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by pr337h4m·3y ago·view on hn ↗
Not necessarily. If Elon wishes, he can go after (or at least credibly threaten to go after) Apple's core iPhone business with a Tesla Phone. There a lot of conflicts of interests with Twitter, but a phone is a great product for Tesla considered on its own merits.

Tesla has manufacturing capabilities and talent that can rival Apple, and crucially a respected brand whose hundreds of millions of fans are even more loyal than Apple. They have a considerable pile of extra cash, which is why a large faction of shareholders has been demanding stock buybacks on a scale of 5-10 billion to pump the stock price. Investing in a smartphone product is probably a better use of cash than pumping the short-term stock price.

Developers will rush to the Tesla Phone if it is a skin over AOSP and compatible with Play Store apps (following the Amazon model) and if Tesla doesn't charge a cut of app revenue.

They don't have to actually build this, just show that it can feasibly displace over $10 billion of Apple's annual revenue. It's probably better to just bypass Tim Cook and go directly to Warren Buffett and other top shareholders, and ask them if they're willing to risk their cash cow for a totally unnecessary war with Twitter.

In the meantime, a pseudonymous hacker called Peorge Potz can release a jailbreak for iOS 16 :)

3 comments
This would be perfectly risible satire, but I suspect you're earnest about this, and I think that's even more funny.
Funny, that's the same thing people said when Elon pitched his Twitter bid.
Amazon tried that with the Fire Phone and failed. AOSP doesn't do much by itself. Recreating all of the Google Play APIs necessary to have a viable consumer product would be an enormous project.
Also, Twitter's mobile web experience is the best among social media platforms. They should immediately stop annoying users with the 'Twitter is better in the app' pop-ups.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA this is priceless