Don Quixote who by gross misjudgement may sink Twitter altogether. Since he took over a month ago the platform has dropped two-thirds of its workforce; lost half of its top hundred advertisers; seen the introduction and abrupt cancellation of a subscription-payment scheme; and lost at least a million users. And he reinstated Trump’s account who used it to promote the January 6 Capitol attack.
As the New Yorker pointed out this is a tragedy for the free-speech platform of the past which shared details of public figures who had obtained privacy injunctions from U.K. courts; spurred along the Arab Spring; and publicised the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor which would otherwise have been buried by the authorities.
Advertisers understandably don’t want their products appearing next to homophobic, racist, sexist tweets and are unlikely to return unless Musk does a volte face which seems unlikely given his double-down on stubborn idiocy tendencies.
The New Yorker concluded: “It seems likely that this experiment will conclude with bankruptcy and Twitter falling into the hands of creditors who will have their own ideas of what it should be and whom it should serve.”
Musk, 28 June 1971, is an inventive, maverick Sun Mercury in Cancer square Uranus with a creative/neurotic Saturn opposition Neptune Jupiter and a bloody-minded Mars in Aquarius. His uncompromising Mars is getting a hammering from tr Saturn conjunct this December 4th to 18th and then tr Uranus in square late May 2023 on and off into 2024. So even his resolute I-am-never-wrong stance may have to budge.
Plus he has a trapped, enraging tr Pluto square his Sun/Mars midpoint from mid January to mid February 2023 (returning twice late year.) As well as a plethora of other less than helpful transits to midpoints and downbeat tr Saturn in Pisces square his Jupiter Neptune and Saturn. None of which will stop him blowing his trumpet at full toot through this December and again late year.
It may be a shipwreck ahead but he’ll go down all flags waving.
Twitter, 21 March 2006 had that momentous Uranus North Node (and Mars) 18 degree Taurus transit in this recent August hitting its Neptune and Jupiter. And the reverberations of that run into 2023 – scandals caused through instability, wild over confidence causes its own downfall. Twitter may not run into the buffers immediately through tr Neptune square the Pluto through 2023 will undermine its influence (and ditto on Musk’s chart). It’ll be the shift of Neptune out of Pisces into Aries in 2025 which may ring its final bell.
Add On: Tesla’s market dominance is eroding as more affordable models proliferate and forecasts are that by 2025 they will supply only 20% of the market as opposed to 70% last year. And their brand image has taken a dent over the past two years over the Musk connection.
The 1 July 2003 chart has financially disappointing Neptune square Venus transits in 2023/4 and downbeat tr Saturn opposition Uranus Mars throughout 2023 as well. It will feel a chill draught in coming years, worsening dramatically by 2026 onwards. The second half of this decade looks highly uncertain. The 29 June 2010 IPO chart has one blip upwards in the years ahead but many more sinkers which will outweigh any good luck.
That Jupiter-Neptune conjunction opposite Saturn may also explain his tendency to exaggerate and even outright lie. Curious investigators have found that he may not even be the genius he claims to be, because none of the science or technical degrees he claims could be confirmed by their education institutions. He has not refrained himself from overhyping Tesla’s ‘self-driving’ capabilities by using misleading terminology, and thereby causing a number of fatal accidents because the drivers thought the car could drive itself without supervision – which he then conveniently blames on the user not having read the fine print.
He pretends to succeed on his brains alone and no government regulations, while in fact he has received plenty of government subsidies and contracts. Now this libertarian complains about Apple dropping their ads by disingenuously claiming it’s against ‘free speech’, and that they shouldn’t have the right to kick Twitter off its app store and needs to be regulated. Apple is private (albeit with shareholders) and can do what it wishes, just as Musk can throw away his money.
