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

Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 1001 posts

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#11

Post by nonrandomstring »

mrtksn wrote: post #2

I don't have an opinion over the consequences for politics over this, I'm just excited over the potential shakedown of the social media landscape that I grew to despise. Musk is an activist, can make it or break it. He is absolutely right over its enormous potential, all the problems it has - as a business or ones it creates for the society - can be solved. Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once yo…

Musk may be about to make the biggest mistake of his career.

This BBC article [1] posted a little earlier seems to indicate it's not NFT's that are slipping here so much as interest in Twitter.

He seems to be acquiring this for the wrong motives when he could easily build a much better rival with different values.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61102759

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#12

Post by helsinkiandrew »

Interesting if he manages to take over twitter. For me Twitter has become full of people marketing themselves with lists, tweets that don't make sense out of context, replies full of bile or inane comments and animated gifs.

But I'm not convinced Musk's opinions of what is good for twitter is aligned with other content creators and consumers. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Company have clear goals - twitter is quite different.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#13

Post by ekianjo »

skilled wrote: post #10

[redacted comment complaining about the use of word "hostile" in title which apparently is a financial term]

hostile takeover is a common way to describe the fact that you are taking over a company by buying back its public share. Nothing unusual if you read financial news.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#14

Post by john_cogs »

skilled wrote: post #10

[redacted comment complaining about the use of word "hostile" in title which apparently is a financial term]

Hostile takeover is an investment term.

When you attempt to buy a company without the board’s consent, it is considered a hostile takeover.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#15

Post by lvl102 »

He actually dismissed Twitter’s management so I am guessing they’re slated to be demoted or fired if he takes over. Should they sell? I mean it’s such a bizarrely undervalued company. It’s like buying a plot of land on fifth avenue that’s owned by a convenience store and the store owner wants to charge for a skyscraper market rate.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#16

Post by ekianjo »

belter wrote: post #8

We had the Bernanke Put now the Musk Put 1) Buy 9 % of shares 2) Announce intention to buy 100% 3) Look share price rise 4) Sell shares 5) Profit! PS: Note to Musk -> If you are looking to control a company you don't need to buy 100% of shares. Just a majority of shares or special rights shares if they exist. Save your money and help the less lucky ones: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/02/mackenzie-scott-jeff...

when you own 100% you can make it private again.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#17

Post by schleck8 »

mrtksn wrote: post #2

I don't have an opinion over the consequences for politics over this, I'm just excited over the potential shakedown of the social media landscape that I grew to despise. Musk is an activist, can make it or break it. He is absolutely right over its enormous potential, all the problems it has - as a business or ones it creates for the society - can be solved. Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once yo…

> Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial

How can Twitter possibly get even more liberal in terms of free speech? Just look at the trends occasionally, they are really, really stressing the boundaries of free speech and crossing into defamation territory without being censored in any way. You can't start a trend comparing a democratically elected politician to Hitler and expect no repercussions.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#19

Post by endisneigh »

It’s interesting to contextualize this with a regular persons life. This amount will present about 1/7 of his net worth.

However unlike a traditional purchase this will be n investment and depending on how it goes, he can get even more money.

If an average person had a max net worth of 3 million this would be like them deciding to buy a 400K investment property, or a laundry mat.

That aside, this is also a great example of how easy it is to become richer if you’re rich.

Musk buys at $39 pumps all month to $54. He can either sell and easily make billions profit or take over the entire company at what can only be described as a discount compared to potential.

Not to mention twitters stock hardly does well. He can just try again on the next dip if he likes.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#20

Post by qsi »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #9

Interesting. I think Musk will be under tones of pressure. How would one play the market against him? Shorts?

Once he's taken it private, supposing he succeeds, you can't short the stock anymore as there won't be shares to borrow (or buy, or sell).
Post reply on HN