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Elon has decided not to join our board
- sircastor 5y agoWas this all calculated stock manipulation? It feels like Musk’s modus operandi: 1: Invest in something, 2: Tweet about it. 3: Grossly violate FTC regulation, 4: profit
- dragonwriter 5y agoTangential to your point: SEC regulation, not FTC.
- sircastor 5y agoMy mistake - thanks.
- solveit 5y agoMusk usually doesn't do the profit part, which is why he can settle with the SEC for pennies (relatively speaking).
- Rebelgecko 5y agoDidn't he profit (in terms of net worth, I guess he didn't realize any gains yet) by not disclosing when he hit the 5% mark?
- solveit 5y agoYes but he didn't sell as you say. Same with dogecoin, the "funding secured" debacle, and all his other stuff. He does something stupid and probably illegal, but doesn't actually take the crucial steps to profit and complete the scam. The image he portrays (I'm tempted to say cultivates) is that of someone above the law who doesn't give a fuck, not that of a common pump-and-dump scammer.
- onphonenow 5y agoThe reality is folks valued his potential input. That said I think a board role was a bad fit. He'd have to agree not to acquire more stock (he could personally easily buy 51% of twitter - 4% of his net work probably). Also, he's too strong minded. A recap of his ideas: * A limited edit button. * Move it to a paid service * No ads to avoid corp pressure to censor voices. My guess - he'd be in a conflicted position if he ever wanted to start / do his own social network. And these changes are WAY outside of the comfort zone of FTC etc.
- antonvs 5y ago
- bpodgursky 5y agoIt's about 7% fwiw (although it would cost him some more in taxes to get the cash to do so, he'd have to sell Tesla and realize gains).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- skissane 5y agoCouldn't he take out a loan using his Tesla stock as collateral, and use that to fund a purchase of Twitter? That way he'd avoid selling any stock (and having to pay taxes on the sale), although he'd have to somehow fund the interest payments on the loan (which could be done through smaller stock sales, which would incur taxes, but he'd still pay less tax selling to fund the interest than selling to fund the principal.)
- bpodgursky 5y agoRich people do this to buy yachts and sports cars (for I dunno, tens of millions), but borrowing $15 billion? I'm kinda skeptical any banks would bite here. The collateral would be a huge portion of his Tesla stock, enough that a crash in TSLA could put the whole loan at risk.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- onethought 5y agoDoes he do that? What did he Invest in something/Tweet/Violate FTC/Profit from? If you're referring to Tesla, you missed the part where he: Lead the delivery of a ridiculous amount of value to the company unrelated to any tweets.
- smt88 5y ago> What did he Invest in something/Tweet/Violate FTC/Profit from? Dogecoin and Bitcoin. He pumped and dumped the former pretty directly. He pumped and dumped Bitcoin by saying that Tesla would start to accept it as payment, and then he said that the price was too volatile and they wouldn't actually do that anymore. He pumped and dumped Bitcoin again later, but I forget the circumstances.
- onethought 5y agoRight, the currencies that are built on "trust-less networks" and are resistant to government interferences. But a single person can manipulate the entire currency with some tweets and a bit of capital. cool cool cool. Did Elon profit from that? i.e. He bought at the bottom and sold at the top? Or did he lose along with everyone else in the "dump" phase? Bitcoin: You don't have to trust anyone... except Elon.
- bcj7393nsk 5y ago> Did Elon profit from that? i.e. He bought at the bottom and sold at the top? That same quarter, Tesla reported almost $500 million in realized capital gains on BTC. And Elon owns Tesla stock. The rest is left as an exercise to the reader.
- onethought 5y agoYou are missing the part where they were accepting bitcoin as payment for cars. So how much of those gains were for Cars sold, vs inflated Bitcoin price based on Elon tweets?
- sixQuarks 5y agoIf you honestly think Elon cares about money/profit at this point, you don’t know jack about Elon.
- alphabettsy 5y agoIs it safe to assume that you’ve never met him before? I don’t understand why people say stuff like this about people they don’t know.
- yumraj 5y agoAnd you do? Please tell us more..
- sixQuarks 5y agoAs an entrepreneur, I’ve been following Elon’s progress going back to when he sold zip2. It became evident he was an outlier when his new company merged with then sold PayPal and so I’ve been following him closely since that time - I don’t think there is an interview of his I haven’t watched. Adding all those up, it’s probably over 60 hours of interviews over a roughly 20 year timeline. It’s not just the hours of interviews but also the ability to see how his actions play out over time. This is why I can state confidently that he doesn’t give a rats ass about money or profit (other than using that wealth towards making humanity multi-planetary species). If you feel that is a greedy goal, than so be it, but he is not interested in money for himself
- jliptzin 5y agoSubject to background check
- 7fYZ7mJh3RNKNaG 5y agoAlas, enough clearance to shoot rockets but not to join Twitter's board.
