Live data from Hacker News

Elon’s Out

bloomberg.com

61–70 of 767 posts

Re: Elon’s Out

#61
post #5

I found this part most interesting. Public awareness of the Delaware Court of Chancery is about to skyrocket during this court battle. The fact that Musk is working in such bad faith here — that he seems so unconcerned with law and the contract he signed — cuts both ways. On the one hand, it will certainly annoy a Delaware chancellor; Delaware likes to think of itself as a stable place for corporate deals, with predi…

Or they could put him in Chancery jail? The law is already undermined if no attempt is even made at upholding it.

But that's not how it works when you simply owe money (usually, modulo things like probation violations and child support, but lets ignore that for now). We don't have debtors prisons). They can seize his money though, garnish his wages (lol in this specific case though), etc.

Re: Elon’s Out

#63
post #28

I don’t understand why we need to make things personal: a multibillionaire with practically unlimited resources is negotiating with a multibillion dollar corporation with practically unlimited resources. It’s clear that the offer Elon got stuck with has an unrealistic price at this point (and Elon just want a reason to get out of the deal), just like it’s clear that Twitter’s management is incompetent in the last few…

Pretty much. It’s like selling a house and buyer makes an offer with no contingencies. Sure, you can sue them to close the deal but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Does Twitter want to be locked into some multi-year court battle? They’ll settle and the news will move onto something else.

The answer is almost certainly yes. It isn’t Twitter sitting in a court room for nothing they’re getting higher than the stock price was when the deal was announced.

It’s a profitable venture for twitter

Re: Elon’s Out

#64
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is a good reason a single human being shouldn't be so fucking rich. If enough money makes you untouchable by the law, then our system is simply broken.

I continue to be super concerned about this. I do not understand how the U.S. government does not view these billionaires as serious ideological threats to democracy, the court system, national security, etc. Makes one realize just how bought out Congress is. Once a person has wealth over, say, $500 million, then there should be a 100% tax.

Meh the government doesn't need more money to conduct frivolous and corrupt spending with.

However it might be interesting to explore an option that required people who own a stake in a company that has grown beyond a certain size to be required to siphon off some of those shares to employees over time in a way where it was not conducted on the open market and would not affect share price.

I also question whether corporate entities should be allowed to own shares and what the benefits are of that. Should private investment firms be allowed to accumulate massive stakes in public companies?

Re: Elon’s Out

#65

I don’t understand why we need to make things personal: a multibillionaire with practically unlimited resources is negotiating with a multibillion dollar corporation with practically unlimited resources. It’s clear that the offer Elon got stuck with has an unrealistic price at this point (and Elon just want a reason to get out of the deal), just like it’s clear that Twitter’s management is incompetent in the last few…

Twitter is a public company. We can not ignore the effect this situation has on the investors (regardless of whether someone thinks "they deserve it", or something equally irrelevant).

Re: Elon’s Out

#66

I don’t understand why we need to make things personal: a multibillionaire with practically unlimited resources is negotiating with a multibillion dollar corporation with practically unlimited resources. It’s clear that the offer Elon got stuck with has an unrealistic price at this point (and Elon just want a reason to get out of the deal), just like it’s clear that Twitter’s management is incompetent in the last few…

Contracts matter. The ability for two parties to create a contract and to have reasonably secure knowledge that the state will still in and enforce the terms of the contract, using violence if necessary, is a massive foundational element to free market capitalism.

We see in states where such an expectation is not present, that it becomes an enormous invisible drag on all business activity and degrades the civic functioning of society.

One of the crowning achievements of Western Liberalism was the concept of "rule of law" and that there would exist an impartial, powerful judiciary independent of political power that could bring massive resources to bear to enforce contracts.

Re: Elon’s Out

#67
post #61
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they could put him in Chancery jail? The law is already undermined if no attempt is even made at upholding it.

But that's not how it works when you simply owe money (usually, modulo things like probation violations and child support, but lets ignore that for now). We don't have debtors prisons). They can seize his money though, garnish his wages (lol in this specific case though), etc.

It’s an interesting irony I think that one of the worst punishments for him is to have him follow through on the agreement that he signed.

Re: Elon’s Out

#68
post #29

There's been a lot of speculating around here on exactly what it would take for Musk to get out of this deal; here's the TLDR of the analysis from Levine: > Musk cannot get out of the deal just because one of Twitter’s representations is false. He still has to close the deal unless the representation is false and it would have a “material adverse effect” on Twitter. This is a famously under-defined term but it genera…

Do public statements before he signed the deal that imply that he was aware that Twitter has a bot problem and already suspected that the number we much higher than reported by Twitter have any effect?

Re: Elon’s Out

#69
post #36

I found this part most interesting. Public awareness of the Delaware Court of Chancery is about to skyrocket during this court battle. The fact that Musk is working in such bad faith here — that he seems so unconcerned with law and the contract he signed — cuts both ways. On the one hand, it will certainly annoy a Delaware chancellor; Delaware likes to think of itself as a stable place for corporate deals, with predi…

Assuming that is the appropriate penalty (I know nothing about Chancery law), why exactly can’t they just issue a warrant for his arrest and put him in jail? He doesn’t have a private militia or anything like that

And who do you imagine would do the arresting bit on behalf of the Delaware court?

Re: Elon’s Out

#70
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I continue to be super concerned about this. I do not understand how the U.S. government does not view these billionaires as serious ideological threats to democracy, the court system, national security, etc. Makes one realize just how bought out Congress is. Once a person has wealth over, say, $500 million, then there should be a 100% tax.

Meh the government doesn't need more money to conduct frivolous and corrupt spending with. However it might be interesting to explore an option that required people who own a stake in a company that has grown beyond a certain size to be required to siphon off some of those shares to employees over time in a way where it was not conducted on the open market and would not affect share price. I also question whether cor…

I don't think we should avoid something just because there are more problems. We should fix those other problems as well. The primary issue is that there is a single extremist party, not unlike those found in the Middle East, that is hell bent on undermining America for want of power. By systematically undermining education, public health and services, infrastructure, treating government projects as jobs programs, etc., they are creating a worse America and a sort of political Stockholm syndrome among their constituents. But there is indeed corruption across the board in America.

Local governments are starved for money, and almost all of their funding comes from local property taxes, that is, normal people. So, these mega-rich are allowed to get unboundedly wealthy, while normal people have to pay to keep society running as a minimal level. The mega-rich's money, as well as corporations', needs to flow back through the system. It does no good to let it concentrate so heavily and ultimately do nothing while it sits there.

Post reply on HN