One Musk business buying (read: transferring money) to another needy one at a time when everyone else is walking away from advertising there should give cause for regulators to start paying attention.

(hypothesis) Advertisers abandon the platform; supply & demand means the price falls; Starlink senses a bargain and pounces before all the punters disappear.

...should give cause for regulators to start paying attention.

Of the many things regulators should be looking at, I don't think this is one of them. For a Musk-move, it kinda makes sense given he's on both sides of the transaction and can look at how effective the campaign is. I suspect the answer will be 'not very' given Aussies aware of Twatter are probably also aware of Starlink.

Of course he may not like the answer, especially as he needs to boost both ad and Starlink revenues. There have been a number of articles over the past few years pointing out that social media is a pretty lousy way to spend advertising budgets.

They couldn't have chosen a worse country than Spain to advertise satellite Internet. Even if you live out right in the sticks the absolute minimum is 10 Mbps broadband and the usual is 50 Mbs 4G/5G/Fibre/WiMax. If you live in a town or a city then 300-1000 Mbs is available.

Oh, and [1]a Telsa just had a brake failure and killed two people . Can't have anything to do with [2]skimping on the tests .

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-says-it-will-assist-police-probe-into-fatal-crash-china-2022-11-13/

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-elon-musk-orders-engineers-to-stop-brake-and-roll-testing-2018-6?IR=T

Was just going to post the same, except out here in the proper sticks there is sod all of anything, hence I have Starlink. Starlink did ask me why they couldn't sell the thing in Spain and I gave a very similar reply. Here they have fibre the diameter of sewer pipes going everywhere, for around 30 euros a month, inc 2 mobile contracts. To the Spanish, the internet is the new way to watch footie. If you want proper info, you speak to people in a bar.

but large when measured by any normal person.

Elon's sense of scale is getting rather warped.

@that one in the corner

"but large when measured by any normal person."

I did wonder that. When dealing with numbers of certain magnitude what is large to one can be small to another

This billion is small, but those billions are far away!

Shouldn't Carl Sagan about billions?

I can only assume it's also large when compared against the advertising income from Movistar and the other Spanish telecoms providers. I doubt they will want to have their adverts placed next to those of a direct rival.

By the descriptions given by Musk fans that Frohnhoefer's tweets were "lashing out with emotion", rude and didn't provide any factual answers. "Bad mouthing his boss" - another one of those UK/US things, as I missed where Frohnhoefer used the word "prat" (or equivalent).

Are we getting individualised Twitter results that means those people are reading some other tweets attributed to Frohnhoefer?

Fans also saying that he should have just replied with "Yes, Sir, 100% agree with you, Sir?". So the "disruptive engineers" that Elon hires should be disruptive lickspittles!

Aaargh, no, no, this has got me clicking on the "Show this thread" links now. Can't look away. Must look away. It's too late for me, run, save yourselves.

So the guy that corrected the boss has gone.

The way I see it, that's one less person who knows what the hell is going on, because it's quite clear the boss doesn't.

Is that a way to get people you don't like fired? Impersonate them on Twitter with a paid-for account and call their boss a cunt.

It also looks like there's been another round of layoffs for people who have not shown sufficient loyalty to Musk in the past couple hours. So I would bet good money that the last few people who actually had any idea what they were doing are now gone!

there's been another round of layoffs for people who have not shown sufficient loyalty to Musk

If we accept that some traits are genetically inherited there must be some shared ancestry between the orange clown and Musk. The fun part of this is that that attitude actually absolutely ensures he will end up without the very people capable of fixing the mess he and his big mouth got himself into.

I must stock up on popcorn.

5 separate articles on the main page of El Reg about Muskytwit. SpaceX I've always admired, Tesla I'm ambivalent about, Twatter is anti-social media of the worst kind.

You do not have to read every single article. You are allowed to skip the ones with 'Musk' or 'Twitter' in the title.

I am still enjoying watching the train wreck. Every day it continues is a day that professional rocket scientists can make progress on Starship without the help that Twitter staff are currently enjoying. I am sure it will get dull for me eventually and I will signal my waning interest by not reading more about Musk / Twitter. That is a hint that the Register staff understand. You can contribute to a reduction of articles like this one by doing absolutely nothing.

I don't read the articles, I'm just here for the comments ;-)

(Not the OP)

I don't read the articles, I'm just here for the comments ;-)

There are articles and columns? Whaa?

According to Twitter : "Takeover products give you exclusive ownership of Twitter's premium real estate across desktop and mobile, allowing you to maximize your reach and drive results across the funnel."

As opposed to the ultra-premium version of Twitter Takeover, which costs $44 billion, and gives you exclusive ownership of Twitter's premium real estate across San Francisco, allowing you to drive results across the funnel, up the spout, and down the drain.

It all makes so much more sense now. Musk thought he was just buying the advertising package, but clicked the wrong "Takeover" button!!!