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Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

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Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#531
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from what i understand it's a matter of ideals combined with the technologist's desire to see the machines (all types, including sociopolitical) work correctly. he wants to see the first amendment function with autistic precision. he wants to remove any messy personalization because it interferes with that purity. he wants fully transparent moderation and proof of fairness. he doesn't like the idea that one organizat…

I think musk believes we wouldn’t be on the midst of WWIII if free speech was allowed.

And here I was thinking that this was a $43B smokescreen to obfuscate the $15M payout occurring within the same news cycle. What am I missing here?

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand how any board can implement a “poison pill”, not just Twitter but Netflix and others, and not be found working against the interest of shareholders. Can anyone help me understand? You’re categorically changing the profile of the stock. This has a chilling effect on large investors, including but not limited just to Musk, right? Correct. Hence the term poison pill. Now nobody else will be interested…

He can buy one of those other competitors used by right-wing folks. Hell, if "free speech" is so important to him and to everyone else he wants to rescue he can just tweet to use those other platforms. It's certainly cheaper.

Twitter is where the network effect and users are, so no it makes more sense to take over Twitter and shape it to your own views if you are a billionaire who wants to make an impact on public discourse and free speech.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#533
post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"asshole" What has he done to deserve that label?

You should do a google search before posting on HN. Dude's done tons of really mean, rude, or questionable things. At many levels. It's not on the OP to prove it to you with exhaustive sources or whatever when you can just look around you and get examples. But since you want an actual link, here: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=elon+musk+douchebag&ia=web

I'd grant the "pedo" thing. But I'm not sure what else. Link didn't provide anything of merit.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's price and the 'expected' future price is all that matters. The 90% lifetime price history is not relevant. All transactions of this nature are based on future value. The offer is only an 18% premium at a time when many tech stocks are being hammered due to extrinsic reasons. It is not a serious offer.

It closed $.18 above initial offer price in 2013.

The share price tells you nothing by itself—you also need to know the amount of shares outstanding at both points in time to make an actual comparison.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#535
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is detailed by many smart people below, fiduciary duty lawsuits are difficult to win. They'd pretty much have to have board members emailing each other saying "This would be in the best interest of shareholders, but let's screw them over instead" This was an epic debacle. Musk invested 4 BILLION dollars in an asset of questionable value, because "free speech". If he times it right he could come out ahead financial…

from what i understand it's a matter of ideals combined with the technologist's desire to see the machines (all types, including sociopolitical) work correctly. he wants to see the first amendment function with autistic precision. he wants to remove any messy personalization because it interferes with that purity. he wants fully transparent moderation and proof of fairness. he doesn't like the idea that one organizat…

I have this recurring fantasy in which some Satoshi figure creates a decentralized global bulletin board, such that anybody can post and view anything anonymously and untraceably, and nobody - not the U.S. government, nor the CCP, nor the Mossad, nor the NSA - can stop it short of dismantling the whole Internet and starting over. Nobody can blame anybody, because nobody can stop it. Not because I think such a thing is technically possible. Certainly not because I have any fancy argument for why such a thing ought to exist morally! But simply to sit back and watch the world lose its fucking mind over it. To see the whole psyche of human kind projected into public view, and the accompanying apoplectic, impotent outrage.

I might also settle for a really quality sci-fi novel in which this takes place.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#536
post #518
post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An L for Twitter inc, perhaps. OP did not say shareholders would win their lawsuits. Elon obviously has zero interest in a financial return. It's clear he genuinely believes Twitter could be better, especially around free speech.

If you lose a bunch of money and don't change the "free speech" policy of a website, isn't it still an L?

He's already won by spotlighting Twitter's poor record.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#537

Wow, my prediction is Musk will walk away, Twitter stock price will tank, and Twitter will be flooded with thousands of shareholder lawsuits (for breaching their fiduciary duty).

Why will the price tank? None of this changes the value of Twitter if he walks away.

A lot of people in this thread share your opinion, but I'm a bit confused by it.

If the board acted against the usual shareholder interest (to make money) by turning down an offer 54% above premium, would it not be easy to claim that the board is not in it to make the average investor money on $TWTR?

