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Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

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Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#71
>As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.

This seems like he's mostly trolling them or looking for an excuse to sell. The chances they accept and he can get 100% seem low, this is a one-time offer with something of an ultimatum, and it seems a bit unlikely he wants to share that much Tesla to get the money in the first place.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#73

Interesting if he manages to take over twitter. For me Twitter has become full of people marketing themselves with lists, tweets that don't make sense out of context, replies full of bile or inane comments and animated gifs. But I'm not convinced Musk's opinions of what is good for twitter is aligned with other content creators and consumers. Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX, Boring Company have clear goals - twitter is quite d…

> For me Twitter has become full of people marketing themselves with lists, tweets that don't make sense out of context, replies full of bile or inane comments and animated gifs.

I've found twitter's quality is a direct correlation to how discerning I am about who I follow. I don't really tweet or reply, so for me it is a read-only exercise. As such, the people I follow tend to be really high-quality (I am not typically following "regular" people like friends, etc.). Journalists, experts in specific domains, etc. And I try to make sure I am following people that have views different than mine along with those I do agree with. As a result, I've noticed I read pretty detailed information well before I see it break in major news organizations, and it is surprising balanced on the whole.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#74
post #2

I don't have an opinion over the consequences for politics over this, I'm just excited over the potential shakedown of the social media landscape that I grew to despise. Musk is an activist, can make it or break it. He is absolutely right over its enormous potential, all the problems it has - as a business or ones it creates for the society - can be solved. Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once yo…

I'm not sure I really get the points you're making here. You've said "I don't have an opinion over the consequences for politics over this" but also "free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial". And "Filter bubbles? Doesn't have to be a thing" but also "degrade [bad actors] reputation and amplify the defence of the victims".

I don't (apparently controversially) think that a lack of "free speech" is anywhere near top of the list of Twitter's problems. It's way more pressing that the amazing content on it has become completely drowned out by a cacophony of bad actors. It's not just the bot armies, but the legions of individual contributors posting and sharing obvious churnalism and outrage bait that it's _impossible_ to escape from.

I had to stop using Twitter regularly maybe a year or so ago for my own health. I could feel my blood pressure spiking every time I opened the app, and it wasn't because of algorithms or filter bubbles or censorship – if anything, the opposite. It was just increasingly not possible to use it for the things I had always loved about it—breaking news, shared conversations, interesting updates etc. from people and organisations I was interested in—without having to wade through buckets of deliberately rage-inducing shit.

Twitter itself might bear some responsibility for that. The obvious bot problem is out of control, and it was becoming increasingly user hostile to anyone who wanted to _avoid_ their attempts at "bubble popping". But maybe the bigger problem is that it's fundamentally hard to get people to behave respectfully in a a global public forum like that.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#75
post #71

>As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder. This seems like he's mostly trolling them or looking for an excuse to sell. The…

Excuse to sell? by doing this and then selling though would dump the stock price.

Why not just simply sell?

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#76
post #71

>As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder. This seems like he's mostly trolling them or looking for an excuse to sell. The…

That’s not how any of this works.

Re: Elon Musk makes $43B unsolicited bid to take Twitter private

#78
post #2

I don't have an opinion over the consequences for politics over this, I'm just excited over the potential shakedown of the social media landscape that I grew to despise. Musk is an activist, can make it or break it. He is absolutely right over its enormous potential, all the problems it has - as a business or ones it creates for the society - can be solved. Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial once yo…

> all the problems it has ... can be solved.

I'm not sure I see much reason to share your optimism about this.

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