Live data from Hacker News

Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

cnbc.com

51–60 of 1001 posts

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#51
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it’s at a share price premium for 90%+ of the lifetime of the stock since IPO, yes. Most shares were bought below the price Musk is asking.

it's radical to equate dollar values with objective goodness

Exactly. Profit does not always equal good.

One of my favorite books: "Small giants, companies that choose to be great instead of big"

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#52
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it’s at a share price premium for 90%+ of the lifetime of the stock since IPO, yes. Most shares were bought below the price Musk is asking.

it's radical to equate dollar values with objective goodness

Fiduciary duty, such as it is, only extends to dollar value; and there is no other criteria to sue the board over.

Note that I'm all for companies having much more legal responsibility to other stakeholders, not just shareholders, but that is somewhat irrelevant for a discussion of whether the board could be successfully sued over adopting this decision.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#53
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting paid a 25% premium for my stock sounds pretty good to me.

What if the stock goes higher in the future?

What if the stock crashes in the future? Having a guarantee profit sounds like a pretty good deal for some.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#54
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that it’s at a share price premium for 90%+ of the lifetime of the stock since IPO, yes. Most shares were bought below the price Musk is asking.

it's radical to equate dollar values with objective goodness

It's not that radical to equate dollar values with "good for stockholders". At least in my impression that is what most stock holders care about.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#55

I don’t understand how any board can implement a “poison pill”, not just Twitter but Netflix and others, and not be found working against the interest of shareholders. Can anyone help me understand? You’re categorically changing the profile of the stock. This has a chilling effect on large investors, including but not limited just to Musk, right? Vanguard, for example, has just had its range of further investment lim…

You're claiming that Musk's purchase of twitter is objectively good for shareholders

The board’s mandate is to maximize shareholder value. They have an offer that will objectively maximize that value. To scorn it in favor of intangibles is to act against the interest of shareholders.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the options for Elon Musk if he really wanted to counter this poison pill?

Have multiple entities buy shares

I wonder if these could be Tesla, The Boring Company, and SpaceX?

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#57

Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.

Are you going to sell? If not, why not?

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#58
post #27

Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.

As a shareholder and end user of the product, I agree.

you want to cash out with a 20% bump and be out of the stock during a huge tech equity downturn when the stock was over 60% higher last year?

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be too sure of that...

Why?

Because depending on how you look at it, Twitter suspending Trump (and Babylon Bee et cetera) was part of the motivation for Musk to buy Twitter in the first place.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#60
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The idea that the board's fiduciary means they must maximize profits at the expense of all else is a bit of a myth. Yes, they need to look out for their shareholders but they also need to do right by the company, and companies can be formed for any legal purpose and everyone (the company and the shareholders) values things differently. It's generally been upheld that the board has a lot of autonomy and, outside of gr…

> Yes, they need to look out for their shareholders but they also need to do right by the company, and companies can be formed for any legal purpose and everyone (the company and the shareholders) values things differently

The board has a lot of leeway into how they achieve profit for the shareholders, but all decisions they make must be nominally in the interest of that goal (assuming we're discussing a for-profit company such as Twitter). They can basically claim anything they do is done in the interest of shareholder value and be safe, but if they said "we know the company will lose money on this, but we really like X so we'll spend company money on it", they would pretty clearly be in breach of their fiduciary duty.

Post reply on HN