> Did Musk think Twitter actually had a moat (thus he didn't have to be overly concerned with his actions promptly sinking the ship)?
I don’t think he cared [0], because he’s always wanted to gut Twitter and remake it as a a very different service that is not really in the same market (very different substantive functions and revenue model.)
On the other hand he seems to have very not-evidence-based and turns-out-to-be-wrong-at-every-step map of how to get from a ad-supported microblogging platform to a user-pays long-form-content-and-financial-services platform.
[0] It did, through network effexts, but his plans were incompatible with focussing on preserving it.
I don’t think he cared [0], because he’s always wanted to gut Twitter and remake it as a a very different service that is not really in the same market (very different substantive functions and revenue model.)
On the other hand he seems to have very not-evidence-based and turns-out-to-be-wrong-at-every-step map of how to get from a ad-supported microblogging platform to a user-pays long-form-content-and-financial-services platform.
[0] It did, through network effexts, but his plans were incompatible with focussing on preserving it.