- boomer918 5y agoHaha i was just thinking that, maybe he didn't pass? :)
- bombcar 5y agoTwitter probably doesn’t allow people with access to space-based lasers to be on the board.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoHe'd have to convert first.
- braingenious 5y agoConvert to what?
- liotier 5y agoHeretic !
- bencollier49 5y agoI read that as a troll to bite back at Musk's humorous posts of the last couple of days.
- bpodgursky 5y agoThis allows Elon to buy a larger % (the previous agreement to get a seat capped him below a controlling share)
- bombcar 5y agoI suspect this is involved - and it will be easy enough for Musk to support someone for the board at the next election.
- axg11 5y agoA very odd set of events and no explanation regarding Elon's change of mind. A pessimist would think that Elon has decided to go for a "hostile" takeover since he is no longer bound by the percentage holding cap. An optimistic would think that Elon had enough self-awareness to realize it would be an overall distraction for Twitter with little benefit. It amuses me more than it should that the CEO of Twitter has posted an image of text (from the iOS Notes app?) to get around the Twitter character limit.
- ralusek 5y ago> A pessimist would think that Elon has decided to go for a "hostile" takeover Did you mean an optimist?
- zitterbewegung 5y agoElon has made many unilateral decisions very frequently and without warning. Case in point was to close all of Tesla’s car dealerships. For obvious reasons this was backed out due to the fact that some of them had leases which would be a breach in contract .
- hbarka 5y agoAnother case in point was him deciding that the yoke steering wheel was best and didn’t even offer the regular steering wheel as an option. What a cruel yoke.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- princeb 5y agomaybe his lawyers informed him he made a mistake. he filed the disclosure on Schedule 13G which prevents him from joining the board, rather than 13D if he wants to do so. but then again, i wouldn't put it past elon to do all the things that the SEC explicitly tells people not to do.
- boulos 5y ago
- xyzzy_plugh 5y agoThis particular instance aside, what possible sane regulatory changes could discourage this sort of manipulation? Modern social media is poking holes in a system that reacts too slowly and too inconsistently when questionable actors stir the pot. The only thing I can think of is a slower exchange, where trades happen on the order of days, or better yet weeks or months, where this sort of thing becomes a wash. I have no interest investing in hype speculative bubbles, I'd rather place medium to long term bets on industry players. Or maybe the solution is just to stop reading the news?
- axg11 5y agoIs this type of manipulation really a result of social media? It was entirely possible before: rich investor announces purchasing of a large stake in public company, event is reported in traditional media (newspapers), rich investor is offered and accepts board seat, rich investor backs out.
- noduerme 5y agoNot new at all. What I think might be new is the confluence of that type of manipulation with a much more primitive pump style that's been greatly amplified by social media. When I was about 21, I opened my first trading account. On E*Trade. Early days for online trading. I spent a lot of time researching stocks, but I was just a kid and was pretty unhip to the many ways things could be manipulated. Thank God there wasn't WSB at that point. So one night I'm sitting at a restaurant bar, waiting for food, and these two stock brokers are sitting next to me talking about a series of trades they were planning on a penny stock, a startup drug company. Natch, I listened in and they noticed and were happy to share their inside info with me. "It's $0.10, just make sure you unload it at $0.50. No more than a week." Great. I went home, looked at this thing, and put in an order for about a third of my savings. It was an OTC stock. Three days later, it shot up to $0.60 and I tried to sell it. And........ nothing happened. E*Trade was a no go. Couldn't make them execute it on the phone. The stock started to spiral. Next day, no sale. No market maker. No one buying. Stock collapsed to $0.05. I called my dad and told him about this wild ride and all he said was, "you got hustled by those guys at the bar." And incredibly, that had never occurred to me. Take that level of innocence, multiply by a few million young investors on social media who think Elon is Jesus, and, well, market manipulation can scale up exponentially.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoIt’s funny that the first paragraph of the letter says they believed it was best for Elon to join the board. Then the second paragraph says that Elon declined to join the board and they believe it was also for the best.
- manquer 5y agoBoth could be factually true at those points in time. On Tuesday they thought this was good idea. Interacting with Elon and market reactions in the next few days could have convinced them that best idea was not to have him.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- catmanjan 5y agoJoining the board "the best path forward", whereas not joining was "the best". From this we can deduce that the destination of the "the best path forward" was for him to leave the board ("the best").
- LAC-Tech 5y agoThank you for providing a total ordering for the algebra of press releases.
- 5y ago
- Amfy 5y agohmmm not sure how I feel about this. I bought Twitter stock after I knew he will be joining the board. Hopefully he has something bigger in mind.
