Elon’s bizarre Twitter saga could have been a cover for him to sell $8.5B in Tesla stock
https://fortune.com/2022/07/09/how-elon-musk-bizarre-twitter-takeover-saga-could-have-just-been-a-cover-for-him-to-sell-8-billion-in-tesla-stock/
Elon Musk on Friday announced he was backing out of his $44 billion Twitter acquisition bid, blaming the social media platform's alleged lack of transparency regarding bots on the site.
I find it fascinating how people with this kind of money play ball. It's just a whole different ballgame. To lose a BILLION in order to liquidate 7 BILLION?
The idea of losing a billion is almost unfathomable to me. Losing 20 bucks feels very real. It's 20 bucks. But losing a billion? It becomes abstract. Maybe that's their secret. Maybe making/losing abstractions is easier than making/losing dollars 🤔
Twitter has become a dictatorship, they just banned a famous psychologist (Jordan Peterson) for having an opinion on someone transgender.
It doesn't matter how offensive his opinion is.
No one will stop them to ban your account when you will come up with a SaaS idea they think is offensive, they will simply shut you up.
It's not a left or right discussion, it's about democracy.
Twitter is a social dictatorship, I advice you guys to close your account if you like the concept of free speech, otherwise, nothing is going to stop other social networks to follow suit.
it's a private company that doesn't charge you anything to use the product. they can do whatever they want. I'm sure he violated their ToS.
You have to be a real asshole to get banned from twitter.
Lol @ something they think is offensive. tons of people have started literal porn businesses off of twitter and the platform is full of hateful, controversial takes. you're required to do a lot to get banned.
"With great power comes great responsibility."
Twitter is not just another private company. It can control results of elections by silencing political voices, and that is EXACTLY what it is doing.
"You have to be a real asshole to get banned from twitter."
Bingo.
You proved my point. Someone should not get banned from having an opinion just because you think he has an asshole opinion.
That's the whole point of freedom of speech. Especially if, like you say, the platform is full of controversial stuff, but Twitter is managing it like a political tool.
I know that some people really like the bans which Twitter performed, take a few steps back and realize these are dangerous & unprecedent actions which will end up backfiring on your freedom of speech as well.
you don't understand freedom of speech.
private companies do not have "freedom of speech" for a bunch of reasons.
"Twitter has become a dictatorship"
What an absolute joke the American right has become. The man was banned because he called a legally operating doctor a criminal while simultaneously harassing someone for being transgender.
Neither of these things in their nature have ever been protected under "free speech", anywhere in the USA. One is open defamation and slander and would get challenged if he had published the same piece in a newspaper or on TV 50 years ago, and the other is just plain harassment and is really no different then if he had taken to a public forum to denounce someone for their race or religious beliefs.
Free speech gives you the right to be an asshole in private or public all you want, but it doesn't give you the right to slander or harass people in a published forum (twitter) without consequences, nor does it protect you from legal consequences for your actions if you cause damages with no credible facts. When you take to a private platform to publish your opinion you are playing by the rules of the publisher and if twitter wants to protect it's users from harassment the same way literally any other business would, it's well within it's rights. Stop your utter nonsense.
Please be accurate - the bans are inflicted on influential people from the right.
Someone harassed you? Sue him/her on court.
The people are not stupid, I'm not even "right", I have right and left opinions and I'm not stupid enough not to distinguish when a platform is bluntly being used by its managers agendas. In it's turn it can influence people as a whole and even affect elections.
This is the point where a democracy transitions into a dictatorship.
You want to stick your head in the ground, go ahead.
I think this is simply buyer's remorse. He signed an LOI essentially sight unseen for $54B and now it's worth $28B with some of his Tesla stock as leverage. The Twitter board has a financial incentive to get the deal done and will sue to collect. So the only way Elon could get out of this without paying is if Twitter had falsified information in their SEC filings. That is where the Twitter bots comes in. If he can say they did not disclose the accurate amount of bots and the number is much higher then the deal should be voided.
Josh is not accounting for the odds that Musk actually loses the legal battle and has to pay a lot more then just the 1bn break-up fee + legal fees. He manipulated the stock of both Twitter & Tesla, both of which can and probably will be suing him on top of the Twitter board seeking extra damages.
That's pretty crazy. Had not heard this theory but it makes sense.
makes sense from day 1. Few investment groups I am in all thought it's impossible for this deal to go through. Also, it's a bad deal at the start. Twitter is a dying platform that can't sustain its business.
I don't think this is true. Elon wasn't getting the cooperation that he needed, so he nixed the deal. Sounds like he did the right thing to me.
I agree with you, Elon is for total freedom of speech and transparency and Twitter is not been open.
Honestly doesn't surprise me — and financially it made huge sense for him.