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Elon’s Out

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Re: Elon’s Out

#411

Post by jacquesm »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #104
refurb wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s like a divorce. You can either reach a settlement or spend a ton of money fighting for years. You imagine how distracting it would be for Twitter to have this in their quarterly updates? They certainly aren’t selling the company until it’s resolved. My prediction - lots of public tough talk, then a quiet resolution.

> It’s like a divorce. You can either reach a settlement or spend a ton of money fighting for years. There's basically no way they could possibly spend even a tiny fraction of the overall deal's worth fighting this even if it went on for years. Not spending that money to fight this would really be stupid.

And would open up many other lawsuits from minority shareholders that would love to see this deal go through at the price that Musk offered. They're between a rock and a hard place and I think that that is the thing that pretty much guarantees that they will take it all the way to the last appeal to get it enforced. They can't afford not to.

Re: Elon’s Out

#412

Post by jollybean »

tveita wrote: post #212
jollybean wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey Zeus. How could Musk possibly have done this, which must have been against the advice of his Bankers? "I'm sending men to mars, ergo, I know more about M&A than i-bankers? This is the kind of hubris that takes people down.

It would be perfectly fine terms if he actually wanted to buy Twitter - at a silly price but hey, it's his billions of dollars. That's presumably what he told people and not "hey I'm just joking around, make sure to write the terms so the deal never actually completes"

Oh gosh, no, clearly they are bad terms. Deals don't happen for a lot reasons, o rational person would want to these terms understanding risk.

And it's doubtful Musk was so dumb he'd enter into this contract 'just for fun' knowing the terms.

I suggested he did want to buy it, got bad advice or didn't listen to his bankers, and then the market crashed, and now he's in a bind.

Re: Elon’s Out

#413

Post by jacquesm »

edgyquant wrote: post #63
refurb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. It’s like selling a house and buyer makes an offer with no contingencies. Sure, you can sue them to close the deal but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Does Twitter want to be locked into some multi-year court battle? They’ll settle and the news will move onto something else.

The answer is almost certainly yes. It isn’t Twitter sitting in a court room for nothing they’re getting higher than the stock price was when the deal was announced. It’s a profitable venture for twitter

Massively profitable compared to their normal state of affairs anyway.

Re: Elon’s Out

#414

Post by xpe »

nightski wrote: post #64
bmitc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I continue to be super concerned about this. I do not understand how the U.S. government does not view these billionaires as serious ideological threats to democracy, the court system, national security, etc. Makes one realize just how bought out Congress is. Once a person has wealth over, say, $500 million, then there should be a 100% tax.

Meh the government doesn't need more money to conduct frivolous and corrupt spending with. However it might be interesting to explore an option that required people who own a stake in a company that has grown beyond a certain size to be required to siphon off some of those shares to employees over time in a way where it was not conducted on the open market and would not affect share price. I also question whether cor…

Even staunch libertarians agree that there are agreeable ways for a government to spend money.

With that said, the parent commenter subscribes to what political philsophies and/or ethics? ...

Re: Elon’s Out

#415

Post by StayTrue »

gpm wrote: post #242
amyjess wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they take all of Musk's shares in SpaceX and acquire a voting majority, they can then use those shares to vote to sell off the company's assets at the next board meeting.

That would almost certainly be a breach of fiduciary duty to the minority shareholders.

Not really. All shareholders are paid out in proportion to share ownership. Musk’s share goes to Twitter.

Re: Elon’s Out

#416

Post by sircastor »

KerrAvon wrote: post #79
moomin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those things that could genuinely cause problem for the entire US (corporate) legal system. There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

If this court doesn't have real power against clever C-suite types, maybe it's better that we find that out. In terms of compensation and personal money management, Musk isn't doing anything that other wealthy execs haven't done. (For example, Steve Jobs famously took a $1.00 per year salary for a long time.) Either there's an enforcement mechanism that works or there isn't.

Steve Jobs also famously illegally parked in disabled parking spots and paid the fine because he didn’t care. And he famously leased a new car every 6 months because he didn’t want to put license plates on his car.

And tangential to that kind of behavior, Apple recently was paying a weekly 5 million Euro fine in the Netherlands rather than comply with an order from regulators.

Re: Elon’s Out

#417

Post by gnicholas »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #140
alphabetting wrote: post #4

I found this part most interesting. Public awareness of the Delaware Court of Chancery is about to skyrocket during this court battle. The fact that Musk is working in such bad faith here — that he seems so unconcerned with law and the contract he signed — cuts both ways. On the one hand, it will certainly annoy a Delaware chancellor; Delaware likes to think of itself as a stable place for corporate deals, with predi…

> What if the court orders Musk to close the deal and he says no? I can't believe people are taking this very silly statement seriously. This is utter nonsense. There are remedies for people who disobey court orders. Having assets makes you more vulnerable to a court's authority because you have something to lose. If a court orders specific performance and he doesn't do it then he's liable and the court will take his…

If he had the cash to buy it, they could force him to. But if he lined up financing and those people bail, what then? Would the court make him liquidate all his Tesla stock, without regard to how that would injure other Tesla shareholders? Having assets does make one more vulnerable to court judgments, but savvy birch people will set themselves up to remain in the driver’s seat when possible.

Re: Elon’s Out

#418

Post by jogjayr »

refurb wrote: post #41
TillE wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there's another buyer out there offering $44 billion. Twitter has no reason to settle, unless maybe the stock price goes way up.

It’s like a divorce. You can either reach a settlement or spend a ton of money fighting for years. You imagine how distracting it would be for Twitter to have this in their quarterly updates? They certainly aren’t selling the company until it’s resolved. My prediction - lots of public tough talk, then a quiet resolution.

> spend a ton of money fighting for years

Twitter is worth $28b and Musk's offer was $44b - a $16bn delta. The most annual revenue that a single law firm in the US has made is about $4bn.[1]

Any amount Twitter could spend on lawyers is nothing compared to what they stand to make by winning.

If you're accounting for whatever "toll" it takes on the company's leadership and employee morale, $16bn is about 2.75 years of operating expenses. Even if you assume every employee is operating at 50% mental capacity the entire time, it still makes sense to fight as long as it's over in 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_r...

Re: Elon’s Out

#419

Post by jacquesm »

kukx wrote: post #229

So now there is a widespread support for Musk buying Twitter? Okay, he may end up owning Twitter whether he likes it or not. It is so funny and ironic. Whatever the outcome I agree.

It's not so much 'support' as that it is more or less inevitable, whether he likes it or not, and that has mostly to do with the price than with anything else. Worst case he will have to sell it immediately after forcibly buying it at a lower price just to make sure the rest of his empire doesn't collapse.

Twitter is at best a distraction for Musk, at worst it could be his downfall.

Re: Elon’s Out

#420

Post by cycomanic »

mrkstu wrote: post #239
typon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wild to me that people think that Elon might actually face legal consequences for this. The Delaware court isn't some magical place run by elves. It's a court in the US. You know what's a lot cheaper than $34 billion dollars, or heck even $1 billion dollars? $200k for 3-4 judges. The Supreme Court just changed the law of the land based on a right-wing political campaign. You think a billionare, let alone the ric…

Quoted post unavailable.

At the same time they ruled that states could not regulate a "well regulated militia", so this has nothing to do with states rights.
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