- antonvs 5y agoYou could try reporting him to the SEC...
- onethought 5y agoOr... sell your stock?
- antonvs 5y agoIt's a joke, referring to the various run-ins Musk has had with the SEC over his tweets.
- smt88 5y ago> I bought Twitter stock after I knew he will be joining the board. I would give you two pieces of advice. The first is traditional investing wisdom: buy on rumors, sell on news. Why sell on news? To make money from people who did what you did. Once you hear about some news, it's almost always too late to make money on it. The second piece of advice is not to trade on anything Elon Musk says or does.
- nebula8804 5y agoIf you had bought DOGE when that whole hubub started and sold on the SNL premiere you would have made an unbelievable killing. Even if you sold afterwards, it would have been pretty good. The fact that he managed to make a shitcoin go that high is unbelievable.
- rvz 5y ago> I bought Twitter stock after I knew he will be joining the board. Buy the rumour, sell the news. The time to 'buy' was two months ago. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30252537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30252537
- andrewclunn 5y agoBe legally restricted by fiduciary obligations and prevented from purchasing more stock in order to gain... what exactly? Elon made the right call here.
- philosopher1234 5y agoIs there anything he could do which would not be judged by hacker news to be “the right call”. Kinda nuts that him joining the board is assumed to be genius, and then him completely reversing within a week is also genius. Maybe we’re a bit biased about Elon.
- camjohnson26 5y ago
- axg11 5y agoEverything you said is true but there is an alternative perspective: Elon founded two of the most successful companies in existence. Both companies heavily innovated on hard technological problems in order to achieve commercial success. Hence, he's an operator with experience solving difficult challenges, making him qualified for the board seat.
- alphabettsy 5y agoElon was not a founder of Tesla. Assuming that was one of the two you were referring to, not that it matters much?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mcbain 5y agoAnd he wasn't really a founder of PayPal, although that's a bit less clear cut.
- seadan83 5y ago"Two of the most successful companies in existence" Tesla, at bill profit, is about half an order of magnitude away from being in the top 10 most profitable: https://www.investopedia.com/the-world-s-10-most-profitable-companies-4694526 https://www.investopedia.com/the-world-s-10-most-profitable-... So surely a successful company. At this juncture, one of the most successful ever in existence? Hype.
- Denvercoder9 5y agoProfit is not the only way to measure success.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y agoIs it ironic that a text image is used by Twitter to bypass character limits on a post? This has to be a usability nightmare for differently abled people.
- bena 5y agoTwitter is a lot like HTML in that how it is used is so far removed from how it was designed to be used that barring radical redesigns in the protocol itself, the vast majority of the ways people use it is getting around the inherent limitations of the system.
- jakear 5y agoThe alt text has the full contents.
- d0mine 5y agothe texts differ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984388
- steve_adams_86 5y agoThere is decent alt text on the image, but I can’t speak to how well Twitter works with a screen reader in order to access it.
- manquer 5y agoHowever the Alt text version is slightly different from the posted one , so not really good substitute.
- giraffe_lady 5y agoThere's no requirement or inherent value in them being identical. They should provide as much of the same essential information as possible, and in this case they do. It's reasonable for the main image to include more non-essential data or aesthetic flourishes than the alt, which again is the case here. There are definitely accessibility issues with using images as a text medium, mainly that the poster has to be aware of the accessibility issues and specifically choose to alleviate them. But that was done here.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- soheil 5y agoWait "contingent on a background check"? This is the founder of SpaceX a contractor with NASA and DoD and you're gonna run measly background check on him? He most likely has an active TS clearance and works with ITAR.
- pcmoney 5y agoWhat is really interesting is that phrase’s presence in that message makes it seem like he did not pass it. That seems like a PR move, maybe to mislead and save face, maybe to indicate what went down.
- ergocoder 5y agoHe did not pass the background check because he claimed to co-found Tesla. Here: https://www.tesla.com/elon-musk https://www.tesla.com/elon-musk -- "Elon Musk co-founded and leads Tesla" But actually he wasn't a co-founder. He simply bought shares of Tesla 1 year after it was founded. This is the red flag, so he failed the background check. True story.
- thepasswordis 5y ago>A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five – Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk, and Straubel – to call themselves co-founders.[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Founding_(2003%E2%80%932004) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.#Founding_(2003%E2%...
- ergocoder 5y agoThat is so twisted.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoHe shouldn't have any clearance given his continual violation of federal law nobody else is given a pass on.
