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Elon’s Out

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Re: Elon’s Out

#571

Post by unforeseen9991 »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #528
KVFinn wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A fun side effect of all of this: if you believe in the court's ability to force Musk to buy Twitter, you should continue to buy up stock until it reaches the price Musk agreed to pay for it. How do I bet on no outcome one way or another for many many years? If there's one thing I know about the US legal system it is giant corporations battling each other takes years and years to resolve.

You can make that bet with options. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TWTR/options?date=1674172800...

Specifically, with a straddle or strangle strategy

Re: Elon’s Out

#572

Post by cmurf »

zerocrates wrote: post #279
parineum wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Supreme Court just changed the law of the land based on a right-wing political campaign. You think a billionare, let alone the richest billionare is going to be subject to any serious consequences? It's absurd to even entertain this. You know who has the authority to overturn that decision? Our democratically elected legislature.

I wouldn't be so sure a hypothetical federal law enshrining a Roe-ish right to abortion would itself survive the inevitable challenge to its own constitutionality.

I expect this Court would find it a violation of he 10th amendment, leaving the issue to be decided only at the state level.

Re: Elon’s Out

#573

Post by digianarchist »

tptacek wrote: post #158
hartator wrote: post #38

> that it has knowingly been massively understating the number of bot accounts in order to trick companies into buying Twitter ads and shareholders into buying Twitter stock Wasn’t Google Ads 80% fake clicks on some studies? It won’t be surprising Twitter Ads is actually worse. There is so zero incentive to clean it up and so many shady reasons to do it.

That might actually hurt Musk's argument, because Google is incredibly lucrative despite the belief that ad clicks are overwhelmingly fake. The rule of thumb Levine (an attorney) gave a few posts ago for MAE's in Delaware courts is "sufficient to cause a 40% drop in profitability". Not stock price, not mDAU numbers, but income statements.

> That might actually hurt Musk's argument, because Google is incredibly lucrative despite the belief that ad clicks are overwhelmingly fake.

They're still charging advertisers for those clicks.

Re: Elon’s Out

#574

Post by asveikau »

jerbearito wrote: post #549
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.

I think a lot of people don't understand what bipolar is. They hear it and think he is a moody guy whose actions are reasonable. They don't understand that manic episodes are characterized by unreasonable, illogical, destructive behavior. A grandiose vision of being Twitter's and free speech's savior, which turns out to be very poorly thought out, fits with that.

Re: Elon’s Out

#575

Post by DwnVoteHoneyPot »

nicce wrote: post #494
bambax wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is alluded to at the end of the article: > Is it fun for him? If he manages to walk away having spent only millions in financing fees, millions in legal fees and say $1 billion in termination fees, was it worth it? What did he get out of this? The guy really seems to like being on Twitter, and he did make himself the main character in Twitter's drama for months on end. That’s nice for him I guess. Also he made t…

> It's a very, very annoying/distracting cover, not to mention an expensive one. It is hard to say how expensive it actually is… if he had sold overpriced Tesla stock without cover, could that lose be much more than - one billion termination fee?

How much has he lost in his stake of Twitter as its share price decreases? Why would he use Twitter as cover when he could use much better alternatives? Why would he waive normal due diligence that is customary if it was a fancy plan to exit Twitter from the beginning?

Re: Elon’s Out

#576

Post by nocoiner »

extheat wrote: post #569

So much noise here and ill-informed comments fail to give a broader understanding of what's going on. Elon bought up Twitter shares early in the year for a reason, because he wanted more control over Twitter. He bought up so much Twitter shares that when it was announced via the SEC, Twitter offered a board seat under the clause that he wouldn't acquire too much % control over the company. He obliged, but then left w…

Almost everything in this comment is wrong or misleading.

The point of an acquisition agreement isn’t to give the buyer optionality to acquire another company, it’s to ensure the buyer honors its commitment to acquire another company during the period between the time the buyer agrees to acquire it, and the time is it able to close on taking ownership.

Maybe EM developed buyer’s remorse because of the decline in equity markets, or a belated realization that the CCP will have significant leverage on how he runs twitter, or just woke up the day after signing with that feeling you get when you realize you’ve knocked up Grimes not once but twice.

