27 ms·

A 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

• ralusek 5y ago
  > A pessimist would think that Elon has decided to go for a "hostile" takeover Did you mean an optimist?
• zitterbewegung 5y ago
  Elon 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 ago
    Another 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 ago
  maybe 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
    He did file a 13D as a follow up.
  • zarzavat 5y ago
    I’m not especially intimate with American bureaucracy. Does filing under the wrong schedule really prevent him from joining the board? Can’t he just file a correction?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • makeitdouble 5y ago
      Had the same thought, and looking at the SEC guideline, it seems 13D is the comprehensive one to be used by default, and 13G can only be filed under specific circumstances. At Elon’s level, it feels a lot more malicious than “oops, wrong form” https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/schedules-13d-and-13g https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-ba...
      • polski-g 5y ago
        Elon is 100% not filing anything. His time is too valuable to be doing TPS reports. His attorney would have done it.
        • makeitdouble 5y ago
          While Elon's not typing the forms on the SEC website, I can't imagine his attorneys deciding by themselves how and when they will file to the SEC, when there are further consequences down the line. Elon has always been in hot waters with the SEC and should have all the attorneys in the world making sure all Is are doted and Ts crossed. I'd think we're in a reverse Hanlon's razor situation: don't assume incompetence when it can readily be assumed to be malice.
    • bwilliams18 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• pen2l 5y ago
  > A very odd set of events and no explanation regarding Elon's change of mind. I don't know about the regulatory guidelines which would or would not have barred Elon from exercising any sort of control in the board, but my sources from Twitter are telling me that folks were not happy about the prospect of Elon wanting to change Twitter to be in his image and it's likely this that the higher-ups communicated to Musk and told him to please back away (hence the 'I believe this is for the best' affirmation line from Agrawal himself).
  • axg11 5y ago
    Elon's companies have a unique and very different culture in comparison to Twitter. Of course, Elon was not set to be CEO, but to your point, the prospect of "Elon-ification" of Twitter was going to upset a lot of employees. The part I don't get: why is Elon still tweeting ideas for improving Twitter and shaking things up?
    • voidfunc 5y ago
      > The part I don't get: why is Elon still tweeting ideas for improving Twitter and shaking things up? He's still the largest shareholder and he has a lot of soft power to sway opinions in the public sphere.
    • CharlesW 5y ago
      > The part I don't get: why is Elon still tweeting ideas for improving Twitter and shaking things up? That is weird, trolling doesn't seem like Elon's thing at all.
      • dobs_bob 5y ago
        Where have you been? The man lives to troll.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
        • 5y ago
• perihelions 5y ago
  - "CEO of Twitter has posted an image of text (from the iOS Notes app?)" At least he made the effort to include accessible alt-text. (Interestingly, the accessible text differs *slightly* from the picture-of-text version -- different draft revisions? Even social media CEO's don't seem comfortable with this workflow). edit: here's a diff with highlighting: https://i.imgur.com/R9wf2H5.png https://i.imgur.com/R9wf2H5.png I'm relying on Verge's transcription of the screenshoted text, https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/10/23019802/elon-musk-not-joining-twitter-board-announced https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/10/23019802/elon-musk-not-jo...
  • pen2l 5y ago
    Thanks for the diff! But for the love of god would you please enable word-wrapping? I'm so sorry to continue: please introduce some padding while you're at it; the text being so close to the window borders in stock emacs is so offputting. Signed with love, a recent emacs convert. edit: I see word-wrapping now, thanks!
    • perihelions 5y ago
      I've uploaded a new version with word-wrapping. Sorry for that! Yeah, my emacs config is a work in progress.
      • geenew 5y ago
        > my emacs config is a work in progress And so it shall remain
      • jamiek88 5y ago
        > Yeah, my emacs config is a work in progress Hahaha Sisyphus had a similar problem
  • alex_young 5y ago
    Perhaps the alt text is condensed to comply with a limit? Looks like the same information for the most part.
• voidfunc 5y ago
  My bet is on the plan to purchase more of Twitter until it is all his. Honestly, he's probably a better suitor or steward for Twitter than any of the other dreck they've run out there since 2014.