- techsupporter 5y ago
- systemvoltage 5y agoThere is a theory that Elon declined it to not limit his stake to 14.9%; we won't know until the next SEC filing: https://twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1513358367753973764 https://twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/15133583677539737... WSJ source about the 14.9%: https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-to-name-elon-musk-to-its-board-of-directors-11649162614 https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-to-name-elon-musk-to-it... > Mr. Musk’s board term is set for two years. So long as he remains a director, he can’t own more than 14.9% of the company’s stock, according to a securities filing. While neither Twitter nor Mr. Musk would give a reason for the cap, that means that Mr. Musk, for now, is precluded from taking over the company outright.
- spuz 5y agoWhat will the next SEC filing potentially reveal?
- soheil 5y agoIt's probably bc he demanded to turn their Market St HQ into a homeless shelter as a prerequisite to joining the board. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512966135423066116 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512966135423066116
- smugma 5y agoMatt Levine on point: Twitter’s relatively new chief executive officer, Parag Agrawal: Welcome, Mr. Musk. We’re so glad that you are our biggest shareholder. We have prepared a presentation showing how we are executing on our strategy of being more technically nimble, building new products and growing revenue and active users. Here on slide 1 you can see— Elon Musk: Make the font bigger when I tweet. Agrawal: What? Musk: I am your biggest shareholder, I want the font on my tweets to be bigger than the font on everyone else’s tweets. Agrawal: That’s not really how we— Musk: And I want 290 characters. Again, just for me. Agrawal: … Musk: And it should play a little sound when I tweet so everyone knows. Agrawal: I just feel like we want to make a good product for all of our millions of users? I feel like that is going to improve profitability in the long run and, as our largest shareholder, you in particular stand to benefit from— Musk: Oh I don’t care even a little bit about that, if your stock doubles that is rounding error on my net worth, I just love tweeting and want to meddle a bit to optimize it for my personal needs. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-04/elon-musk-bought-some-twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-04/elon-m...
- camel_gopher 5y agoAnd everyone's profile picture needs to be the same as mine.
- deckard1 5y ago> I am pretty sure that the Elon Musk Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has already opened another inquiry into this filing. Elon Musk had acquired at least some of his shares by March 14, and on March 26 he was asking his followers “what should be done” about Twitter’s “failing to adhere to free speech principles.” Wow. What a paragraph. > I think in general if you went to a securities lawyer and said “I am going to buy 9% of a public company and then make public statements about how it should change its business, should I file a 13D or 13G,” the lawyer would say “hmm that sounds like activism, which is traditionally on 13D.” (Not legal advice!) But if you are Elon Musk you do not accept that sort of fuzzy reasoning. Rules for thee, but definitely not Elon.
- maytc 5y agoIf Elon was on the board, then he would be even more liable for what he tweets. And i think Elon wants more liberty to tweet without the sec on his back even more. Sounds like he has the best of both worlds holding the stocks and staying out of the board.
- goodluckchuck 5y agoYep, he’s owe fiduciary duties to other shareholders if he were on the board. This way he can tweet and make demands that might be ostensibly bad for profit-seeking investors.
- antattack 5y agoThat, and also he would have been partly responsible for Twitters decisions and it was obvious that he would not get his way w/o a fight.
- caiob 5y ago
- rootsudo 5y agoMaybe he was going to fail the background check? But that is curious.
- ajross 5y agoYou don't "fail" a background check at that level. They get whatever info is in it and decide on what to do about it, I guess. But the decision as to whether to put a 9% shareholder on the board or not is clearly not going to be left to random bureaucratic process. And let's be honest: if the world's richest man had dirt in his past that a mere "background check" would turn up, we'd clearly already know about it.
- wmf 5y agoThe "dirt" is that Elon is a massive troll who flaunts SEC regulations on the regular.
- rootsudo 5y agoYeah, I just thought it was ironic at that point that a background check is needed for really paramount people. But it makes sense - it's probably some regulation requirement / sec one to verify conflict of interests. "And let's be honest: if the world's richest man had dirt in his past that a mere "background check" would turn up, we'd clearly already know about it. " Exactly. I just find it laudable there's an established process to bring someone on the board and it involves a background check!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kadenwolff 5y agoHis reason for not joining sounds pretty clear. "he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders, was the best path forward." Obviously Elon Musk continually openly criticizing Twitter, from the perspective of some of the board members, is not in the best interest of Twitter. He would have to join under some obligations that would prevent him from speaking openly about his criticisms, and he'd probably be kicked from the board at some future point. This is why they say it's in the best interest of Twitter that he doesn't join. Musk joining would only result in some kind of scandal months down the line.
- hwers 5y agoWho even decides what's best for the company? One could argue him openly criticizing twitter is in its best interest. Like pouring alcohol in a wound, it hurts and kills off some bad parts of the system but it'll be stronger at the end of it than had you not done it in the first place.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- minimaxir 5y agoElon Musk has issued a reply: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1513373170333487104 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1513373170333487104 > [Face with Hand Over Mouth emoji]
- drusepth 5y agoMany of these related tweets have now been deleted, including this one.
