Elon’s Out • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon’s Out

#81

Post by nightski » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #70

nightski wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, et…

Is it ironic I don't even know which party you are referring to because it accurately describes both in my opinion?

But I disagree in that I think we absolutely should avoid it because a larger federal government has been heavily correlated with less local funding (so much so that the SALT deduction was once a thing). It's given rise to globalization and large multi-national conglomerates. It creates a situation where power & money is too concentrated.

Re: Elon’s Out

#82

Post by tenpies » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:15 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #27

alphabetting wrote: post #4

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…

This is one of those things that could genuinely cause problem for the entire US (corporate) legal system. There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

[flagged]

Re: Elon’s Out

#83

Post by rlt » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #64

bmitc wrote: 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…

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

I agree with that, but they could just, you know, lower taxes on the lower and middle class to balance it out.

Re: Elon’s Out

#84

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #55

lkxijlewlf wrote: post #49

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.

In very direct, real terms, assets are power. They represent resources to do things. The problem here isn't that wealth is power, it will always be power. The issue is that a single person has been allowed to accumulate too much.

I appreciate that in such a short comment, you succinctly summarize the problem statement.

Re: Elon’s Out

#85

Post by dopidopHN » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:39 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #27

alphabetting wrote: post #4

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…

This is one of those things that could genuinely cause problem for the entire US (corporate) legal system. There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

I have no insight into this but it looks that it will happen eventually. ( the degradation of the US gov authorities on the conduction of large financial arrangements)

Re: Elon’s Out

#86

Post by erk__ » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

anonu wrote: post #48

Twitter feeds are pretty public, albeit expensive to buy the firehose. Nonetheless, shouldn't a handful of motivated hackers be able to answer the bot question??

The issue here is that only twitter knows who they count as a mDAU. So there could be a lot of bots that are simply not included in their counts.

Re: Elon’s Out

#87

Post by theptip » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

russdill wrote: post #68

theptip wrote: 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?

Levine certainly thinks this is true.

Re: Elon’s Out

#88

Post by haliskerbas » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #27

alphabetting wrote: post #4

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…

This is one of those things that could genuinely cause problem for the entire US (corporate) legal system. There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

> There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

This should have been obvious by now. Cash rules everything around me.

Re: Elon’s Out

#89

Post by whiplash451 » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

xiphias2 wrote: post #11

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…

Can you please elaborate on what makes it clear that Twitter management was incompetent in the last few years?

Re: Elon’s Out

#90

Post by moralestapia » Sat, Jul 09, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #57

arcanus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a cyberpunk future. I'm overall a fan of Musk, but this is too far. There simply must be rule of law for the United States to remain a dynamic society.

Literally there’s not even a hint that Musk is above the law yet you’re calling it a cyberpunk future

>According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Stewart avoided a loss of $45,673 by selling all 3,928 shares of her ImClone Systems stock on December 27, 2001, after receiving material, nonpublic information from Peter Bacanovic, her broker at Merrill Lynch. The day following her sale, the stock value fell 16%.[49]

Martha Stewart went to jail for 5 months for a meager case of insider trading. Musk manipulated Tesla stock in front of, literally, the whole world and got a slap in the wrist (i.e. a fine that comes to about 0.1% of its net worth). A citizen would to go jail forever for a similar thing.