Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

931–940 of 1001 posts

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

#931

Post by mlindner »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #881
isitmadeofglass wrote: post #875

My prediction is that Elon will have sold a majority of his stake in Twitter soon, netting him a huge gain before the dust settles. And he’ll likely get a small symbolic fine again for his blatant market manipulation.

yeah his favorite pastime seems to be pump and dump, not sure why people continually believe whatever bs he sells when he does stuff like this... Elon Musk does not give a flying fart about free speech

Musk has never done a pump and dump, so I'm not sure where you get the idea of it being a "favorite pasttime".

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

#932

Post by sahila »

IshKebab wrote: post #786
vasco wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means the market doesn't think it's likely but it doesn't mean it's 75%. To illustrate why that makes no sense, if Musk had offered $35 instead of $54, the buyout would be much less likely, since the price would be way lower and the board and shareholders less likely to accept it, yet under your model the likelihood would go up. Estimating probability from price action is something you can do, but not like you did…

Why would the likelihood go up under his model? If Musk had only offered $35 and people thought that was only 20% likely to happen (for the reasons you listed) then the market price would have only gone up to $31.

Say I offer to buy Apple for a penny/share. The price for their shares won’t move because of my offer but may move from normal market conditions. If the shares increased a dollar the day after my offer, would you say there’s a greater than 100% chance of my offer being accepted?

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

#933

Post by emodendroket »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #868
emodendroket wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The elites have somehow inverted history so they now believe that it is not censorship that is the favored tool of fascists and authoritarians, even though every fascist and despot in history used censorship to maintain power, but instead believe free speech, free discourse, and free thought are the instruments of repression. It feels a little silly to act like the guy trying to spend billions of dollars to get his…

So what? .... if we, normal people get more free speech, and a few billionares swap some money around, it's still better then them just swapping money and we not getting any free speech.

Well that’s the thing. I don’t think we normal people are going to get more of a voice.

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

#934

Post by ckelly »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #927
ckelly wrote: post #923

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't put too much weight into any sort of imputed probability from the price. It's absolutely fair to impute a rough probability of deal closure from the stock price. The whole "merger arbitrage" industry works around that premise. Sometimes the market doesn't think a deal has a 100% chance of closing (like MSFT and LinkedIn) and it still closes. There were valid antitrust concerns circling that deal, e.g. ht…

That's not the same as saying the market wasn't taking the offer seriously. > The whole "merger arbitrage" industry works around that premise. If the market price reflected the probability, then an arbitrage strategy should not be profitable. Usually, these folks have better experience/skills/knowledge about M&A, antitrust, etc than the market average. In other words, the market doesn't reflect the probability of an…

Yes, I wasn't commenting on the original "taking it seriously" language.

> If the market price reflected the probability, then an arbitrage strategy should not be profitable > The market doesn't reflect the probability of an event happening.

No, the market's implied probability could be right, on average, across all deals...and the top merger arb funds could absolutely still be profitable by selecting deals when they think the market is mispricing the probability (for the reasons you mention: better experience, knowledge, etc.)

It's like the sports betting market: you can roughly impute a team's win probability from the (opening) betting line...and even if that's right on average, the top gamblers are still profitable.

And, of course, sometimes things with a say, 40% chance of happening do happen...so that doesn't mean the market was "wrong" about the chance (i.e. your LinkedIn mispricing exmaple).

But sounds like we're in full agreement you can't look at the implied probability from the market price and draw some conclusion about it definitely happening, or definitely not happening (e.g. the market not taking it seriously).

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

#935

Post by jeremiahhs »

orestarod wrote: post #919
ehvatum wrote: post #910

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he’s an immigrant that made good on the American dream. That’s a powerful thing - some might even dare say, inspiring. I realize he’s white, so it doesn’t count, but it should.

He was a RICH immigrant that made good on the American Dream. Having a truckload of money ready for you before you venture out in the world would be inspiring for anyone, believe me.

Proof that he was rich? Everything I've read says he arrived to America with a couple grand.

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

#936

Post by kderbyma »

mlindner wrote: post #931
micromacrofoot wrote: post #881

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah his favorite pastime seems to be pump and dump, not sure why people continually believe whatever bs he sells when he does stuff like this... Elon Musk does not give a flying fart about free speech

Musk has never done a pump and dump, so I'm not sure where you get the idea of it being a "favorite pasttime".

he prompts his massive following to jump...he is Pavlovian in a way with his cult

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

#937

Post by ajsnigrutin »

emodendroket wrote: post #933
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? .... if we, normal people get more free speech, and a few billionares swap some money around, it's still better then them just swapping money and we not getting any free speech.

Well that’s the thing. I don’t think we normal people are going to get more of a voice.

So, then it doesn't matter... Rich people do what rich people do, with musk+twitter combo, there's atleast a chance you'll get more of a voice, with some other combo (eg. disney buying twitter), you already know there's zero chance for that.

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

#938

Post by jjfoooo4 »

memish wrote: post #738
sillysaurusx wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the first time I disagree with you. Bot problem, perhaps not. Spam problem, definitely. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1487022342630957062?s=21&t=... https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1496549841912094733?s=21&t=... https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1485588476057825290?s=21&t=... and https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/1473752736537657349... https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/139902863019023…

For those blindly downvoting that, here's what Paul Graham said: "Either (a) Twitter is terribly bad at detecting spam or (b) there's something about Twitter that makes detecting spam difficult or (c) they don't care. Based on my experience detecting spam, I'd guess (c)." "Twitter engineering: If you're going to do such a bad job of catching spam, how about at least giving us a one-click way to report a tweet as spam…

An evidence free statement by Paul Graham - why should we consider him an expert, other than his wealth?

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

#939

Post by ajsnigrutin »

andrepd wrote: post #909
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? .... if we, normal people get more free speech, and a few billionares swap some money around, it's still better then them just swapping money and we not getting any free speech.

What makes you think you will get any more free speech by the grace of Musk's intervention? He has repeatedly shown he is pro-free speech that he likes and anti-free speech he doesn't like.

If disney bought twitter, I knew I wouldn't get any... with Musk, I can atleast hope.

Either way, with billions involved, i have no say in whatever happens (because I don't have billions), but musk gives me higher hope than disney.

Basically, I have nothing to lose, only to gain.

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

#940

Post by unethical_ban »

slibhb wrote: post #453
wwweston wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elon is arguing that Twitter is mismanaged. Anyone who thinks this is manifestly true should read this take from an ex-CEO of Reddit: https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1514938507407421440 tl;dr: managing human interaction in any environment with limited accountability is a lot harder than it looks Also, there's the question of by what metrics one would argue it's mismanaged. Revenue and engagement trends? Profitabi…

I read it and am thoroughly unimpressed. > It is because at Certain Times, given Certain Circumstances, humans will Behave Badly when confronted with Certain Ideas, and if you are The Main Platform Where That Idea is Being Discussed, you cannot do NOTHING, because otherwise humans will continue behaving badly. To paraphrase: "Ideas are dangerous, people cannot be trusted to argue on the internet because it leads to v…

>even if the things they're saying are true".

You added that part in yourself. You seem to be ignoring the concepts of disinformation, trolling, and bad faith actors.

Post reply on HN