Over the weekend the Wall Street Journal reported that the Hamas attacks were coordinated with and authorized by Iran in a series of meetings in Beirut. Josh Marshall points out that this information appears to have come entirely from Hamas. And I can’t tell that any other news outlet has independently verified it. That doesn’t mean Iran wasn’t involved, but as Josh Marshall says, everybody should be very cautious about this. Rash decisions based on faulty information easily could turn the situation into something more widespread.
In her newsletter, Joy Vance says it’s a bleeping shame Twitter is so bleeped up.
In the past, in a crisis of this magnitude, we were able to get at least some real time reporting on social media and on Twitter specifically. It was easy to search for reporting from a wide variety of news organizations all in one place. With some discernment, and the use of blue checks with trusted experts weighing in, it was possible to get a sense of what was accurate and what was disinformation. But of course, that functionality is a casualty of Elon Musk’s X/Twitter.
No one who is serious would pretend that Twitter or any other social media platform was ever perfect, but that’s not the point. In the past, we could use the platform to obtain reliable news, often from firsthand reporting. That happened, for instance, at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when reporting was murky. But now Twitter is awash in a sea of misinformation and hate. And we see, in its absence, how important having an international public square is in a moment like this.
Speaking of Twitter … er, X … Reuters reported recently that the social media company not only is worth a ton less money than Elon Musk paid for it, at this point it probably is worth less than the debt held by banks on it. Its value is underwater. You’ll remember that Musk paid $44 billion for the company, and he got $13 billion of that from banks. Meanwhile advertisers have fled the network like rats off a sinking ship.
Put it all together, and X isn’t just worth less than Musk paid for it, but likely less than its debt. Assume that the company’s revenue last year was $4.7 billion, based on results before it was taken private. If advertising has dropped by half, then this year’s sales should be a bit over $2.5 billion. Put that on the same enterprise-value-to-sales multiple as Snap, which is down to a mere 3 times, and X is worth around $8 billion.
He’s still able to make the interest payments on the $13 billion, but this can’t go on indefinitely, I don’t think.
Meanwhile — as the U.S. shifts military assets — mostly ships, I think — closer to the Middle East, Sen. Tommy Tuberville continues to keep the U.S. military hamstrung for stupid reasons. A retired U.S. Navy Commander posted on the sinking hulk of X that there is no chief of naval operations at the moment because of Tuberville.
Well, try to enjoy Indigenous Peoples Day, anyway.
Update: I see the Biden White House is being slammed from the Right for holding a scheduled barbeque for White House staff while Israel is at war. Of course, the White House has continued to hold all sorts of gala functions since Ukraine has been under attack, and the Right didn’t mind about that. There have been, in fact, a number of wars and insurgencies and other armed conflicts going on around the globe for some time, and sometimes Americans are killed in those conflicts. And the Right doesn’t blink an eye.