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Elon’s Out

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641–650 of 767 posts

Re: Elon’s Out

#641
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…

Too much conspiracy theory. I think simply that Musk do not see the imminent market crash. Now he is going in tribunal to negotiate a lower price. The think will end with Musk owning Twitter in a way or another.

Re: Elon’s Out

#642
post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not following. How do you think this has helped the situation? What do you expect to happen differently in the future that will be to our benefit? Maybe I've missed out on some life experiences, but I've never seen petty theft help defuse a tense situation. It is not going to be beneficial to achieving a sane outcome. > In reality the majority of them will see this as a great reason to bear a grudge against…

Why would you expect your day to day interactions to act as framework for how members of a warring nation displacing millions and killing innocents under the guise of "nazi hunting" should react to things? And you're vehemently argue against points that have been known for months, the oligarchs are deeply unhappy with Putin over what has happened : https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/29/russia-oliga... Putin…

1. You're linking the Washington Post. Do you want me to go find an article on RT that says the Oligarchs are united against the US? That is a long article claiming to know things that they can't and don't know and is political propaganda to help push this terrifying US proxy war.

2. What do you expect to happen here? How do you think these thefts have helped the situation? Even if you want to argue that these people now hate Putin, they are powerless. The west just stripped them of all their assets.

Re: Elon’s Out

#643

How much is this beneficial to the Twitter brand? Twitter gets free exposure from all the news and a boost in reputation if only 5% of users are bots. Is there room for growth? I have the impression that Twitter is for information junkies who all should already have heard of Twitter.

That seems to be the main growth problem for Twitter. It has extreme product-market fit for a certain type of information junkie, but 15 years of optimizing the product for them has made it impenetrable to other potential users.

As Matt Levine likes to complain, not even Twitter’s own board and executives seem to use or like the product. It is a hostile and unappealing environment to most people.

Re: Elon’s Out

#644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seems like people forget billionaires are human and "to err is human" somehow doesn't apply to them

Re: Elon’s Out

#645
Why does it have to be that complicated?

Twitter says only 5% of its active users are bots.

Anyone who has paid attention to say Joe Bidens follower count[1] would put it closer to 50%

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10829675/Almost-hal...

Bloomberg says there is no evidence of this... yeah, personally I dont really see any evidence of twitter having more than 200 or 300 million real users, and only a small fraction of those will be active. "Maybe" if they werent completely blocked in China and Russia it would be possible to believe there is more.

Re: Elon’s Out

#646

Why does it have to be that complicated? Twitter says only 5% of its active users are bots. Anyone who has paid attention to say Joe Bidens follower count[1] would put it closer to 50% [1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10829675/Almost-hal... Bloomberg says there is no evidence of this... yeah, personally I dont really see any evidence of twitter having more than 200 or 300 million real users, and only a sm…

The problem is that Twitter distinguishes 'automated account' from 'mininimum wage-farm account'. The later are not bots even though they are not genuine engagement.

Re: Elon’s Out

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a little confounded that you suggest Elon believes shorting to be “morally wrong”. Why conflate his ego and financial stake with “morality”? Plus, Elon has proven himself to be morally nefarious more than anything. With the law and social expectations and plenty more. The only thing I can find about Elon and his utterance of morality is him saying it was morally wrong to ban Donald Trump. What a joke.

> I’m a little confounded that you suggest Elon believes shorting to be “morally wrong”. Why conflate his ego and financial stake with “morality”? Because in the over ten years I have of watching what he says and what he does I've found him to be a forthright person who says what he thinks. He's not the type to intentionally deceive others. He's often wrong, but he's upfront with what he thinks. Also he's shown many…

> He's not the type to intentionally deceive others. He's often wrong, but he's upfront with what he thinks.

So when he submitted official documents that he wants to be a passive investor at Twitter while already having internal talks about buying it and/or getting a board seat he ... accidentally forgot about that?

Re: Elon’s Out

#648
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Years of court battles distracts the company and keeps other buyers away.

There are no other buyers at this price or anything near it, Musk simply messed up. The deal he proposed is beyond stupid and the effect this can have on all of Musk's holdings is the thing to watch for, Twitter could well be his Waterloo. 'Is this the hill you want to die on?' is always a good question to ask yourself before you dig in and from where I'm sitting Twitter was 'optional' in Musk's arsenal, he had all o…

,,The deal he proposed is beyond stupid’’

The price in the deal was set by professional lawyers at Goldman Sachs, so if it was beyond stupid, it was not Elon’s fault.

The deal was proposed before the recession, and at that time there were people proposing that the price is too low, because Twitter stock was over $60 at some point.

Of course in the current market Elon would pay a few billions to get out of the deal, but it’s a different deal than what it has been a few months ago.

Re: Elon’s Out

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are these enemies, and why do they oppose him? I frankly don't see any "enemies." Are the SEC his "enemies?" I don't think so, he goes out of his way to bend securities law. If you go poking a bear and it takes a swipe at you - you're simply a fool, and the bear is not your enemy.

Read any recent ArsTechnica post on him that isn't part of the rocket section, and consider based purely on the use of emotive language if maybe someone has an axe to grind.

Being critical of someone does not make you their enemy. That is a super disturbing thing to suggest.

The fact that you had to eliminate part of the site to make the claim remotely plausible is something you should reflect on.

I will readily admit I think Musk is a bad CEO and a worse person who goes around saying he's saving humanity, but only willing to do it if it's sexy and cool and on his terms. Meanwhile real technologies that could really help the world go unfunded. Let's also not forget that he's suggested indentured servitude as a business model for Neuralink - we should all be able to agree that is a red flag.

Would you suggest that I am his enemy now? Would he be justified hiring private investigators to harass me? Should he direct his Twitter followers to brigade me? Is this the world you want to live in? Is this what free speech advocacy looks like?

Re: Elon’s Out

#650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the fact you think that Twitter has been misleading in how it communicates MAU and bot percentage to the markets. There is no basis to this. And even if there was it's such a grey area that they have plenty of legal wiggle room. So it's really to comprehend how Musk has any sort of bargaining position over this issue.

Going through court will lead to even more dragged out speculation and hurt Twitter more than any other party. They can't be 100% sure that they will win the case, and will also have to work to run the company on the side in a continuing state of limbo with the acquisition litigation. In the end, even if they win , and Musk must buys the company at the deal price, by the time that goes through the markets may as well…

> Going through court will lead to even more dragged out speculation and hurt Twitter more than any other party. They can't be 100% sure that they will win the case,

It's hard to be 100% sure, but there is a rather high probability that they will win and if they do, even if EM only has to pay a fine, they will have an official court statement saying that their bot statement is reasonable which is significantly better than leaving it with "we settled with EM since we don't think that we can defend this statement".

> In the end, even if they win, and Musk must buys the company at the deal price, by the time that goes through the markets may as well have rebounded to make the acquisition price reasonable again.

And that's fine. After all, Twitter agreed to the sale at that price.

> The winners at the end of the day would be the lawyers and millions of dollars dumped into fighting a case instead of settling.

There would be at least three winners:

  1. The lawyers, but they probably already got millions over the whole mess.
  2. The legal system, since there would be some indication that even EM has to follow the rules for once.
  3. The shareholders who will get significantly more money and who are actually the people the board represents.
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