  • londons_explore 5y ago
    Being on the board would also prevent him starting a competing service right?
• smt88 5y ago
  > An optimistic would think that Elon had enough self-awareness to realize it would be an overall distraction for Twitter with little benefit. Assuming Musk did take over Twitter, he wouldn't need to be much of a distraction. He could dictate a few rules (don't moderate Twitter, don't ban anyone, etc.) and then leave the company to function as it did before. I think what he doesn't realize is that reducing moderation on Twitter would lead to a death spiral. Humans would find it less useful, and bots would find it more useful. No one wants to be on a platform that is 99% bots posting inflammatory political content.
  • fastball 5y ago
    I don't think Musk's ideas about free speech extend to allowing unfettered botting.
    • noduerme 5y ago
      I wonder whether he's really thought about the technical ramifications, though. Even an edit button would have pretty major consequences and things could get into the weeds pretty fast if you had to start diffing edits to see who retweeted what at which point. This might be the kind of thing that would be a major distraction for Musk if he started to put his engineering mind to it, rather than just making a few snarky quips and letting people make of them what they will.
    • DoctorOW 5y ago
      Comment isn't referring to spam bots, but the bot networks used for astroturfing.
      • mlindner 5y ago
        The "bot networks used for astroturfing" are a much used fiction of pro-Musk and anti-Musk people alike. They basically don't exist. Upvote bot networks exist certainly however.
        • bloqs 5y ago
• saagarjha 5y ago
  It’s a Gmail screenshot; he sent this as an email to the company.
• avl999 5y ago
  It was always clear to me as someone who has seen his share of Elon tweets. He was literally just trolling with his tweets and had no intention of ever joining the board as he doesn't have the time or the passion for that job.
  • patmorgan23 5y ago
    Eh, I could see him actually joining the board. It would still be as a troll, but he could actually do it. Board membership does come with certain responsibilities but he could delegate most of the time consuming parts to staff.
• systemvoltage 5y ago
  > There will be distractions ahead... That's very telling, Parag implicitly admits major changes coming up. There is a theory on Twitter that Elon will attempt an outright takeover.
  • PixyMisa 5y ago
    This is Twitter we're talking about. There's at least seven competing theories that space lizards will attempt an outright takeover.
• mdoms 5y ago
  There is absolutely no chance that this was Elon's decision. He was pushed out, most likely because of his recent shitposting about turning the Twitter office into a homeless shelter.
• memish 5y ago
  An optimist would think he's going to take it over. Look at his track record. Tesla and SpaceX are industry defining achievements. Fixing Twitter isn't as hard as that.
  • madeofpalk 5y ago
    “Fixing Twitter is easy” is what leads to Facebook to facilitate literal genocide in countries on the other side of the world.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • drewrv 5y ago
    I think that him taking over Twitter would be terrible for everyone involved. The general public would be better off if Tesla and/or SpaceX actually accomplished their stated goals. What they’ve done is great but they’re not done and need leadership. Twitter would be way worse off if he turned it into Gab or 4chan with an edit button. Both their product and their financials. Musk himself is turning into a cringy Twitter troll. If a friend of mine were acting like that I’d tell them to put the phone down and go for a walk. The less he thinks about Twitter the better.
  • notahacker 5y ago
    "Fixing" Twitter is a much less well defined goal than building an electric car that's commercially viable or space tech that's operationally reliable. Current evidence suggests Musk is both capable of building industry defining electric car and space tech companies and incapable of "fixing" his own tweets to the extent that they stop getting him into trouble and losing him board seats.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• daguava 5y ago
  • sjtgraham 5y ago
    • bradlys 5y ago
      Ooooh, he remembers a lot of people. He'll quote people from years ago that he blocked on Twitter. He definitely remembers people who he feels slighted by.
      • mlindner 5y ago
        > He'll quote people from years ago that he blocked on Twitter. [Citation needed] This is one of the silliest things I've heard people make up about Musk.
        • bradlys 5y ago
          > [Citation needed] > This is one of the silliest things I've heard people make up about Musk. https://youtu.be/Ebxiu1-RoKI?t=1278 https://youtu.be/Ebxiu1-RoKI?t=1278 Have fun licking his boot.
