Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement • Hacker News Board

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#181

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #40

zimpenfish wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re saying they’re lying about the numbers. Which would be fraud. But they've been sending the SEC these same numbers calculated using the same methodology since 2013, right? If they were materially adverse circumstances, you'd imagine that someone would have caught this in the last 9 years...

Also, Musk routinely knowingly confuses DAUs and normal users. Twitter claims 5% of daily active users are bots, but Musk complains about how many of his followers are bots, when clearly many of those wouldn’t be DAUs. Twitter’s CEO has addressed this. Musk responded with a poop emoji: https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1526237578843672576?s=20&t...

[deleted]

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#182

Post by entropicgravity » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:07 PM UTC

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #60

timsneath wrote: post #17

It seems apparent to this observer that he developed cold feet pretty fast after an impetuous decision, and has been looking for any reason to back out of it since then. The spam accounts angle seems like a convenient scapegoat, rather than a real surprise to him. He's clearly eccentric in his approach to decision making: I don't think any Harvard Business School course will teach "the Musk Principles". But it's uncl…

There's another belief floated by Josh Wolfe (an investor with Lux Capital) who claimed it was a ruse to liquidate Tesla stock en masse without Tesla hodlers getting suspicious and tanking the inflated stock price. https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/1545387947578597376

The Go masters insist that every stone must have at least two reasons for its placement.

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#183

Post by gsibble » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:07 PM UTC

Could you commenters please make up your minds over whether you want the deal to go through or not? You all seem to hate that Musk would make Twitter more conservative so you don't want the deal to go through, but also make fun of him and torment him for pulling out as if you do want the deal to go through. You can't have it both ways.

Either you want the deal consummated or you don't. Stop being such hypocrites.

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#184

Post by ozim » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #8

pclmulqdq wrote: post #4

I'm ready for the fireworks. Odds are he will be forced to go through with it, but he will negotiate a lower price. Edit: This is over the mDAU thing still? It's been explained to him very slowly that all the bots that post tweets all day are often not seeing ads, right? That the "monetizable" is a key part of that phrase?

> but he will negotiate a lower price How? As best I understand things, he has zero wiggle room - he either buys Twitter for the agreed price or he stumps up the $1B termination fee. And if Twitter's board did go mad and decide to negotiate a lower price, their shareholders would almost certainly block it and/or sue the board, no?

No because he bid above twitter current stock valuation so he can still go down and people might not be happy but they will not be able to sue anyone.

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#185

Post by duxup » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

timsneath wrote: post #17

It seems apparent to this observer that he developed cold feet pretty fast after an impetuous decision, and has been looking for any reason to back out of it since then. The spam accounts angle seems like a convenient scapegoat, rather than a real surprise to him. He's clearly eccentric in his approach to decision making: I don't think any Harvard Business School course will teach "the Musk Principles". But it's uncl…

> But it's unclear to me what he initially thought he was getting out of this.

The more it goes on it feels like “I don't like how twitter works, I’ll show them! ”

Later:

“Oh noes if I do what I want here the result might be bad…”

It just feels like a YOLO business deal that wasn’t thought out the more this goes on.

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#186

Post by tick_tock_tick » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #8

pclmulqdq wrote: post #4

I'm ready for the fireworks. Odds are he will be forced to go through with it, but he will negotiate a lower price. Edit: This is over the mDAU thing still? It's been explained to him very slowly that all the bots that post tweets all day are often not seeing ads, right? That the "monetizable" is a key part of that phrase?

> but he will negotiate a lower price How? As best I understand things, he has zero wiggle room - he either buys Twitter for the agreed price or he stumps up the $1B termination fee. And if Twitter's board did go mad and decide to negotiate a lower price, their shareholders would almost certainly block it and/or sue the board, no?

He has tons of wiggle room. Mostly in this will takes years to resolve, Twitter will be forced to disclose nearly every internal document that will 100% have some email or chat of employees stating, if only as hyperbole, that the bot rate they report to the public is bullshit.

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#187

Post by ChildOfChaos » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

throwaway29812 wrote: post #123

qaq wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wolfe has being on anti Musk crusade for a long time.

That's a strange way of saying he was right.

There is zero evidence that he is right.

All we know are the facts, he agreed to buy twitter and now he is trying to walk away from the deal.

There could be multiple reasons for that, including what he is saying on face value or a dozen other scenarios.

He could still be wanting to buy twitter and use this as a bargaining tool to lower the price.

You can say he was right, once we know the full facts which will be once this plays out and since it doesn't really affect any of us, speculating right now is simply taking part in silly gossip.

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#188

Post by cormacrelf » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:09 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #149

cormacrelf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because they want him to pay the agreed price. It is an extremely good deal for the shareholders now, so they are behaving perfectly rationally. And they can possibly force him to.

Yes but it was clear (to all outside observers, not the board apparently) that Musk never intended to pay the agreed price. He was just collecting enough material from them to justify his breach, and fake users was a smokescreen. Their response to any questions/statements about fake users should have been the equivalent of "you signed the agreement, now stick to it" not "let's work together and resolve your issues".

So? What does twitter care whether he intended to do it? He agreed to! And they can still force him to do it. So even if he drags out the litigation, they still have a strong position to negotiate a settlement for somewhere between 1 and 40 billion. Free money for his stupidity.

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#189

Post by thirdvect0r » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:09 PM UTC

hunterb123 wrote: post #153

ITT: - Elon is stupid, haha he will lose money. - Elon is evil, he's trying to pull a fast one on this corporation! - Elon waived his rights, he shouldn't have agreed to their fake numbers! - Twitter is allowed to claim whatever % of spam bots they want for the deal. - Twitter's censorship is actually a good thing, here's why...

With age, you will look back on your infantile attitude to this situation and realise that you were simply a rube.

Re: Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

#190

Post by mzs » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:09 PM UTC

pryce wrote: post #155

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another belief floated by Josh Wolfe (an investor with Lux Capital) who claimed it was a ruse to liquidate Tesla stock en masse without Tesla hodlers getting suspicious and tanking the inflated stock price. https://twitter.com/wolfejosh/status/1545387947578597376

If someone's stock is as incredibly overinflated as Tesla has been for so long, choosing the most effective way to liquidate stock without triggering a run becomes a social engineering problem with the incentive of a multi-billion dollar payoff. Honestly I think other people trying to read this situation in some way that ignores a multi billion dollar incentive just sitting there is utterly naive.

You say social engineering, I say criminal fraud.