- lnxg33k1 5y ago"So we decided that Elon would join our board, and that was in the best path forward, but then Elon decided that he would not join the board and that was also the best decision" You have no idea how much I hate this corporate speech of fried air and buttlickers
- stagger87 5y agoThe investor is always right. That being said, I agree, if only because it makes for boring reading and comes off as disingenuous.
- Consultant32452 5y agoI think this was a polite way of saying they couldn't agree on terms of his board position. For example, he would probably have been restricted on the kinds of tweets he could make. He recently started a poll asking if he should turn Twitter HQ into a homeless shelter because so few people show up. They would certainly not want him doing that if he's on the board.
- mike_d 5y agoThere is no agreement on terms. As a member of the board you are required by law to always do and say what is in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. Someone probably sat him down and explained that he doesn't hold a majority of voting shares at Twitter, and that the company and other investors wouldn't put up with his shit. With a 75% majority, the other shareholders could vote to nullify his shares and make them worthless.
- Consultant32452 5y agoAt the very least we know they offered him a position on the board in exchange for a guarantee that he would not purchase more than 15% of shares. There were definitely terms, and we do not know all of them.
- systemvoltage 5y ago> With a 75% majority, the other shareholders could vote to nullify his shares and make them worthless. This is unbelievable. Can you share a credible source?
- andreyk 5y agoSo amusing. If you haven't seen some of Elon Musk's antics leading up to this, you really should: Today - [image] 'In all fairness your honor, my client was in "goblin mode"' https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1513244730720616448 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1513244730720616448 Yesterday: "Everyone who signs up for Twitter Blue (ie pays $3/month) should get an authentication checkmark" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512946176244473863 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512946176244473863 [poll] "Delete the w in twitter?" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1513045405029711878 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1513045405029711878 [poll] "Convert Twitter SF HQ to homeless shelter since no one shows up anyway" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512966135423066116 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512966135423066116 [retweet] "Most of these “top” accounts tweet rarely and post very little content. Is Twitter dying?" https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512785529712123906 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1512785529712123906 I really feel like he did not like the terms for joining the board (eg not freaking tweeting about Twitter) and cancelled last minute out of a tamper tantrum This guy has done great things, but jesus christ is he immature
- ardfard 5y agoThat's the perks of having f.u. money.
- mnd999 5y agoSure, but why do you want that on your board? Elon might have enough money already but everyone else would like to continue making it. He is very good at guerrilla marketing, but I guess they decided it wasn’t worth it.
- coolso 5y ago> jesus christ is he immature This seems to be the #1 complaint about him. Honestly, so what? Since when is Twitter serious business? To take it a step further... why does life have to always be serious business? There's plenty enough of that as it is. I think it's telling that people are up in arms and furious that Elon Musk might... bring back a little free speech and equal moderation to Twitter? I mean the threat isn't that the left is going to be censored more, it's that the right will be censored less equivalent to how the left is currently "censored" there. And that's what people are scared of, evidently. Excellent ideas, apparently, require strict censorship and moderation to propagate. One of the number one complaints about our last President was the same thing: "he's immature". So finally, we got a super mature President who's in office currently. Along with super high inflation, super high gas prices, supply chain issues, and a Putin who evidently thinks he can get away with anything now. "Immature" isn't always a bad thing.
- DonHopkins 5y agoSo Elon's not going to unleash the Kraken and reinstate Trump's Twitter account? https://www.newsweek.com/conservatives-elon-musk-reinstate-donald-trump-twitter-account-1694805 https://www.newsweek.com/conservatives-elon-musk-reinstate-d...
- cinntaile 5y agoWhy would he come back? He now has his own, better social network.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoI don't think he's even posted on Truth Social, he's still issuing weird press releases from "The Office of Donald J. Trump"
- whateveracct 5y agoIt's amazing someone with that much money can still act like a total loser.
- k8sToGo 5y agoThere are quite a few of these in SV: Elizabeth Holmes, Travis Kalanick Not sure who else.
- braingenious 5y agoSerious question: Who cares? I am not trying to make a joke or seem edgy. Literally, what group of people is actually impacted by this by first or second order effects of…whatever the hell this story entails? In other words, this is on the front page of hacker news. Why?!
- outsomnia 5y agoIf you look at it in the context of Musk 2024 you should probably care about it, given what trump did with twitter.
- teagoat 5y agoWould he be allowed? Is he a "natural born citizen"?