          • mlindner 5y ago
            Hasan Abi, lol. Also that video doesn't show anything what you're claiming. Thanks for polluting my watch history with that idiot.
        • ben_w 5y ago
          I’m not sure why that would be silly; I can remember things said by people I blocked years ago on the internet, generally the thing that made me block them.
          • 5y ago
• inter_netuser 5y ago
  elon taking over twitter is pessimistic?
• aaronbrethorst 5y ago
  Perhaps a realist would suspect that Elon is mercurial and easily bored.
  • twblalock 5y ago
    He probably does some trolling on purpose, too, and this might be one of those times. It really is hard to tell.
  • mostdataisnice 5y ago
    It would be an unmitigated disaster to have this dude on the board - his decorum is totally unacceptable
    • aaronbrethorst 5y ago
      To be fair, we are talking about Twitter here.
    • thetrb 5y ago
      what's also scary is that he could do this with pretty much every public company he wants (very few exceptions of companies with >200B market cap or so).
      • grumple 5y ago
        I suspect he doesn't have that much liquidity. Twitter is number 484 by market cap.
    • aa-jv 5y ago
      >totally unacceptable Who decides?
    • jfoster 5y ago
      Even if it improves the performance of the company? What's more important, to have things orderly, or performant?
    • mensetmanusman 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• paxys 5y ago
  The explanation is as clear as you'll get. They wanted Elon to act like a board member – be a fiduciary of the company, be trusted with confidential data, consult leadership before making announcements, don't disparage it in public. Elon decided that being able to Tweet about the company on a whim was more important to him.
  • pas 5y ago
    does the SEC care whether you are on the board or not if you have a very sizable stake anyway?
    • andy_ppp 5y ago
      I don't actually know for sure, but I seem to remember Carl Icann being extremely vocal from outside of the board when at Yahoo! back in the day.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • ffggvv 5y ago
      yes because the board gets confidential info and has a fiduciary duty. a sizeable investor is no different than us in that they have no non-public info
  • mapster 5y ago
    Yes, he acts in bad faith and manipulates stock. Elon while brilliant is on the autistic spectrum, I think he admitted as much.
• thebeastie 5y ago
  He seems to be playing with fire, they could ban him and that would seriously damage him.
  • TMWNN 5y ago
    >He seems to be playing with fire, they could ban him and that would seriously damage him. If Twitter is afraid of Musk interfering with things as they are, the best possible way to get Musk to buy the company (with what would be pocket change for him) would be to ban him.
    • thebeastie 5y ago
      https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-14/elon-musk-launches-43-billion-hostile-takeover-of-twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-14/elon-musk... Musk one step ahead.
• FactoryReboot 5y ago
  What’s pessimistic about thinking Elon wants more control than a board position would offer him?
• ckastner 5y ago
  > 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. I also find quite amusing the fact that Twitter's original 140 character limitation stemmed from compatibility with SMS gateways. That part of Twitter is now all but obsolete, I assume. But we're left in a regressed state where people still communicate long-form text as if going through SMS ("threads").
  • incrudible 5y ago
    These constraints are good. Brevity is the soul of wit. Nobody wants to read your essay. If you want to tweet longer, you should pay for it, one way or another.
• 454544545 5y ago
  > with little benefit. I would say one of the first changes would be to re-instate Trump, which would bring back a huge amount of free marketing. Here is a single account that by far generated the most brand awareness of Twitter than anything else. "Twitter" was mentioned in every news outlet every single day. And it drove engagement from both sides. I think a lot of people can see the liberal bias hurting the company and were waiting for something like this. Just look at how many people are coming out from the wood work talking about free speech. The funny thing is that here is a platform where you can choose who you listen to and who you don't by following and blocking, contrasted to all other news outlets who give you no filtering options, and force you to literally switch off the service if you don't want to hear from someone. It makes no sense for Twitter to need to ban people.
• gitfan86 5y ago
  If you work at Twitter and you have spent more than 5 hours a week on non job related slack channels at any time over the past 3 years you need to look for a new job. Elon is going to take over and fire about 80% of the employees and run it efficiently like his other companies.
  • relaxing 5y ago
    That’s a thing? People wasting hours on Slack is a rampant issue?