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Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

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Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#161

Post by logifail »

lozenge wrote: post #143
sjtgraham wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not relevant. Is anyone expecting him to be the CEO? Far more likely he’s going to appoint competent operators to run Twitter. Whether this is a good outcome for the shareholders is the only germane point up for discussion IMO.

I haven't seen much evidence he's good at delegating. Such as how he remains in control of his own Twitter despite the SEC warnings and penalties. He doesn't need to spend much time with his companies to damage them.

> He doesn't need to spend much time with his companies to damage them.

Couple of questions spring to mind:

1. Can you define "damage"?

"Elon Musk poised to collect $23bn bonus as Tesla beats targets" [0]

"Tesla reported record revenue and profits for the first quarter of 2022 [..]"[1]

2. Would you say the current management of Twitter are doing a good job on behalf of their shareholders?

"Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates; revenue forecast light"[2]

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/21/elon-musk-s...

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/04/20/elon-musk-...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-misses-ad-revenue...

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#162

Post by altacc »

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #140
andersco wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on if he follows through on what he is proposing, which seems to be to allow for disinformation and hate speech. If that turns out to not be the case, then I might reconsider.

> If that turns out to not be the case, then I might reconsider. It seems rather narcissistic to think that deleting your account would be of any consequence or inflict punishment on anyone. To put it bluntly, someone farting in their own car on the highway (and potentially soiling themselves, getting distracted, and causing a chain-reaction accident) has a greater potential impact to future events than whatever irre…

One deleted account is nothing. Many deleted accounts changes the companies value and ability to profit from advertising. Netflix's current woes are not just about subscriber numbers but the numbers didn't have to go down much to make an impact & focus attention on their challenges.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#163

Post by hef19898 »

hackerfromthefu wrote: post #159
matthewdgreen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s much worse than that. I had previously assumed Musk knew what he was doing and was fooling around on Twitter in an effort to (unethically) crush short sellers. Now it appears like he’s an utterly inept businessman who took the first verbal sign of interest, rushed it to Twitter as though the deal was complete, and then blew up the deal in a hissy fit. I still think what he’s done at SpaceX and Tesla is admirable…

The chutzpah of your armchair analysis! You just called the most successful businessman in the world an 'utterly inept businessman'. Literally the wealthiest person in the world and all achieved through business success! Defined and successfully delivering on multiple new markets, with a string of serial successes.

Which new markets, after paypal? Cars? Rockets that go into space? Solar on roofs? Things carrying people through tunnels?

And in all the successful cases he had massive contributions by others. He provided the money, which is huge in itself. The actual work eas done by others, and the fact the Musk fails to properly say so, and that his fanboys believe every single of his claims, truely makes him the Steve Jobs of 2020s we deserve.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#164

Post by logifail »

dehrmann wrote: post #131
greatpostman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. Somehow people still think he’s just a showman. At some point in time, accomplishments can’t be explained away

The problem with lending to him is most of his assets are TSLA shares. It's arguably absurdly overvalued as an automaker, and any effort to liquidate his position would be expensive since it would drive the price down. Someone did it, but I'm sure some people passed. As someone else pointed out, TWTR isn't a great purchase, either. Its ad revenue isn't great, so if he defaults on the loan, the lender is stuck with an…

> any effort to liquidate his position would be expensive since it would drive the price down

Didn't he sell quite a lot of stock last year? Bear in mind he just keeps getting more of it as part of his compensation...

"Elon Musk unleashed a torrent of stock sales, options exercises, tax payment sales and gifted shares last year totaling nearly $22 billion.

Yet even after unloading so much Tesla stock, he still owns a larger share of the company than when he started, thanks to his compensation package.

Musk owns 172.6 million Tesla shares, or a 17% stake, which makes him its single largest individual shareholder."[0]

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/15/elon-musk-unloaded-billions-...

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#165

Post by hackerfromthefu »

SpikeDad wrote: post #18
greatpostman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. Somehow people still think he’s just a showman. At some point in time, accomplishments can’t be explained away

Accomplished? He's got money and hired some smart people. And tech media is more than happy to ignore all the stupid shit he's done and tried.

Well go ahead and start a series of successful category defining companies. We will be waiting to see how easy you make it look!

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#166

Post by shellbuddy »

fredgrott wrote: post #71

The Elephant in the room is what is being provided. Elon is already at the limits of his hours on a daily basis to devote to things with SpaceX, Boring Company, Tesla, etc. Picture it this way, Twitter is your startup and Elon proposes to buy you out. Would you not question how much time we would devote as part of the buyout talks?

It would seem that Musk already spends a fair amount of his spare time using Twitter, for free. One might attribute no small amount of Tesla's stock price as well as his child with Grimes to it. Even with a diminishing amount of time to dedicate to running Twitter as a business, Musk is one of the most effective Twitter users of all time and clearly understands the platform on an intuitive level, which bodes well for any critical interventions he might make on it.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#167

Post by logifail »

dehrmann wrote: post #155
HWR_14 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did it at a 5x multiple. They can cover the loan as long as Tesla stays above 203.

That would be a bit lower than Toyota's value. Toyota sold 10.5M vehicles last year. Tesla sold 930k. Yes, Tesla's growth is solid, but the valuation is because of the true believers. I avoid investing in anything Elon touches because valuations get weird.

> Tesla's growth is solid, but the valuation is because of the true believers

I'm really not what you'd call a believer in Tesla - although had my first ever ride in a one (a model 3) recently, quite an eye-opening experience.

It's not as thought Tesla is the only company where the current valuation doesn't appear to make much sense looking at the numbers...

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#168

Post by panick21_ »

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #154
panick21_ wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also said he wanted to make far more accounts with verified identity and he wants to fight bots. Fighting bots seems to me the opposite of 'allow disinformation'. Also, are we currently blocking people for pushing disinformation? Did I miss something?

It's not disinformation if you agree with the bots politically. Gotta keep that dopamine raging somehow. Also I've lost count of how much of last year's 'disinformation' became this year's 'that totally happened'.

Well, whatever but bots are just generally bat and annoying. The platform would be better without them.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#169

Post by fjkal »

greatpostman wrote: post #5
systemvoltage wrote: post #4

I guess HN was wrong (top comments) that Musk couldn't possibly have a way to finance his deal. And here we are.

Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. Somehow people still think he’s just a showman. At some point in time, accomplishments can’t be explained away

Yes, Tesla is very good at securing funding:

https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-s-mai...

"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Heartland America, you have just subsidized a bunch of millionaires living in California's most expensive coastal ZIP codes to the tune of $10,197 per car. I'm sure they are sending you a thank-you card."

It would be hilarious if it turns out that the government is interested in a private Twitter for "enhanced" data collection and analysis.

Re: Twitter re-examines Elon Musk’s bid, may be more receptive to a deal

#170

Post by Traster »

The valuation for Twitter seems to be basically fair, so it wouldn't be surprising to see this deal eventually close. I think it's fair to say most people's view was that the biggest barrier to closing the deal was Musk actually making an honest offer. Which now, with Morgan Stanley actually standing behind the offer, looks more or less certain. So really it's going to be down to details which are unlikely to be an issue unless Musk uses some pretense to blow up the deal (I don't think that's hugely likely, but I think it's very possible).

What I find really interesting personally is that Twitter is a unique entity. It has practically failed to adapt over a decade. That is both good and bad. It has given it a very specific character and a very specific user base. We have seen over the years that it's very easy for social media companies to die rather than adapt. This has been shown in slow trends like people moving on from Facebook or all at once like at Digg. It's very easy to alienate users without attracting new ones. So it'll be very interesting to see what happens there.

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