[ExI] why did elon want twitter? was: RE: Satoshi Nakamoto

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] Satoshi Nakamoto

On Tue, Aug 11, 2026 at 3:25 PM Kelly Anderson via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>>... At the risk of feeding the troll...

Hey, we trolls need to eat too ya know.  We are human.  Or rather, human-like creatures.  Feed on, sir!

>...I want to address the purchase of X by Elon Musk. Honestly, I didn't get it at the time either, but now that I understand the objective, I think it was a pretty smart move.

I think you are right on the money, Kelly.  Seen in that light, the move to buy Twitter makes perfect sense, to train Grok.  I see the value in that, even if one disregards the value of giving everyone on the planet a forum for free speech (assuming they buy a StarLink receiver.)

>>... The reason for acquiring Twitter was primarily to obtain the raw data to feed his own insatiable AI, Grok. ... Kelly

Not only is it useful with the initial training, TwitterX supplies mountains of fresh data every day which allows Grok to be post-trained and keeps it more up to date on current events than its counterparts.  There are other social media, but TwitterX is the place to get lots of daily posts and such, plenty of fresh material every day.

>...I might buy that except for one detail.  Did Elon know at the time he started negotiations to acquire Twitter that this need for training data was coming?  Adrian

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Ja, sure did.  Elon was one of the guys who left OpenAI because he objected to how it was to be trained: the board wanted to pre-filter all the training data, rather than use sources like Twitter, which was just everyone and anyone's keyboard fantasies.  A new problem arises: who is qualified to determine what gets filtered?  Think about it.  That isn't a trivial problem at all.

Musk left the board of OpenAI in Feb 2018, pissed off.  He made the initial offer for Twitter in April 2022.

Fun aside on that: the notion of filtering post-training data requires personnel, which cost money, which is what nearly wrecked Twitter under Jack Dorsey.  Elon realized that he who filters best filters least.  So... he could lose most of the staff, lower costs to meet revenue and save the company.  Now... Grok gets less filtered, more timely training data for less money.  Those who couldn't figure out why such a good business mind would pay so much for a dying company now understand.

spike