Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 348 posts

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

#311

Post by McLaren_Ferrari »

hackerfromthefu wrote: post #309
McLaren_Ferrari wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You just called the most successful businessman in the world an 'utterly inept businessman'. Success is measured using market share not market cap or net worth of the CEO. Tesla accounted for 1.3% of all cars sold in the world during 2021. Stock price, net worth and number of synchopants getting on their knees are like a voting machine, market share is a weighting machine. When you use the right metric it becomes c…

No you can't blithely choose which measure of success - it actually doesn't have a single measure. Your measure of market share is a reasonable one, as are the two I proposed being profit and creating and succeeding in entirely new markets. They are new markets too, it's not rockets, it's reusable rockets at incredibly lower cost to orbit and new capacities to previous ones, it's space based communication networks th…

OP is right.

All the stuff you mentioned brings zero benefits to the consumer. The consumer wants a steady improvement in their quality of life in the next 3 months or less, and then you go from there hopefully adding one more bit in the next 3 months and so on.

There is a reason why Musk BS doesn't find fertile ground in NYC and his cult is largely based in California. Quartely (4 * 3 = 12) reports were adopted because people want to have a clear understanding of how a public company is improving the American consumer's quality of life, and they want it every 3 months.

Tesla accounted for 1.3% of all cars sold in the world in 2021, these are rich people toys we are talking about. 1.3% in 20 years.

> He owns these markets, because he created them

Cars are cars, EV, hybrid, gasoline, diesel...whatever. If you are in the business of making cars the relevance of your company should be judged based on what's you market share in car manufacturing compared against everybody who are also in the business of making cars.

Mr. Musk took 20 years to get to 1.3%. That's 80 Quarters. 1.3% / 80 = 0.01625% per quarter. What are we even talking about...

By this time around the govt. was already threatning Gates and Rockefeller to put them in jail because they had 95% market share of Operative Systems and oil respectively.

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

#312

Post by wara23arish »

bezospen15 wrote: post #295

The board is simply obligated to entertain the offer, they will reject as it is not in the best long term interest of the share holders. Yes it is monetarily competitive but also Twitter will basically lose most of their users if Elon is in charge. It's no secret that he has alt right motives. A billionaire should not be able to do this in the first place.

Yes, we should keep it under the influence shareholders like the Saudi Monarchy. Twitter users’ values definitely align with them??

Im curious why do you think a billionaire shouldn’t be able to buy a company?

I actually prefer it when several billionaires are “at odds” eg bezos vs musk. Rather than just silently agreeing and covering for each other as it has been for what feels like eternity.

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

#313

Post by exabrial »

Traster wrote: post #170

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 i…

Digg was a tragedy :( I still miss it. I check in every once in awhile, but the brand is essentially now an online version of Weekly World News.

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

#314

Post by sangnoir »

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.

He hasn't financed the full amount and is still short. He'll have to unload Tesla shares to raise the balance; I'm very curious if he'll do that. Maybe in being overly cynical, but it feels like it may be the board calling his bluff rather than prolonging the process/having to find a white knight. I'm morbidly curious about what a private Twitter will look like in 2 years (both the company[1] and product)

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

#315

Post by dehrmann »

paganel wrote: post #217
lm28469 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla is a strategic asset for the US and for the West more generally speaking How so ? It's a car company, there are dozen of them making equally good, if not better, cars. Autopilot is useless and electric cars are already there. You can credit them for the democratisation of EV but that's about it

It’s not a car company, it’s a battery+software company with some wheels (literally) attached, hence part of the high valuation. It took me a while to realize this, had I put my money on this back then I would have had more money right now (10x times, I’d say). The likes of Mercedes and VW are orders of magnitude behind, both when it comes to batteries and especially when it comes to software

> it’s a battery+software company with some wheels (literally) attached

I remember WeWork being a software company, not a commercial landlord.

That said, I agree that Tesla's software is significantly better than every competitor, but Autopilot is behind the other self-driving players, and I'd rather have dials than a touchscreen, anyway.

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

#316

Post by dehrmann »

recuter wrote: post #254
paganel wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a car company, it’s a battery+software company with some wheels (literally) attached, hence part of the high valuation. It took me a while to realize this, had I put my money on this back then I would have had more money right now (10x times, I’d say). The likes of Mercedes and VW are orders of magnitude behind, both when it comes to batteries and especially when it comes to software

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…

The real test for Tesla will be F150 Lightning vs Cyber Truck sales. If Ford can show strong sales, it shows that a focused incumbent can fend off an upstart competitor, despite the upstart's first-mover advantage on the drivetrain. The other sign to look for will be if European carmakers can slow Tesla's growth in the low to mid-end luxury market.

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

#317

Post by amachefe »

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.

Which of his companies are damaged?

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

#318

Post by amachefe »

bezospen15 wrote: post #295

The board is simply obligated to entertain the offer, they will reject as it is not in the best long term interest of the share holders. Yes it is monetarily competitive but also Twitter will basically lose most of their users if Elon is in charge. It's no secret that he has alt right motives. A billionaire should not be able to do this in the first place.

How is that the interest of investors what happens after the are paid?

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

#319

Post by logifail »

EtienneK wrote: post #232
logifail wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

> eye-opening experience How so? I've had rides in Model S's before and it was totally... fine? What made the Model 3 experience so much better than a conventional car?

> I've had rides in Model S's before and it was totally... fine? What made the Model 3 experience so much better than a conventional car?

I didn't actually say "better", but it was certainly a novel experience since I'd never been in an EV of any kind! The lack of engine noise coupled with the acceleration, somewhat mind-blowing.

I'm not convinced that any current EV - never mind any Tesla - is yet a good fit for a family such as ours, but I look forward to the day when there is such a choice of vehicle.

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

#320

Post by EricE »

bigbluedots wrote: post #297
bezospen15 wrote: post #295

The board is simply obligated to entertain the offer, they will reject as it is not in the best long term interest of the share holders. Yes it is monetarily competitive but also Twitter will basically lose most of their users if Elon is in charge. It's no secret that he has alt right motives. A billionaire should not be able to do this in the first place.

What are 'alt right motives'?

Anything that doesn’t fit the OP’s worldview, apparently. Same reason racist, -phobe and -ist have pretty much lost all meaning in modern discourse.
Post reply on HN