- sofixa 5y agoBloody hell. It's the first time I'm hearing about this, but that prospect is terrifying. Unhinged workaholic thinking he knows best about everything and refusing to listen to reason ruling by tweets. I can see him insulting other heads of state because they disagreed with him, starting wars on a whim ( yeah i know he can't technically declare a war, but he can launch a missile strike or "special military operation"). I can also see him going the Nicholas II route, micromanaging the hell out of everything while being too unknowledgeable about the vast majority of it. Let's hope it doesn't come to it. Edit: disregard all of that. He's South African, he couldn't run. Whew!
- enieslobby 5y agoI find it hard to believe you're not trying to seem edgy. Is it difficult to imagine that many Twitter user's experiences will be affected by Elon Musk's involvement with the company?
- daguava 5y agoMe. I hate narcissists grabbing established tech for their own gain.
- 5y ago
- paxys 5y agoReading between the lines and the PR speak a little bit: 1. Parag is covering his own ass and making clear that the initial announcement was always contingent on a few things and not a done deal. 2. He is heavily implying that being a fiduciary of the company and having to act in its best interests (including, I imagine, not randomly criticizing it in public or promising non-existent features) was the deal breaker for Elon.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoMore like him criticizing the company and promising features was a deal breaker for Twitter's board and investors, and they have the power to tell him to fuck off. Elon's lived in a fantasy land for years thanks to the Tesla board and investors letting him do whatever he wants.
- ramblerman 5y agoThere is not much fantasy about it if he can indeed do what he wants. He could buy twitter outright. Fantasy implies being divorced from reality. I doubt that's his intention though.
- drcongo 5y agoHe's not only divorced from reality, they haven't spoken in years and reality has a restraining order against him. cf: Full self-driving.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- oliv__ 5y agoTake a look at Giga Texas' launch and let me know if you still feel that way. I wonder what you've achieved in your life that makes you think you're in a position to say anything about that man
- dmix 5y ago> Actually the strange thing about Musk’s 9.2% stake is that he disclosed it on Schedule 13G, which suggests that he is not planning to do activism or join the board. The ordinary way to disclose an activist stake of more than 5% of a company is a Schedule 13D; you are eligible to use the shorter and less informative 13G only if you have “not acquired the securities with any purpose, or with the effect, of changing or influencing the control of the issuer.” -Matt Levine
- mlindner 5y agoYour information is out of date. He submitted a 13D later. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922042863/tm2211757d1_sc13d.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922...
- yumraj 5y agoFWIW, I believe the key line is this: We believed the best path forward was having Elon as a fiduciary of Twitter where he, like all board members, must act in the best interests of our company and our shareholders. The fact that Elon would have had to act in the best interest of Twitter and not his own might have been the deal breaker. OTOH, I was preparing myself to read that Elon has forced Twitter to enable Trump's account, given Elon's dislike for Biden and his earlier tweets about "free speech". Perhaps that was the deal breaker which made Elon decide to double down, increase his stake and do a hostile takeover and appoint him the CEO. I guess Twitter is in for some real fun over the next few months..
- nocoiner 5y agoI think that Delaware has a takeover statute that’ll basically for the next few years prevent Musk from effecting a hostile takeover without the support of the board. And if he acquirers enough shares to to become a “controlling” stockholder, he’ll owe fiduciary duties to the rest of the stockholders based on his status as a controller.
- yumraj 5y agoGood info, didn’t know that. But, if he acquires a controlling stake he can vote his own board and go that route. Either ways I don’t see this ending well for Twitter - though may not happen in time for the midterm elections. 2024, who knows..
- sidcool 5y agoThis is silicon valley drama in real life. Richard Hendricks wanting to join Hooli board.
- muttantt 5y agoBret Taylor got his way.
- exogeny 5y agoElon didn't found Tesla. He executed a board takeover. My guess is that's what he wanted to do with Twitter, didn't have the support, and bailed. Also the fiduciary stuff probably threw him off; I don't get the vibe that he actually wants to fix things so much as he wants Twitter to be his personal playground. He clearly doesn't have anyone around him who has the balls to tell him no, and that's never a good thing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jdrc 5y agostock manipulation
- swarnie 5y agoIf only we had a federal department for that....
- shp0ngle 5y agoElon will get his edit button, no more reason to join the board I guess
- basisword 5y agoNot a surprise if you’ve read any of Musk’s tweets this past weeks. He sounds unhinged. He’s like Kanye West. Occasionally says and does great things but more often than not is tweeting nonsense that could damage the company/brand. You cannot have a board member polling users as to whether or not HQ should be converted to a refugee for the homeless. The uncertainty and stress nonsense like that must cause for employees and potential legal implications for the company are not worth it.
- coolso 5y ago> tweeting nonsense that could damage the company/brand Oh, I think Twitter has done enough to itself to damage the company/brand as it is. Most people in the real world think the site is an absolute joke. Musk can only bring good things to Twitter, and as a result, the world. The era of corporate censorship (in favor of their favorite side, of course) may finally be coming to an end!
