It’s not just you. Twitter seems to be down for everyone, judging by DownDetector:
… and by fallback microblogging services such as Reddit:
What appears to be a major global outage is providing a timely reminder of arguments around Twitter’s public utility status, and whether it should be protected from the petulance of erratic billionaires. As Matt Levine wrote on Wednesday:
Back in May, at least some people thought that Elon Musk would be good for Twitter as a product, a company, a town square. Now he is on a very public mission to destroy Twitter, get rid of employees, drive away advertisers and spark regulatory investigations. He wants to “trash the company” and “disrupt its operations,” as Twitter’s own lawyers say, as they demand that he buy the company. Seems like a bad guy to own the company!
As a matter of shareholder value, Twitter’s efforts here are unassailable: If Musk is hellbent on destroying Twitter, he should really pay its current shareholders $54.20 per share in cash first. But if you think of Twitter as something other than a pot of cash for shareholders — if you care about its employees or its users or its public mission — then the last thing you would want would be for this guy to own it.
Investment shops including Rosenblatt and Hindenburg have been arguing in recent days that Musk has played a dumb game very badly, which has handed negotiating power to Twitter. The base case now is for a settlement that will compensate shareholders over and above the deal’s $1bn break fee.
Reaching a settlement requires Twitter to threaten convincingly that it’s prepared to close the deal, even if it means killing the company. Threats of webicide to public property are Musk’s only real source of leverage at this point. But since Twitter appears perfectly capable of knocking itself offline through its own ineptitude, there’s no real threat left at all.
Update 2pm BST: it’s back up now.
