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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

#281

Post by recuter »

paganel wrote: post #272
recuter wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very strong narrative making the rounds. Unfortunately it is not quite so. The batteries Tesla uses are a commodity - they are partnered with Panasonic and more recently the Chinese CATL (these guys do actual battery research, you know, with chemicals and lab coats). Certainly packaging Panasonic rolls into 2170s gives them a nice edge but it isn't exactly rocket science. The Giga press is made by the Itali…

Not a fanboy by any stretch, as I'm totally anti-EV (I find the regressive taxes supporting this industry quite repulsive, to be honest), I've written down just what I thought was happening/what the reality on the ground was. > o much as organizational agility That's why I insisted on the "better software" part, that's where much of their advantage comes from. Maybe the Germans and the French can also source their ba…

Great, so now that we have established that nobody is a fanboy let us objectively take a gander at the current situation.

Here is Doug Demuro reviewing the Volkswagen ID Buzz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4JraQ6KrVM

tl;dr: It is fine.

Here he is reviewing the Rivian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYrunRy8hmw

tl;dr: It is excellent. In fact he says "coolest pickup truck ever made". People who were excited about the cyber truck and know cars would rather get this one.

> Maybe the Germans and the French can also source their batteries from the Chinese but they just haven't been able to put them to good use the way Tesla did (and does).

Well.. I don't know about the French. ;)

But Volkswagen will make you an electrified Golf just fine. And that is the best selling car in Europe. Toyota will make you a Yaris and a boring beige Prius.

The bz4x is out now and getting good reviews: https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/bz4x

It is just fine, and slightly cheaper, and so longer term it is unclear how it will all play out.

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

#282

Post by ulfw »

7speter wrote: post #222
tauntz wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which now, with Morgan Stanley actually standing behind the offer, looks more or less certain Morgan Stanley only covers part of the total deal and Musk still needs to find a solid 21 billion from somewhere. That's probably doable for him but definitely not easy. I don't see it as "more or less certain" at least..

> Morgan Stanley only covers part of the total deal and Musk still needs to find a solid 21 billion from somewhere Is Musk’s reputation so bad that he, the owner of a car company that turned the car industry on its head (by proving that electric cars were possible) and pushed a massive paradigm shift in the lithium ion battery industry/market (maybe helped with the meteoric rise in demand mobile devices in the last d…

He is not 'the owner of a car company'. He is the majority shareholder at about 17%. Means 83% is not owned by him.

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

#283

Post by justin66 »

7speter wrote: post #222
tauntz wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which now, with Morgan Stanley actually standing behind the offer, looks more or less certain Morgan Stanley only covers part of the total deal and Musk still needs to find a solid 21 billion from somewhere. That's probably doable for him but definitely not easy. I don't see it as "more or less certain" at least..

> Morgan Stanley only covers part of the total deal and Musk still needs to find a solid 21 billion from somewhere Is Musk’s reputation so bad that he, the owner of a car company that turned the car industry on its head (by proving that electric cars were possible) and pushed a massive paradigm shift in the lithium ion battery industry/market (maybe helped with the meteoric rise in demand mobile devices in the last d…

> not be able to find and convince a consortium of investors to put money towards the buy out?

The pitch would seem to be "sure, you could buy into twitter a lot cheaper two weeks ago, but now I'm involved! How great is that?" You're right that it depends a lot on his reputation.

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

#284

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

brtkdotse wrote: post #264
chii wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> convince a consortium of investors to put money towards the buy out? what would those investors get as collateral for this loan? Musk has apparently already pledged some percentage of his Tesla holdings as collateral (i dont know how much, but i heard it's close to 50%). If those investors take the other 50%, then i would imagine the holdings are over-pledged with no margin for safety. May be those investors would…

> but i heard it's close to 50% Imagine staking 50% of Tesla against owning Twitter, which feels like it's on a slow but steady death spiral.

He'd be staking it on revitalization of Twitter, surely you're not going to glance over that plan?