- cloutchaser 5y agoOr he can buy more than 14.9% now, get more of his own people on the board, and fire everyone that way. The uncertainty isn’t going away for the wonderful balanced people running Twitter /s
- KennyBlanken 5y ago> Not a surprise if you’ve read any of Musk’s tweets this past weeks. He sounds unhinged. The past few weeks? The dude accused a rescue operations leader of being a pedophile after the leader said Musk's stupid giant box wouldn't fit through the passages in the cave. The one where people were having to take off their diving gear and push it through ahead of them because the passages in the caves were so tight. Then there was a the "fuck California health code, I'm going to keep cranking out cars, who cares if my employees get sick and spread covid" thing a year or so ago. Then there was the model 3 production meeting where people quit on the spot, to his face, because they were tired of being shouted at. Etc.
- mlindner 5y ago> The dude accused a rescue operations leader of being a pedophile after the leader said Musk's stupid giant box wouldn't fit through the passages in the cave. The one where people were having to take off their diving gear and push it through ahead of them because the passages in the caves were so tight. Every time people re-tell this story, it gets more and more ridiculous. He wasn't a "rescue operations leader", he was a hobby diver living in the area and acted was an advisor to the actual rescue team. What got Musk (and others) riled up was not him saying that it wouldn't work, it was him telling Musk "to shove the submarine up his ass" (exact wording "stick his submarine where it hurts") live on a CNN TV interview. > Then there was a the "fuck California health code, I'm going to keep cranking out cars, who cares if my employees get sick and spread covid" thing a year or so ago. Except he didn't in fact say anything like that. California had already allowed the factory to open. It was the local alameda county officials preventing him from opening the factory (and other nearby counties had already opened) because they were being slow at approving Tesla's paperwork for how they would operate under Covid. Also other automotive factories elsewhere in the country with even worse Covid were already in operation. > Then there was the model 3 production meeting where people quit on the spot, to his face, because they were tired of being shouted at. And that didn't happen.
- xyst 5y agoTWTR about to crash for the week. All of those weekly options about to be -100%
- nickysielicki 5y agoIf musk (or any of his friends with similar goals) make large purchases in order to oust leadership, it’s going to go way way up. How much does Dorsey still have?
- swarnie 5y agoJake has a 2.3% stake currently.
- seanw444 5y agoSo one of the requirements of being a board member is not exceeding a certain amount of stock ownership. And then he says "nevermind, actually." Sounds like Elon wants some more stock.
- core-utility 5y agoI'm in this line of belief too. I think I heard it's somewhere around 14.9% cap if he's on the board. Sounds like he knows where he can be more influential without restrictions.
- seanw444 5y agoJust revisiting this after the news that he offered to buy for $41.39 billion. Looks like it was a good guess.
- lvl102 5y agoYou don’t think he knew that going in? He didn’t buy his shares through Robinhood…
- bArray 5y agoSo many people are freaking out over Elon Musk's involvement in Twitter, but it's really not a big deal: 1. 10% is not enough to force the CEO to force the developers to implement obviously bad functionality. An edit button is a sensible thing, a button to delete the tweets of other people is obviously a bad thing. They aren't going to drop the 'w' from Twitter just because he says so. Get a grip on reality. 2. The suggestion of an edit button is a good idea, we're human and we make mistakes. The suggestion to put homeless people in Twitter's HQ is clearly a joke. Look at his other polls for context. 3. Elon Musk I believe could be fairly described as leaning right, in which case could really help to un-bias Twitter's heavily left demographic. This could be beneficial, i.e. bring back diversity of thought and opinion. Twitter is geared towards hot-takes, but that doesn't mean some important an interesting public debates don't happen in a handful of characters. 4. Twitter itself is somewhat irrelevant as a platform and its value is overstated, companies should stop using it to field product complaints and politicians should stop using it to engage voters. Most of your customer base are not there. If you're browsing it every day, you are in a _very_ small minority bubble. It doesn't represent the opinions or diversity of the world. Most Twitter users are American, young-ish and left leaning.
- JumpCrisscross 5y agoIt’s an example of Silicon Valley’s elite’s erraticism. I love Elon. But he bought without activist intent, did a Twitter poll, accepted a Board seat, spoke—apparently for the first time in this sequence—to a lawyer, and then walked back. This is not how competent companies or civilisations are run.
- nullc 5y agoThe whole country is second order twitter users due to the popular media relying on it extensively as the source of significant amounts of their "reporting".
- 0xy 5y agoMost of the country does not watch popular media. CNN's top news shows average 500,000 viewers (less than 0.01% of the country), and additionally the country overwhelmingly do not trust popular media, and therefore would not believe them anyway.
