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

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

#541

Post by freeone3000 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 1:59 AM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #100

philistine wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon's offer is at the same time an hostile offer, and conditional on obtaining financing from banks. This is never heard of in the history of hostile acquisitions, and is a BIG risk for the board to entertain any attempt by anyone to buy Twitter before they know what their loan percentages are.

Elon's offer is not a hostile offer. He has made an offer, management has not yet rejected it. It is just an offer to purchase the company, as of now. If the offer is rejected and Elon continues to attempt to gain control of the company, that would be an attempt at a hostile takeover.

I dunno, this seems a lot like a rejection.

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

#542

Post by dlp211 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 1:59 AM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #415

the_svd_doctor wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. If I own 10% of a company, how can the board just decide through some mechanism that I now really own like 8% ?

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.

Where do you think all the shares companies offer employees come from? They just make new shares. There is nothing illegal about this as it does everyone equally.

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

#543

Post by jv22222 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

hooande wrote: post #485

toephu2 wrote: post #457

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).

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…

> I have no idea what he was doing

Would it be illegal for him to launch a Twitter competitor, take 40 million followers with him, and sell all of his Twitter shares on the same day?

Perhaps that is the strategy? A 1-2-3 punch to launch his own network.

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

#544

Post by TobyTheDog123 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

WaxProlix wrote: post #514

pbreit wrote: 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 find it pretty ironic that the Hacker News user calling someone a douchebag goes on to provide what amounts to a "Let Me Google That For You" (lmgtfy) link.

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

#545

Post by litter » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

I just assumed that Elon had no actual plans to win this process, but rather use it as a way to first weaken Twitter before launching a competitor. The reason for this is because I don't see how someone can take over a company where, I assume, a large percentage of the core engineers actually want all of the censorship and so on, and have pronouns in their bio and all of that stuff to signal that they are on the opposite side to Musk in a political war. It seems like you would be leading a bunch of people that don't like you.

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

#546

Post by hooande » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:00 AM UTC

psyc wrote: post #535

a-dub wrote: 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 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 i…

This is 4chan. Your recurring fantasy is 4chan

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

#547

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:01 AM UTC

yalogin wrote: post #405

WalterBright wrote: post #17

Every company I know of that did a poison pill to prevent a takeover wound up tanking within a year or two and the shareholders wound up with sand. As a Twitter shareholder myself, the board is making a big mistake. As a legal matter, I don't understand how a board could sell shares to other shareholders at a lower price than to the entity wanting to buy shares to gain control.

Not really, as a counter argument, there is every reason to believe that Musk will make a mockery of twitter and run it into the ground. A social media platform with a lot of responsibility is not for someone as egotistical as Musk. If Zuckerberg is bad, Musk could be catastrophic.

I'll let you in on a secret: every person who runs a company is egotistical. It's not possible to run a company otherwise. You've got to have confidence in yourself and your ideas.

Of course, some hide it more assiduously than others. I don't mind Musk boasting. He earned it. It's more refreshing than the fake modesty of others.

A CEO friend of mind once called me up all worried because someone called him arrogant. I told him of course you're arrogant. He was shocked. I laughed, and told him to look at his accomplishments - who but an arrogant person would ever have even attempted those things!

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

#548

Post by tayo42 » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:02 AM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #528

tayo42 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> opens sourcing Twitter algorithm People need to stop saying this. It's nonsense. Or maybe keep saying it so we know your clueless about how anything works that your commenting on

Please explain. I can easily envision much more transparency on how the feed works.

Transparency i can agree with, i think twitter does a horrible job at that. especially explaining the rumored shadow bans and stuff. But i think thats different then open source code

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

#549

Post by brewtide » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:03 AM UTC

psyc wrote: post #535

a-dub wrote: 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 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 i…

Yik-Yak vs. the world style. I'm down.

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

#550

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Apr 16, 2022, 2:03 AM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #422

legalcorrection wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mockery" i.e. not censor people who say things you don't like.

It’s a completely ridiculous narrative to think that musk is interested in anyones free speech but his own. We should all be more aware of when the narratives billionaires pitch about themselves become perceived to be objective reality.

Why is it completely ridiculous?