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

#285

Post by madeofpalk »

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #226
madeofpalk wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have boycotted bigger things over less. I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone to not want to support Musk and not buy their products or support a site they own (especially if you think they're going to make it worse).

Of course they can; after all, we have freedom of thought. It's also as idiotic as all the people who were rage-tweeting their airline a week ago, upon suspension of the mask policy in the US, threatening to take their business elsewhere, only to have every major airline follow suit in the span of 6 hours. I hope they enjoyed their bus ride, otherwise they'd have to just sit there and take it. I suppose getting your…

I think "not using twitter" is a very easy and casual thing anyone can, and probably should do, if they want to. It's not that deep. Just don't use the website everyone calls "the hell site"

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

#286

Post by altacc »

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #185
altacc wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That will never happen in sufficient volume to make any meaningful impact. I predict roughly the same amount of cancelled Twitter accounts as those that cancelled their Spotify accounts (and proudly announced doing so to their 8 followers on Twitter) after the whole Joe Rogan kerfuffle. Apparently Rogan gained 2M subscribers in the aftermath. [1] For better or worse, Twitter has become the de-facto town square. The c…

I don't know what will happen if Musk takes over but I've seen enough platforms disappear to know that their long term longevity is not something I'd bet real money on. Every collapsed empire at one time looked immortal.

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

#287

Post by madeofpalk »

barnabee wrote: post #278
nova22033 wrote: post #263

Regardless of who owns or controls twitter, is there anything twitter can do to make more money? IMHO, it's maxed out..

They’d make more money from me (and I imagine at least a handful of others) if I could pay to have no ads, tracking, data sharing, or “algorithms” that I don’t explicitly control sorting and filtering content.

I can just turn off 'algorithmic timeline' and get a chronological timeline of tweets from people you follow. I would love to pay for no ads on twitter dot com.

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

#288

Post by hef19898 »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #250
cloutchaser wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it sounds plausible, because if Tesla is threatened by certain SEC sanctions or legal troubles, banks could withdraw funding or raise interest rates on Tesla's debt, which would bankrupt the company. Or insurance companies could raise premiums or refuse to insure the company which again - could lead to catastrophe. This is what Elon is saying and it sounds like a perfectly plausible scenario, under which you'd r…

It sounds plausible to you that SEC lawyers drew up a settlement that forced Musk to lie publicly about the funding situation of taking TSLA private? This would open up that lawyer for all sorts of criminal and private lawsuits and that poor guy doesn't even have anything personally to gain from forcing Musk to lie. Sorry, those are ludicrous allegations.

This discussion shows how far Musk's anti-SEC propaganda had taken effect. As far as I know (I could be mistaken, and too lazy to investigate that further), but the SEC doesn't have the power to block bank accounts of companies over illegal things shareholders or officers of the company did.

That's how this discussion started: The SEC blackmailed Musk into signing a settlement or otherwise the SEC would block Tesla's accounts. Well, it's either that or Musk, in fact, did lie about the funding to take Tesla private. reasonable people believe the latter, other prefer option one. And then people still wonder were Tesla's evaluation comes from.

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

#289

Post by hef19898 »

xorcist wrote: post #236
jokethrowaway wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, relying on the word of Saudi Arabia without a written agreement was pretty dumb. Especially for 70B. This time the plan seems to have better foundations.

Especially considering Saudi Arabia is well known for cannabis jokes.

That, and human rights.

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

#290

Post by dc-programmer »

paganel wrote: post #178
dehrmann wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Tesla is a strategic asset for the US and for the West more generally speaking, even more so than SpaceX at this point, I personally don’t think it will be allowed to tank/go under. I do agree that the stock is way over-valued when looking only at the economic fundamentals, but when one balances out the “the Chinese have all this battery thing all figured out!” vs “we only have Tesla on our side!” then things are dif…

There are definitely influential people who believe social media platforms are also strategic assets. The DOJ did try to expropriate US TikTok that one time
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