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Elon has decided not to join our board

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Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#71

Post by systemvoltage »

skissane wrote: post #42
onphonenow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is folks valued his potential input. That said I think a board role was a bad fit. He'd have to agree not to acquire more stock (he could personally easily buy 51% of twitter - 4% of his net work probably). Also, he's too strong minded. A recap of his ideas: * A limited edit button. * Move it to a paid service * No ads to avoid corp pressure to censor voices. My guess - he'd be in a conflicted position if…

> My guess - he'd be in a conflicted position if he ever wanted to start / do his own social network. That would likely take his time away from other things he cares more about, such as Tesla and SpaceX. Whereas buying up Twitter stock – even buying 100% and taking it over completely – doesn't take up much of his time at all. Even a board seat would have only been a modest time commitment, far less than starting a ne…

> Why would those changes be outside the FTC's "comfort zone"?

I am also confused. Perhaps foregoign Ad-tech revenue would be against the supposed fiduciary duty?

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#73

Post by bpodgursky »

skissane wrote: post #66
bpodgursky wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about 7% fwiw (although it would cost him some more in taxes to get the cash to do so, he'd have to sell Tesla and realize gains).

Couldn't he take out a loan using his Tesla stock as collateral, and use that to fund a purchase of Twitter? That way he'd avoid selling any stock (and having to pay taxes on the sale), although he'd have to somehow fund the interest payments on the loan (which could be done through smaller stock sales, which would incur taxes, but he'd still pay less tax selling to fund the interest than selling to fund the principa…

Rich people do this to buy yachts and sports cars (for I dunno, tens of millions), but borrowing $15 billion? I'm kinda skeptical any banks would bite here.

The collateral would be a huge portion of his Tesla stock, enough that a crash in TSLA could put the whole loan at risk.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#75

Post by onethought »

dylan604 wrote: post #58
onethought wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he do that? What did he Invest in something/Tweet/Violate FTC/Profit from? If you're referring to Tesla, you missed the part where he: Lead the delivery of a ridiculous amount of value to the company unrelated to any tweets.

Like the time he specifically tweeted that he had investment to take Tesla private that affected stock price, but turned out to not actually have happened?

He profited from that? That happened in 2018... the share price looks like a kind of flat line compared with the mountain of growth in 2020-2022?

He lost $20 million personally for that. Also isn't he suing the SEC over that, claiming he did have funding secured, and claiming he only settled because he was worried about the court cases given he wanted to raise more money?

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#76

Post by jasonlotito »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #11

It’s funny that the first paragraph of the letter says they believed it was best for Elon to join the board. Then the second paragraph says that Elon declined to join the board and they believe it was also for the best.

Before, they believed it was for the best. Now, after certain events, some of which are spelled out in the tweet, they believe the other.

Both are completely valid and do not contradict one another. And it's quite normal and acceptable to change your mind after you get more information.

I think Foo is true. Let's see! I think Foo is not true after seeing new facts.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#77

Post by perihelions »

pen2l wrote: post #70
perihelions wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- "CEO of Twitter has posted an image of text (from the iOS Notes app?)" At least he made the effort to include accessible alt-text. (Interestingly, the accessible text differs *slightly* from the picture-of-text version -- different draft revisions? Even social media CEO's don't seem comfortable with this workflow). edit: here's a diff with highlighting: https://i.imgur.com/R9wf2H5.png I'm relying on Verge's transcr…

Thanks for the diff! But for the love of god would you please enable word-wrapping? I'm so sorry to continue: please introduce some padding while you're at it; the text being so close to the window borders in stock emacs is so offputting. Signed with love, a recent emacs convert. edit: I see word-wrapping now, thanks!

I've uploaded a new version with word-wrapping. Sorry for that!

Yeah, my emacs config is a work in progress.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#78

Post by boulos »

princeb wrote: post #19
axg11 wrote: post #9

A very odd set of events and no explanation regarding Elon's change of mind. A pessimist would think that Elon has decided to go for a "hostile" takeover since he is no longer bound by the percentage holding cap. An optimistic would think that Elon had enough self-awareness to realize it would be an overall distraction for Twitter with little benefit. It amuses me more than it should that the CEO of Twitter has poste…

maybe his lawyers informed him he made a mistake. he filed the disclosure on Schedule 13G which prevents him from joining the board, rather than 13D if he wants to do so. but then again, i wouldn't put it past elon to do all the things that the SEC explicitly tells people not to do.

He did file a 13D as a follow up.

Re: Elon has decided not to join our board

#80

Post by kadenwolff »

His reason for not joining sounds pretty clear.

"he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders, was the best path forward."

Obviously Elon Musk continually openly criticizing Twitter, from the perspective of some of the board members, is not in the best interest of Twitter. He would have to join under some obligations that would prevent him from speaking openly about his criticisms, and he'd probably be kicked from the board at some future point. This is why they say it's in the best interest of Twitter that he doesn't join. Musk joining would only result in some kind of scandal months down the line.

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