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

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• rprenger 5y ago
  Is this a high enough price to be considered a "Bear Hug"? I immediately thought of this scene from Succession: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4QHqjel4kI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4QHqjel4kI
• evancoop 5y ago
  Bezos buys the Washington Post, Musk buys Twitter...Now we need to long for the world where megalomaniacal billionaires just bought football teams?
• jms703 5y ago
  Take a look at the world around us. If you’re a Twitter employee, how much does this really matter? If the worst happens you will find a new job in no time. You will still be far better off financially than most people in the world today.
• thecleaner 5y ago
  @dang Will you be writing a blog with the technical issues that happened which caused server load ? Would be much appreciated.
• notSupplied 5y ago
  The saddest thing about this bid going through is that we're going to miss out on the next SpaceX or Tesla and he's going to be pulling his hair out over this intead.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• acqbu 5y ago
  b0LL0X
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• Caylio 5y ago
  K
• amznbyebyebye 5y ago
  Basically whether it’s rational to dump his stake in Twitter to you or me doesn’t matter. He Carries enough influence that investors will spook and it may trigger a sell off. It’s possible Dorsey knew this was coming and parag is enjoying the leftovers
• oxplot 5y ago
  How the hell is this a hostile takeover? No one’s even responded to the offer yet? Shitty ass clock bait headline.
• lesgobrandon 5y ago
• mrtksn 5y ago
  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 you ensure that someone is not gaming the system, i.e. someone pretending to be more than one person. Add some other social mechanisms that we organically use in our daily lives to combat bad actors, for example if someone is caught BS'ing degrade their reputation and amplify the defence of the victims(thus, solve the problem of sensational lie being viewed a million times and no one seeing the correction). Filter bubbles? Doesn't have to be a thing, you have all the data to detect bubbles and pop them by introducing them to each other. "More from the same" algos are a choice, TikTok successfully serves you new content - doesn't think that just because you liked a cat you want cats and cats only.
  • nonrandomstring 5y ago
    Musk may be about to make the biggest mistake of his career. This BBC article [1] posted a little earlier seems to indicate it's not NFT's that are slipping here so much as interest in Twitter. He seems to be acquiring this for the wrong motives when he could easily build a much better rival with different values. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61102759 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61102759
    • outsb 5y ago
      > easily build a much better rival Bootstrapping a network the size of Twitter is nothing like easy, and might even be impossible this late in the game. Gold rushes of new users tend to wear off as new areas calcify into established concepts. (The same would be true for launching a modern day FriendFeed / Bebo / MySpace etc)
      • nonrandomstring 5y ago
        > Gold rushes of new users tend to wear off as new areas calcify into established concepts. I hear ya. It's the crowd he's buying. But to me Twitter has no "established concept". Maybe I'm the stupidest person on the planet right now, but what exactly is Twitter? Does Musk have a brilliant solution looking for a problem. Or is this just playing games with money and power for it's own sake?
• Ekaros 5y ago
  I doubt he will make it actually work, but at least it will be fun show to watch from outside. There will be some changes if he succeeds. And the effects of those should generate plenty of content to follow.
• zegl 5y ago
  > The takeover is unlikely to be a drawn out process. “If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” said Musk. Is he holding his own existing shares as hostage?
  • kmlx 5y ago
    1. selling that much stock will dent investor confidence in twitter. 2. Musk exiting twitter will again dent investor confidence. tldr there will be a huge sell-off if Musk's offer is rejected and he follows-up with dumping the stock.
    • cloutchaser 5y ago
      Yeah, he's given a decent carrot to the current shareholders to sell, and an even bigger stick to beat them to do it as they will lose a lot if they don't sell.
      • gitfan86 5y ago
        The only way they can reject this offer is if they have proof that a bigger offer is incoming. If they reject and the stock goes down to $20, there will be lawsuits.
        • colinmhayes 5y ago
          Lawsuits from who? The shareholders are the ones who are voting here.
