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

Elon’s Out

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 767 posts

Re: Elon’s Out

#541

Post by vehementi »

adventured wrote: post #153

Musk wasn't pretending to buy Twitter, the article is using a sort of simpleton interpretation of Musk's behavior. That's the interpretation someone would take if they dislike Musk and get overly emotional about his behavior. Musk is x y z. Oh my god, did you see the tweet he sent out!?! I just hate Musk, blah blah blah. He's such a terrible human. This one time he called a person a really bad name. - That's the type…

I guess you didn't read the article because Levine explains that scenario in this and previous articles lol?

Re: Elon’s Out

#542

Post by [deleted] »

labrador wrote: post #467
KKdU9EXbBhmLznR wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... how is that an excuse? He knew that full well before he ever started thinking about buying it, much less making public statements about it. (Just like he knew about the bots)

He is self-described as having autism to some degree, so reading the emotional landscape is probably not his strength.

[deleted]

Re: Elon’s Out

#543

Post by encryptluks2 »

labrador wrote: post #467
KKdU9EXbBhmLznR wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... how is that an excuse? He knew that full well before he ever started thinking about buying it, much less making public statements about it. (Just like he knew about the bots)

He is self-described as having autism to some degree, so reading the emotional landscape is probably not his strength.

Lol.. you should be his lawyer. Your honor, his affluezna made him do it. It isn't his fault.

Re: Elon’s Out

#544

Post by vehementi »

erk__ wrote: post #86
anonu wrote: post #48

Twitter feeds are pretty public, albeit expensive to buy the firehose. Nonetheless, shouldn't a handful of motivated hackers be able to answer the bot question??

The issue here is that only twitter knows who they count as a mDAU. So there could be a lot of bots that are simply not included in their counts.

Well, it depends on what is in the firehose. What twitter really knows that you can't just see, is how (with what client) users are logging in and whether their ad tracker URLs are being triggered (i.e. the user really did result in an ad impression). If Musk can determine that directly or indirectly from the firehose then he could say "here's how I calculated it and it's 9%" or something, I guess.

Re: Elon’s Out

#545

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #174
throwaway09223 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Levine has addressed this in past columns. Of course the courts have such authority, but individual people have to enforce the court's decisions, and sometimes those people are reluctant to take on Musk. Musk is a special case because he has done things like threatening to ruin the careers of SEC lawyers who have come after him, and he has the power to make that happen. Is this illegal? Probably. Does Musk get away w…

> and he has the power to make that happen.

Does he? How can he do so?

He can talk big, he can bluster, but can he actually ruin a government lawyer's career? I kind of doubt it.

Re: Elon’s Out

#546

Post by tsol »

roenxi wrote: post #459
hotpotamus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime the idea of a wealth tax is brought up, I see commenters coming out of the woodwork to say that it would be impossible to actually collect it from the wealthy. Though I will note that it seems like we are able to collect yachts and planes from Russian oligarchs now, so perhaps our techniques have advanced in the last few months.

The tax & plane seizures are 1. A surprising departure from the rules and norms - I assume probably illegal. 2. Part of a campaign designed to ruin Russia. You might have misunderstood the argument the anti-taxers (pro-property?) people are bringing up. There isn't a physical problem with taking wealth away from people, that part is very easy to execute. The problem is the 2nd order effects where it will turn into an…

>There isn't a physical problem with taking wealth away from people, that part is very easy to execute. The problem is the 2nd order effects where it will turn into an unfair confiscation and do substantial damage to the ability of the host country to invest and prosper, bringing general ruin to us all.

But this does not apply to us when we seize Russian assets? By your very logic if seizing wealth is so problematic, well we just seized a whole lot of wealth. I don't think this example actually works here.

Re: Elon’s Out

#547

Post by kasey_junk »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #516
throwaway09223 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Sure, but this wouldn't give him any protection. On the contrary, there would be a ton of extra liability and exposure if he were to refuse to process a levy. Shares don't need to be held in a brokerage. There's always a process to identify and seize the property in question. 2) There's no such thing. TSLA is a US public company, traded on US exchanges. It's simply not possible for shares of the company to exist o…

You can obtain paper copies of your stocks. Then they could be on Mars if you'd like.

Just having a share certificate doesn’t make it s bearer form. The corporation would have to set up this ahead of time. I don’t know the status of Tesla shares that he owns but it would be very weird if they aren’t registered securities. It would also raise a ton of questions if they started issuing bearer shares after a court injunction.

Re: Elon’s Out

#548

Post by BoorishBears »

roenxi wrote: post #498
jjeaff wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law prohibits the seizure of foreign assets on international waters?

I dunno. I'm not a lawyer. Possibly one of the ones against piracy? If you want to make the argument that it is literal and raw might-makes-right on the high seas, ok. But that type of barbarian world is not one I encourage and it'd be a bit stunning to find someone who wants the world to work that way. The US wouldn't do well in a world like that either, US citizens have more assets to seize than foreigners do.

There's a certain irony in picking this high horse to ride, when we're taking about the response to a western european ground-war in the year 2022.

As if that's not evidence of far more barbaric mechanisms at play in geopolitics...

Re: Elon’s Out

#549

Post by jerbearito »

ethagknight wrote: post #276

I find it amazing that not one of the top comments gives Elon ANY consideration that maybe, just maybe, he has a legitimate case against Twitter. We don’t know what he’s found, what he was told, what he was promised, what changed on Twitter’s side. Some very top level people bailed or were fired shortly after Elon’s acquisition proposal was announced. It sure appears that Elons is just balking, but what is far more l…

Let's not forget we're talking about a raging narcissist who said in 2018 that he may be bipolar (which, imo, checks out). Sometimes it feels like we're awkwardly dancing around this when discussing his "antics" -- but I think it's more likely that people forget those details and simply focus on his celebrity.

Re: Elon’s Out

#550

Post by mise_en_place »

aunty_helen wrote: post #288
mise_en_place wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok let’s say he has a bunch of stock as well as paintings, cars, etc. how do you divvy that up? Cut the painting in half and give it to Twitter? The rich are very wise at hiding money in assets that cannot be evenly divided nor distributed. That’s why the vast majority of taxes in the US comes from the middle class, they usually sit on piles of cash and have salaries from which to levy fines to.

Or ya no, liquidate the asset and divvy up the cash. I'm sure you could've thought of that.

That will take years and Elon could easily stall them out in court.
Post reply on HN