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

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

#511

Post by hackernewds »

motohagiography wrote: post #222

Imo, he's taking responsibility. If as an individual you can deploy the most money in the world, what do you do with it? Twitter became a negative-sum game of people competing to debase themselves in service of narrative in exchange for nothing but the approval of others who had already done the same. Unlocking that negative cycle can release a lot of captive value for everyone. The best way to do that is to connect…

You posit that if Twitter pursued financial goals like Facebook it would be a better platform. Hard disagree.

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

#512

Post by Anderkent »

weakfish wrote: post #481

The thing that is absolutely puzzling to me in these conversations is it seems that people who generally believe in the free market desire what amounts to regulation on social media platforms, inversely, to protect 'free speech' when in fact Twitter has the absolute right in the free market to moderate as they see fit when free speech only protects from governmental actions. And to those who would make the argument t…

> Twitter has the absolute right in the free market to moderate as they see fit when free speech only protects from governmental actions

You confuse free-speech-the-legal-concept (which yes mostly deals with governmental actions' with free-speech-the-principle. You treat the law as if it was equivalent to the moral norm, and that's just not the case.

Yes, twitter is legally allowed to moderate as they see fit. But just because what they do is legal does not mean it is right.

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

#513

Post by Jsebast23 »

neillyons wrote: post #421

Can someone give me a layman's explanation as to why taking Twitter private would allow Elon to make the changes he wants to make that he couldn't do if it was still public?

This is just opinion.

Twitter lost the trust of important users who have seen people censored for tweets that go against management's politics. Nobody thinks it's cool to build a community of hundreds of thousands of followers, only to be censored out at the most critical moment. That confidence will never be regained as long as Twitter has the same management and the same board. You would need to replace the board (the owners) and the management. Musk will also add his own name—a powerful brand itself—to Twitter's brand; but for the thing to work, Musk needs to be in full control. A private company also has less disclosure obligations, which is a valuable plus.

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

#514

Post by Crabber »

marricks wrote: post #407

There’s an account called Elon Jet which uses publicly available information to track Elon's private jet and post take off and landings. Elon offered 5k to the owner to take it down[1]. He has blocked loads of people for mocking or disagreeing with him. Are those actions evil or wrong? Not really, but I also don’t think they’re the actions of an ardent believer in free speech which this thread is making him out to be…

Stalking is not free speech

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

#515

Post by superdude12 »

fullshark wrote: post #284
thepasswordis wrote: post #249

Can anybody make a good argument as to why Twitter (in its current form) isn’t a major detriment to society? If Twitter poofed out of existence today, it would be a major win for this planet. People talk about a frightening future with a human hostile AI that wants to destroy humanity. That exists, it’s twitter. Elon buying it, even if he runs it into the ground is a good thing. Getting rid of some of the hostile AI…

Twitter is where you can see journalists craft narratives and talking points about news stories in real time. It’s been incredibly revealing imo.

Can you elaborate on this? Perhaps share some threads or an article summarizing the effect?

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

#516

Post by racl101 »

ravenstine wrote: post #452

I can't imagine Musk can make Twitter any worse than it is. As much as I would have liked it to be a medium that elevated humanity, with some exceptions, it's served to be quite the opposite. I'd be pleased if Twitter disappeared from existence, but maybe Musk either improves it or leads to demolish it, and by no means would I suggest standing in the way.

yeah, it's already a dumpster fire. How much lower can it get?

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

#517

Post by zwily »

molticrystal wrote: post #241

Just to verify that I understood the concept I looked up the definition of "hostile takeover" from various places, its common theme is taking over a company without approval of the board. The actual offer states [0]: >As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was pub…

That's correct - his offer is not hostile. If they reject it, he could attempt a hostile takeover by buying up enough stock to install his own board.

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

#518

Post by akomtu »

Such events is the moment when news agencies reveal their true faces. Compare how different outlets want to frame the narrative.

Axios: "Elon Musk goes into full goblin mode". This outlet pretends to be neutral in quiet times. They usually frame the narrative by omission of inconvenient news.

Reuters: "Elon Musk makes $43 billion cash takeover offer for Twitter". That's plain and factual.

RedState: "Liberals Absolutely Lose It Over Elon Musk's Hostile Takeover Bid of Twitter". But they don't pretend to be neutral: it's in their name.

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

#519

Post by tomlin »

basisword wrote: post #493

Anyone else curious how Musk would handle that Twitter account tweeting about his private jet flights if he owned Twitter? Strange to think that might be the real litmus test of how much he cares about free speech.

He said he'd keep it. I don't even know what this gets mentioned so often. He has barely ever talked about it.

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

#520

Post by colordrops »

cgtyoder wrote: post #311

This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth - they become all-powerful and too easily subvert the will of the people. They become their own ruling class, which is unacceptable in a functioning democracy.

What is "the will of the people" with regards to Twitter?
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