I think Musk is bringing down Twitter intentionally. His comments about Ukraine capitulating to Russia, Taiwan submitting to China, and Americans vote Republican in the midterms show that he supports right-wing causes. Twitter has been instrumental in furthering progressive movements such as the Arab spring as well as helping to further the demise of the Republican party. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Musk is working with Putin to further divide and undermine the U.S. Putin could even have funded the acquisition of Twitter. Oligarchs work together. And Musk isn’t the wealthiest person in the world; Putin is, from that steady stream of oil revenues.
South Node in Leo is a big part of Musk’s story, in my view. I think of this node as being “to the manor born,” either in early life or (one or more) past lives. The need to connect with the “peasants,” contextually speaking, to fulfill the North Node imperative. I can’t say for myself that there’s much integrity in Musk’s view of so-called “free speech.” In western astrology, the north node is seen as the thing to strive toward, but in Vedic astrology, the North Node (Rahu) represents “materialism, mischief, fear, dissatisfaction, obsession and confusion.” All things I’d say Twitter has been an apt vehicle for, even before Musk bought it.
Didn’t realize he’d had work done on his face till I read it above. His mother, Maye Musk, is actually quite beautiful. A lot to live up to there, I guess. I’m of two minds on the Gem rising thing (haha!), as Solaia mentioned, though I gathered she was questioning it. One thing I’ve seen written about Gem rising is that they often look a good bit younger than they actually are. I have Gem rising at 18 degrees, and people have often said I look as much as 20 years younger than I actually am. (That’s been nice as I’ve aged!) I’ve often thought that Musk has kind of a strange-looking baby-face. That would be an “interesting” way for a Gem rising to express itself, but if his rising is on the cusp of Cancer, I can see how his appearance + the work done makes a weird sort of sense.
Like that part about Gemini rising looking young for their age. My Ascendant is Cancer 1. Hopefully the closeness of Gemini will mean that I will retain my looks longer, saving on makeup 😉
Maybe this is his modus operandi. He knows how to function in unpredictable situations. Space X looked impossible at the time but then was saved by NASA. Tesla went through similar struggles. The difference with Twitter is, as it’s a media entity where Musk has a constant presence, we are seeing his eccentric business strategy unfold on a day by day basis.
Perhaps to Musk, destruction is seen as the necessary prelude to reinvention on a unprecedented scale and chaos is the essential impetus for the overthrow of outdated strategies? This is why a lot of what he does seems unpredictable and almost super human?
A completely new digital media landscape could emerge as Musk seems to have unlimited access to capital due to the inspirational impact of his previous enterprises.
@Kevin, employees not getting paid for their work because the owner fired the payroll is not “strategy”. And there are countless examples like this not only from Twitter, but Musk’s previous enterprises. He seems to lack any understanding of cause-effect correlation. Investors also likely know by now that they have been scammed, but Musk is, very much so, “too big to fail”. It will likely be up to Governments to bring Musk down, but they will.
He is ‘too big to fail’…but what the future may hold is a partial amalgamation of stateless corporates with authoritarian governments as the world moves into a new phase beyond capitalism and corporatism. If a political culture emerges that is able to reclaim leadership, then governments may be able to act. But the entire global system may go down before this is possible…The powers that be see Musk as a blank slate follow on to Trump – part of the reason for his Twitter purchase may be to align himself with authoritarian states for a GOP presidential runoff.
Libertarians can sometimes be content to watch the world burn, but always from a safe distance with zero impact to their livelihoods or security. A point rammed home especially during the second half of Pluto’s plunder through Capricorn, and hopefully a lesson for all ideologues to learn after the ingress in March 2023.
@Kevin I agree with your post. Musk has never done things by conventional usual standards and this is challenging to the majority of onlookers.
He has single handedly changed the way we return from space! At first like you said, people thought it was crazy, impossible, naive…and by ‘people’ I mean all those very very clever people at NASA. Now they all use his Space X return concept rather than ditching whole rockets in the ocean!
Personally I feel Twitter will become something like the Chinese counterpart Weibo…chat, videos, payment systems etc.
Twitter has already greenlighted posting videos of 2 hours in length.
The whole thing about Free Speech is a distraction imo.