- yalogin 5y agoIt’s obvious there has been a lot of tension behind the scenes. There is a lot of passive aggression here. Musk in his typici egotistical fashion is probably trying to dictate strategy and direction for Twitter and it was rebuffed. Again, this is conjecture. Parag seems annoyed and trying to project strength.
- pyuser583 5y agoWell, there’s a story we’re not being told. Oh well.
- gilfoyle 5y agoElon Musk's Trump like behaviour - for e.g. poll regarding Twitter HQ, edit button, openly discussing product ideas etc would have definitely spooked Twitter. This would have led to serious talk and conditions that he should restrain what he puts out as a board member - which probably wasn't worth the trade-off for Musk.
- Traster 5y agoOne of the aspects I found fascinating about this was Scott Galloway on the Pivot podcast explaining exactly how Musk blew through a load of SEC regulations, potentially costing sellers a significant price premium, when he did this. Also how clearly other people were looking at making this play but were slowed by those same regulations. At the moment this whole saga looks like Musk is playing very fast and loose with a publicly traded company. The big question now is whether "distractions ahead" should be read in the boring way - "We know have this nutty shareholder who is going to publicly threaten to replace our office with a homeless shelter if our employees don't spend more time in the office" or in the more interesting way - "Elon Musk isn't on the board because that limits what he can do with the stock and he's planning to either increase his stake, sell it off to someone, or to perform other shenanigans to pressure twitter"
- cudgy 5y agoElon Musk could insist on appointing a board member to represent his interests while still maintaining enough separation to criticize openly.
- fmajid 5y agoMusk would probably have far more fun from the peanut gallery.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y agoTimeline: Elon will join our board Elon will not join our board (You are here) Elon appoints Donald Trump to the Twitter board.
- lvl102 5y agoThis is a sh*tshow for Twitter.
- sebow 5y agoI was skeptical of the news in the first place (not to sound like a "smartass" because I'm not, and we can only speculate about these things from outside). Anyways, the move , whether Elon intended or not at any given time to join the board, turned out to be beneficial for both him (more so than for) & Twitter. I don't think it can affect him negatively in any way, he already has a de facto much higher base culturally speaking than the "Twitter" army.
- ckastner 5y agoThe phrasing of this message might be quite significant. Note that the message says that Musk is not joining the board, rather than he's leaving it. If he never joined, then the 90-day restriction of not acquiring more than 14.9% of Twitter may not apply, which could mean that a fight for how Twitter is controlled might be imminent.
- incomingpain 5y agoElon has an ongoing battle with the SEC in relation to Tesla. He knows he can't join the board of twitter. One of the things I noticed was that there was no signature on the agreement page. They just text typed it in. You spend lots of money and can freely vote to make yourself whatever you want or even appoint other directors. Why would Elon just agree to limiting himself for no reason? He's the owner not them. Elliot management owned less and got a better deal than they offered elon.
- andrew_ 5y agoDisappointing. But I have hope this opens avenues for more effective change at Twitter. I'd like to see Parag go, and believe Twitter could use a purge internally.
- stevespang 5y ago
- timonoko 5y agoExcellent. Muricans may not know it but both Twitter and Facebook are muchmuch worse in other countries. Facebook especially is hiring Russians in Malta and other such places for content moderation. My lastest Facebook account was banned because pictures of Simo Häyhä and other such Russo-phobic content.
- sudden_dystopia 5y agoAs a board memeber, he was capped at 14.9% of total shares. I believe Elon has just set phasers to Hostile Takeover.
- notreallyserio 5y agoI decided not to as well.
- Blackstrat 5y agoBottom line, joining the board limited Musk's acquisition of Twitter stock to <= 14.5%. What the press release says is ultimately irrelevant. I suspect Musk didn't like the restrictions. Whether he wants the company or not, Twitter's future doesn't look that bright. it was never representative of the country at large.
- Jimmc414 5y agoHow stringent are the background checks for SV board seats?
- riffic 5y agojust saying it now, Elon Musk can not buy the Fediverse (Mastodon/Pleroma/WriteFreely/Et Cetera). If you're looking for a ship to jump to, this is the best ecosystem to empower. Twitter Employees, keep this thought in the back of your heads please.
- OrlandoHakim 5y agoI think it’s more likely that Elon wants to keep his options open. As a board member he would have a fiduciary duty’s that would prevent him from doing certain things. Most notably, it would keep him from purchasing more shares and orchestrating a hostile takeover by way of taking a majority stake in Twitter.
- OrlandoHakim 5y agoIn other words, taking a board seat would have limited him to holding no more than 14.9% of Twitter shares. Now he can take control if he wants.
- JakeAl 5y agoJoining the board limited his stock ownership to something like 14.1%. That's a deal killer when he can not be a board member and just keep buying up shares to take control.