The only reason why I'm not so keen on the conspiracy, is that it doesn't make sense to me that someone so wealthy would have to stake this destruction on his own reputation and take collateral losses on his other business if he was being machiavellian about it. He could tell his puppet CEO to take all those destructive measures and still maintain his tech genius image. It just seems more like a wild ego thing.

But the people who funded his acquisition, this obvious hare-brained idea, maybe they were aiming for its destruction. They should have known that he was paying far more than the website was worth and that its income would never repay it.