Twitter under its original hands played a political propoganda role to the masses. This was a waste of the tech and a very narrow view of its capabilities….chat plus ads! Ripe for an overhaul.
I don’t use or like Twitter or any social media so I’m not dissing or applauding what it was or may be. Just that it was ripe for innovation and Elon has a history of doing just that!
Yes I agree. Twitter will be reconfigured in a few years as a Weibo app. Possibly the original intention was to have AI exchange between Chinese and Western platforms but the current war in Ukraine has irreversibly changed the geopolitical landscape.
Thanks Marjorie, I left Twitter when Musk purchased it. It became a cesspool almost instantly. 2025 can’t come soon enough!
I also left Twitter after Musk purchased it. Will mentioned downloads being up – not sure what downloads that refers to but many people, including myself, downloaded a file of all of their posts before deactivating their accounts. If a certain percentage of the millions who left also downloaded their data on leaving that would account for downloads being up!
Twitter has been a cesspool long before Musk took over.
I am not convinced that advertisers will be happy to have it pointed out that they were happy to be advertising on a platform which did not censor child pornography but censored Donald Trump, who had more Twitter followers than anyone else. Maybe Musk will follow Murdoch and serve the niche market called half of the population. Considering what a disaster zone Twitter’s finances have been since it started I would be surprised if Musk failed, especially as the Apple and Google monopolies trying to close it down. Still with half of the labor costs removed there is hope. Has anyone noticed any difference in using Twitter since it changed hands? And remember when tried to back out of the deal but was threatened with legal action by Twitter’s board of directors? Who is criticizing them for not maintaining the status quo when they had the chance?
https://www.businessinsider.com/twitters-usage-is-actually-soaring-right-now-we-explain-why-2022-11?op=1&r=US&IR=T
. Twitter downloads and usage have surged. Elon Musk’s leadership of Twitter so far has proved chaotic and unnerving for workers and advertisers, but users appear unfazed: Both the app’s average daily downloads and daily average usage have increased considerably.
According to data from Apptopia, daily downloads for November are already up 28% compared to October. And compared to September, downloads are up 46%.
As for daily active users, Nov. 6 also turned out to be an all-time high for Twitter, with 245.4 million people using the app that day.
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-04-twitter-profitable-elon-musk.html
……..Listed on the New York Stock Exchange for just under nine years, Twitter has posted a net loss every year, except 2018 and 2019 when it made a profit of just over $1 billion……….
https://nypost.com/2022/11/27/the-left-throws-a-tantrum-as-elon-musk-reverses-censorship-on-twitter/
…….Not that you need to be a parent to abhor child pornography, but for some reason, the vile content effectively was given a free pass at Twitter before Musk arrived, so clearly not everyone in the company respected society’s last taboo.
But instead of applauding Twitter’s dedication to child safety and attack on degeneracy, leftist media have been decrying Musk’s attempts to restore free speech protections as if they are a threat to civilization. …………..
@Will, “leftist media”, such as WSJ owned by Rupert Murdoch calling Musk out is the last of his worries with Twitter, at the moment. He has, in fact, left this company open to several litigations not only in the US, but Worldwide – it’s stunning how English speakers are in a bubble where non-English speaking World doesn’t exist – on issues ranging from Privacy Law breach to Genocide Instigation by firing teams responsible for oversight and moderation.
And it’s not good for the business. For instance, I, as a digital marketer in the EU, would not invest on campaigns on any platform with uncertain GDPR (google it) status. This was actually never a strong point of Twitter, and was likely a part of why their share in digital marketing here is minimal – SoMe marketing makes up about 1/4 of digital marketing mix in the EU, and almost 90 per cent of it goes through Facebook. But Musk has blown any lid from this, and I’ve seen almost all big, local companies disappear from my Twitter feed over the last couple of weeks, and getting paid content from an American Megachurch instead.
