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Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

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Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#911
post #218

Since Elon bought his 9% stake, the value of Twitter increased. He mentions selling his shares if the takeover is not accepted. That would make him a lot of money! His offer is also on the high side, this might make people bullish about twitter. On the other hand, I do think he is genuinely interested in buying twitter. But can't help to feel this might also be lucrative for him if the deal doesn't go through. It see…

>He mentions selling his shares if the takeover is not accepted.

No he didn't. He said he would reconsider ownership of his shares. He could, and might keep them, given that they've already made him money.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#912

I bet some of those who advocated "it's a private company, it can deplatform whoever it wants" are probably re-thinking their stance on deplatforming from a major social media.

I'm one of those people and I really don't see how this follows. Freedom of association for private entities is important, whether or not they are owned by Elon Musk.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#913

I bet some of those who advocated "it's a private company, it can deplatform whoever it wants" are probably re-thinking their stance on deplatforming from a major social media.

I think it's interesting to note how differently people see this conversation! > advocated "it's a private company, it can deplatform whoever it wants" To me, this compresses several conversations into one: - In the US, the first amendment applies to the government, not to private actors, so companies do not need to allow any particular person on their site (with the provision that it's illegal to ban people because…

Great comment! This is a very reasonable take.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#914

So Twitter was at $70 per share a year ago. So what? Jack Dorsey was CEO a year ago, too. The share price was $33 less than a month ago. But, despite an absolutely incredible roller-coaster news cycle, things have been definitely trending down at Twitter ($33/share last month), which was reflected in its share price. The current executive team (and Dorsey) had wasted time focusing on things that didn't matter instead…

Everyone currently holding $TWTR believes that the true value is greater than the current price. To make a successful hostile bid, you need to pay not just "more than the current price", but "more than the holders of 50% of current shares believe the company to be worth". Usually bidders use analyst price targets to guess at the distribution of holders' internal price targets. This is what makes it so difficult, and…

“Easier with a whiteboard” = you aren’t explaining it well

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#915

I bet some of those who advocated "it's a private company, it can deplatform whoever it wants" are probably re-thinking their stance on deplatforming from a major social media.

Why would you assume that? If Elon buys twitter and starts banning everyone with pronouns in their bio I think that would be bad and stupid but it wouldn't be a free speech issue. People would just go elsewhere. Everything would be fine.

Right. It wouldn't be a free speech issue in the same sense that Elon is wrong about Twitter currently having a free speech issue.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#916

"Elon Musk's raging narcissism launches all-out $43B assault on his credibility and fortune" Without any understanding that the his right-wing narcissistic suppliers who rage in public about being prevented from raging in public are not the sort of people who become good paying customers for a free platform. This is like the universe seeing Elon Musk and issuing a course correction. For the avoidance of doubt: this i…

Twitter is on a years long decline and heading faster and faster towards stagnation with features no one cares about. Twitter "staying true" to its roots means continued decline and loss of shareholder value.

Musk can pay for Twitter and still be the richest man in the world. It's like buying a boat for a normal person.

Sounds like a lot of salt on your part.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#917

Can anybody make a good argument as to why Twitter (in its current form) isn’t a major detriment to society? If Twitter poofed out of existence today, it would be a major win for this planet. People talk about a frightening future with a human hostile AI that wants to destroy humanity. That exists, it’s twitter. Elon buying it, even if he runs it into the ground is a good thing. Getting rid of some of the hostile AI…

> Can anybody make a good argument as to why Twitter (in its current form) isn’t a major detriment to society?

Basically no one actually uses twitter. I only know one person in real life who uses twitter.

Twitter's problem is that 'media types' really like twitter, for one reason or another, and tend to blow everything that happens there out of proportion for off-platform engagement.

Personally, I really like twitter. I carefully curate my Twitter experience to follow people I'm interested in, mute people and words I don't care for (it's great never having to see "NFT" on twitter!), and block people who are actively harmful. I'm left with a pretty positive experience that has good community and funny jokes. That's how I use it.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#919

I bet some of those who advocated "it's a private company, it can deplatform whoever it wants" are probably re-thinking their stance on deplatforming from a major social media.

This is extraordinarily vague, and so the replies to you so far have had to guess at exactly what you mean. Care to explain more clearly?

I suppose I'm doing exactly what you want to avoid here (guessing GP's meaning), but I think their meaning is really quite obvious and isn't that hard to guess. GP can contradict me if they feel I'm talking out of my back.

American Social Media corps are pretty heavily progressive-dominated, which is typically called "The Left-Leaning Bias", but that's a shame, because American "Leftism" is really a laughable low-dimensional projection of what actual leftism looks like. So anyways, because of this, progressive social media denizens reciprocate this preferential treatment by being free (as in bear) and dependable apologists, always defending said corporations whenever they arbitarily ban, censor or otherwise unfairly treat those with the wrong opinons, often employing the well-known phrase that GP quoted.

GP is implying that those people are about to discover the brutal truth that suppression tactics are perfectly symmetric and care not who employs it against whom.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#920
It's hard to navigate comments, but I cannot find the important stuff being discussed. I mean: how the hell can he even remotely viably secure $43B in cash?! All this "$200B net worth" is pretty much bullshit — it's multiplying current stock price by the amount he holds. (Hugely overpriced stock, in his case.) Sure, he can borrow insane amounts of money using this stock as a leverage, but no way it can be even close to $40B! Right?
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