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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

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but the ideas hes mentioning seem reasonable

First of all, I don’t think they are reasonable. They’re crass and ill considered. Second of all, it’s not just about ideas, it’s about his personality.

Basically everything you’ve posted is wrong, and I completely disagree with.

Elon would do an infinitely better job than the current leadership, and I struggle to understand the mindset of those who say otherwise. I suspect they’re either ignorant or acting in bad faith.

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

#602
post #567

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…

He is a futurist, and believes that without free speech, human kind is doomed. I agree.

The important question is this -- why does he believe those things?

This is the same man that at one point tried to say that he was the founder of Tesla.

Saying things that I agree with doesn't mean that I should inherently be in favor of said person doing X, Y, or Z.

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

#603
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ETF isn’t going to “accidentally” exceed 15% ownership of Twitter. Seriously, do you think funds playing with the kind of money to buy 15% of twitter often make careless purchases? >Edit: Also, if Elon is reading this, I'll happily buy 14.9% of twitter, and vote as part of your block. Just pay me enough to cover the sale and taxes, plus 1%. Such an arrangement would make Elon the beneficial owner of your shares.

> An ETF isn’t going to “accidentally” exceed 15% ownership of Twitter. No, but an ETF has a defined investment strategy, and if enough money comes into the ETF, it could potentially trigger this.

... wouldn't that imply the ETF was 15% of the market or market segment overall?

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

#604

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…

You say “free speech” mockingly in quotes as if it’s not the one right that literally all your other rights depend on.

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

#605
post #535

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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

The moderators' biases shape 4chan and which userbase it has, not the users' own subjective choices. Similar but not quite.

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

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

Yeah but that analysis downplays the shareholders’ thoughts about the future. If they largely feel like Twitter’s real value is $100B, that it just hasn’t been realized yet, and that they think it can be realized, then it totally makes sense to turn Elon down. In reality though, the shareholders are a giant mob of people with wildly varying views about Twitter’s place in society, its true value as an asset, its abili…

It is the _directors_ making decisions here, not the shareholders. Those directors were chosen by management, and -- newsflash! -- they are beholden to management. They must jump through some legal hoops to discharge their fiduciary duties and protect themselves from lawsuits, but at the end of the day they'll do what management wants.

Does management want to maximize the value of Twitter? Er, no. Management wants to maximize some combination of their compensation, their agency controlling a company, and their social capital controlling a social media platform. Maximization of shareholders' value is a legal objective to which management must pay legal lip service, but it is not in any way shape or form the interest of management, save insofar as management compensation is related to share price.

If management cared about shareholder value, it would not have induced the board to enact this poison bill nonsense.

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

#607
post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think big ETFs just buy shares willy nilly without any due diligence on company charters and bylaws?

I’m curious what happens in that case, then - let’s say hypothetically that SPY has enough cash come into the fund that they’ll cross that threshold if they follow their stated investment policy (“buy the S&P”) - what’s the move, then?

Buy futures or other assets that will mimic the price.

The stated investment goal isn't "buy the S&P", it's "match the price of the S&P".

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

#608
post #535
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…

To see the whole psyche of human kind projected into public view, and the accompanying apoplectic, impotent outrage.

Brilliant!

Can’t help but wonder if over time – having the ability to peek into our collective psyche – this would trigger a significant divergence from the present evolutionary trajectory of our unexamined collective mind; maybe for the better, maybe for the worse.

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

#609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I was a member of Twitter's board, Musk's history of erratic public behavior, SEC settlement, and openly hostile attitude towards the company's employees would be more than sufficient to justify my belief that his controlling ownership would not be in the interest of the current average shareholder. That... makes absolutely no sense. The interest of the current average shareholder ends when they sell their stock…

> If you were a member of Twitters board, would it be in the interest of the current average shareholder to sell their shares at well above the market price? That definitionally depends on whether you, as that hypothetical board member, believe that Twitter has the potential to reach a share price higher than $54.20 if it stays public. Also, remember there is nothing that binds the board of a company to solely consid…

Right, but they hurt other shareholders by preventing them from taking it.

Don't like the bid, fine, say no -- but don't prevent your peers from selling out.

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

#610
post #567

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…

He is a futurist, and believes that without free speech, human kind is doomed. I agree.

He has actively suppressed the speech of others.
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