Therefore, wouldn't the value of $TWTR as an investment be far far less than companies who do make it their primary goal?

That's not to even mention the 9% of Elon's stock that he claimed he would now sell.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#538
post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"asshole" What has he done to deserve that label?

You should do a google search before posting on HN. Dude's done tons of really mean, rude, or questionable things. At many levels. It's not on the OP to prove it to you with exhaustive sources or whatever when you can just look around you and get examples. But since you want an actual link, here: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=elon+musk+douchebag&ia=web

Every billionaire is supposedly an "asshole" and the only reason is because they have the money to do all of the things that regular people would also do but pretend they don't because they don't have the power to do anything.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that mechanism - issuing and selling new shares - brings in additional external money to the company so that afterwards you own 8% of a bigger pie.

Maybe you are right, but the instant price of stock will probably fall down after "dilution", so for example if you had $10 000 worth of stock before dilution, and you want to sell it the next day, you probably will get less than $10 000 because now there are more shares available in the market (more supply, but the same demand as yesterday).

No, it is wrong to assume that the instant price of the stock will probably fall down after the dilution. It might fall, but it might as well increase, which often is the case, since the company as a whole literally become more valuable (influx of new cash on the balance sheet for the issued shares) and it just gained significant extra working capital that it can use to expand operations.

Re: Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to buy company

#540
post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon is arguing that Twitter is mismanaged. Anyone who thinks this is manifestly true should read this take from an ex-CEO of Reddit: https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440 tl;dr: managing human interaction in any environment with limited accountability is a lot harder than it looks Also, there's the question of by what metrics one would argue it's mismanaged. Revenue and engagement trends? Profitabi…

I read it and am thoroughly unimpressed. > It is because at Certain Times, given Certain Circumstances, humans will Behave Badly when confronted with Certain Ideas, and if you are The Main Platform Where That Idea is Being Discussed, you cannot do NOTHING, because otherwise humans will continue behaving badly. To paraphrase: "Ideas are dangerous, people cannot be trusted to argue on the internet because it leads to v…

> To paraphrase: "Ideas are dangerous"

More precisely: ideas are powerful, which means they can be dangerous.

Anyone who doesn't understand that is actually a deeper enemy of discourse than a platform owner who says their forum is not a venue for topic X or opinion Y.

Some stop here at a dichotomy: "you want to ban ideas, I will be oppressed!" or "I must literally be allowed to put my words in your speech vehicle and be given full access to its audience without any abrogation of that privilege or I am being oppressed!"

Others start to understand what the legal system has with both weapons and speech: perhaps there are some activities or forms it takes that need nuanced consideration. Time, place, manner, associated behavior, fire in a crowded theater, threats, etc. You will find these considerations where people actually take speech seriously.

> Ideas are dangerous, people cannot be trusted to argue on the internet because it leads to violence

You seem to be merely summarizing with scorn here rather than actually addressing the situations where this happens.

It's not hard to find stories where distorted worldviews oriented around agentive threats regarding the pandemic have led to people threatening and even assaulting health professionals. I know some of these people.

You probably know families or acquaintances that have banned certain topics from dinner gatherings because they lead to heated conversations or even violence. It's not that they believe no one should ever talk about them. It's that they understand what Wong is talking about here: there's problem behavior and carving out a domain where the related topic isn't carried is one way of fixing it.

And when it's your house that people are yelling or coming to blows at, I'll bet you try the same solution.

Arguing on "the internet" is a freedom that has never been threatened by limitation that Twitter and Reddit have put in place. What's at stake with Twitter and Reddit is what Wong describes well here: they're stewards of the platform where this is taking place, they get to see the effects. They feel an obligation to do something about it.

And you know what? Their right to do so as stewards of the platform is also a freedom of speech right. And it's every bit as important as an individual's right to spout off about whatever it is they want.

The freedoms to watch more strictly are those where the state or other entities impose violence or loss of physical freedom as a consequence for touching a topic. Twitter and Reddit battles are about people's sense of privilege.

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