Just because EM wants an escape hatch, doesn’t make it so. There’s a pretty tight contract that says he needs to buy twitter, at the agreed price, using the committed financing he arranged. EM can try to retrade the price all day long, but then there’s still that pesky matter of a binding contract… to buy Twitter… at the price he agreed with the board… that doesn’t have a diligence out or an “ehhh changed my mind” termination provision.

For a variety of reasons, the board doesn’t have a tremendous number of appealing options (like none) but they have a strong contract that explicitly contains EM’s affirmative obligation to, y’know, buy Twitter. That fact has very little to do with his feeling.

Re: Elon’s Out

#577

Post by ncann »

panphora wrote: post #499
mlindner wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just related, this thread should be merged with that one. There is nothing new in this opinion piece article.

I disagree. As a non-lawyer, non-financier, I found the deep & well-thought-out explanation fascinating. This is one of the best articles I've read this year.

You should subscribe to Matt Levine's newsletter if you enjoy his writing. It's fantastic, plus it's free and you don't have to visit Bloomberg's site.

Re: Elon’s Out

#578

Post by choppaface »

petilon wrote: post #71

This article says Musk agreed to buy Twitter mostly as a joke. I think there's a far better explanation. This wasn't a joke for Musk because after agreeing to buy Twitter he proceeded to sell billions of dollars' worth of TSLA stock, supposedly to finance the purchase. Even for the richest man in the world that's not a joke. I think a better explanation is that Musk offered to buy Twitter as a cover for selling billi…

Do we really need to assign a financial motive to Elon Musk?! Musk is in it for his own entertainment. Period. And that greed changes as often as the phases of the moon. It's a good story to his following to come out financially ahead. It's also a good story to the libertarian crowd to drag the issues of bot accounts and free speech into court. And if the deal were to have gone through, I'm sure Musk would have made a great story forming an Alphabet/Berkshire-like holding company across Tesla, SpaceX, and his other amusements. And of course daily amusement of adding a Twitter edit button, an irony mode, etc.

But what will the legacy of all this mess be? It's looking a lot like Howard Hughes, except that Hughes successfully monetized his stage presence. Elon has officially thrown in the towel, and spit in the face of his wider audience in the process.

Re: Elon’s Out

#579

Post by extheat »

nocoiner wrote: post #576
extheat wrote: post #569

So much noise here and ill-informed comments fail to give a broader understanding of what's going on. Elon bought up Twitter shares early in the year for a reason, because he wanted more control over Twitter. He bought up so much Twitter shares that when it was announced via the SEC, Twitter offered a board seat under the clause that he wouldn't acquire too much % control over the company. He obliged, but then left w…

Almost everything in this comment is wrong or misleading. The point of an acquisition agreement isn’t to give the buyer optionality to acquire another company, it’s to ensure the buyer honors its commitment to acquire another company during the period between the time the buyer agrees to acquire it, and the time is it able to close on taking ownership. Maybe EM developed buyer’s remorse because of the decline in equi…

> Almost everything in this comment is wrong or misleading.

Feel free to point out specific inaccuracies. I think it's pretty clear.

> Just because EM wants an escape hatch, doesn’t make it so

Yes, never suggested it's legally permissible.

> affirmative obligation

This is armchair speculation. Even if the text might seem to be clear in outsider interpretation, this is a matter solely for the courts to determine and both sides will have an opportunity to make their points across. I stand by prediction of the board ending up settling this case. It will get obviously challenged in court, but it's not "wrong" in the sense of predicting an outcome.

Re: Elon’s Out

#580

Post by usefulcat »

jp57 wrote: post #183

Another hypothesis: Triggering a legal battle in the courts is a delaying technique to push out the acquisition until the economy rebounds (and Tesla and Twitter valuations with it), or until after the 2024 election, because Elon realized that he doesn't actually want to let Trump back onto the platform. (Perhaps because he perfers DeSantis)

> Elon realized that he doesn't actually want to let Trump back onto the platform

I'm not buying that; it's not like he couldn't just change his position on a whim. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

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