Oooops, I should have checked and made sure that wrote “I would not be surprised if Musk failed” as no-one else has succeeded in making a profit out of it, before pressing the send button. I did not mention the WSJ but as for bubbles India did not take kindly to Trump being blocked. Europe might be a big player now but a generation or so down the line it could be coming in at number 4 in the rank of global economies.
As for FaceBook its share value has dropped 81% in the past 12 months so I doubt that anyone will be looking to it for any advice. As for Apple the latest comments in the press indicate that Apple has lost its nerve in the battle with Musk. Still anything can happen and it looks as if most of the overblown values of the digital companies which do not make profits will evaporate during the coming recession.
@Will, you asked if anyone had noticed a difference in Twitter since he took over.
My feed, instead of charming, uplifting and satirical felines and useful political insight is now full of uninvited and unwelcome right-wing rants (similar to yours).
Since the right-wing seems obsessed with child porn there’s no wonder it’s now more present on Twitter.
As sensible people desert Twitter Musk will be left with a rump similar to Gab.
I mourn the loss of Twitter which was so helpful in identifying January 6 insurrectionists and connecting new people around the world — and providing this journalist with so many helpful tidbits.
There is not more child porn on Twitter there is now less. And pointing out that Twitter has struggled to make money since it was founded is not a rant.
Must be his Asperger acting up! 🙂
@Troy, I must say we only have Musk’s own word on that diagnosis, and I’ve seen people with much “worse” diagnosis cover it up with talking about Asperger or Autism spectrum. Especially in the tech field and research, where certain autistic traits are almost glorified. Obviously, there could also be comorbidities, I knew someone who was quite clearly autistic with all the sensory sensibilities, but also had a bipolar episode while we interacted.
I love Twitter and it is sad to watch it go down like this. The bad thing is that there is no other good alternative to it.
On a different note, I used to have close a friend who was born on the exact same day with Musk. He had a brilliant mind, a little wacky, but always funny. He ended up quite rich and is happily married. He also got involved into some money schemes when young. I can see some similarities to Musk but it is so interesting to see how astrology works differently on people.
Bette, I was going to say that houses make a huge difference – which they do. But even the same house positions can lead to a different outcome with strong similarities – viz Ingrid Betancourt (Ghislaine Maxwell.)
@Marjorie, Astrotheme has Musk’s TOB at 06:30 am in Pretoria. No source, but I think that chart makes much more sense, house wise, given his recent behavior than the rectified chart here where I honestly see some wishful thinking.
For instance, this chart would give him 29′ Gemini Rising instead of Scorpio, and if you look at Musk’s pictures from early his career, without hair transplants, fillers and/or plastic surgery on chin and cheeks, as well as eyes, there’s not much of Scorpio look in him at all. Also, it will place his Moon to 2nd house instead of 7th, square both Saturn and Neptune, and Venus to 12th house, which I think can be indicative not only of strange love life but of “inherited wealth”. And Aquarius Mars in the 8th, typically a house I see on charts of people either collecting or administrating investments.
I don’t know how this would work as well with transits, but I was looking for signs of not really gasping cause-effect correlations and poor judgement stemming from these difficulties, as well as maybe “buying your own hype” on 08:42 PM chart, and couldn’t find them, but Sun/Mercury in general can be juvenile and down right immature at worst cases, and it’s especially true for 1st house Cardinal Sun/Mercuries (even 1st house Capricorn Sun/Mercuries often take more time to grow to their role than the rest of Sun Capricorns).
Hi, No idea where that 8.42pm came from – must delete it from my inbox. I thought I had put up the 12 noon chart, have now.
@Marjorie, no source for the 06:30 am chart, either. But there was a mention on Maya Musk in Questions and Comments. She strikes me as a type of a mother who would have absolutely recorded children’s TOBs even if they weren’t in official records. And a type of person who might have consulted an astrologer afterwards. So, even if TOBs wouldn’t be public record in RSA, this might be a reliable timing.
The way I see it, astrology and the stars are an influence, one among many others, such as family, neighbourhood, etc. So people born in identical circumstances (twins separated at birth, astrological twins) may have similarities, but also differences.