          • zwily 5y ago
            Lawsuits by the shareholders suing the board for not accepting the offer. Happens all the time.
            • 5y ago
• qualudeheart 5y ago
  Good old activist investing. Carl Icahn would be proud.
  • mardifoufs 5y ago
    Activist investors almost never buy the entire company outright. The objective is to buy enough stock to have influence on the board, pressure them to make changes that they think would be beneficial and then sell. I think the last time twitter was targeted by actual activist investors, they never bought more than 5-6% of the stock but that was enough to force Dorsey to make changes.
    • MrMan 5y ago
      one has to wonder why those dumb old economy guys have never taken twitter apart and tried to turn it around like Musk proposes? they are probably too dumb
      • Iolaum 5y ago
        what works for Musk does not necessarily work for other people too
        • Ekaros 5y ago
          Yeah, any other person or company unlike Tesla wouldn't be able to fuel the levels he does... I really don't understand that, but thankfully I don't have enough money to bet against him...
        • MrMan 5y ago
          I see his number one publicly visible skill as being a great shill and a master marketer. I agree that not everyone can do this. but is it possible there are skills that people at activist hedge funds have that Musk and his team may not have in equal measure?
      • toomuchtodo 5y ago
        > they are probably too dumb On the contrary. They were making investments. This is Musk’s version of buying a yacht, but one that amplifies his persona and increases his wealth. Matt Levine talks about this in detail in his most recent Money Stuff piece.
• rvz 5y ago
  Good. Twitter is actually dying [0] (and Musk knows it [1]). For its survival it needs to be saved from itself, by taking it private. Well done to Musk for doubling down. [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/11/15/2-comparing-highly-active-and-less-active-tweeters/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/11/15/2-comparing-... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30973239
  • fpo 5y ago
    I don’t understand how [0] suggests Twitter is dying. Is a power law distribution of content production on a social network that strange? What % of HN comments come from the top N accounts? Is Twitter lying about growing user numbers?
• belter 5y ago
  We had the Bernanke Put now the Musk Put 1) Buy 9 % of shares 2) Announce intention to buy 100% 3) Look share price rise 4) Sell shares 5) Profit! PS: Note to Musk -> If you are looking to control a company you don't need to buy 100% of shares. Just a majority of shares or special rights shares if they exist. Save your money and help the less lucky ones: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/02/mackenzie-scott-jeff-bezos-charitable-giving#:~:text=Last%20June%2C%20for%20example%2C%20she,million%20from%20the%20former%20first https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/02/mackenzie-scott-jeff...
  • ekianjo 5y ago
    when you own 100% you can make it private again.
    • belter 5y ago
      And the only reason you would make it private is?
      • vntok 5y ago
        Avoiding the requirement to file quarterly earnings reports.
      • throwmeariver1 5y ago
        You don't have to please your shareholders.
      • MrMan 5y ago
        to do another IPO
      • zthrowaway 5y ago
        Being more aggressive with changes to the company and its product without a market freaking out over it.
      • ekianjo 5y ago
        you can do whatever you want and stop caring about meeting every quarters goals
• AzzieElbab 5y ago
  Interesting. I think Musk will be under tones of pressure. How would one play the market against him? Shorts?
  • qsi 5y ago
    Once he's taken it private, supposing he succeeds, you can't short the stock anymore as there won't be shares to borrow (or buy, or sell).
    • AzzieElbab 5y ago
      That is the thing. I would never bet against him but I don’t think he will pull this through
      • qsi 5y ago
        Oh, I see. In that case the stock is likely to decline from current levels and you should short it. (Not Investment Advice!)
• skilled 5y ago
  [redacted comment complaining about the use of word "hostile" in title which apparently is a financial term]
  • john_cogs 5y ago
    Hostile takeover is an investment term. When you attempt to buy a company without the board’s consent, it is considered a hostile takeover.
  • ekianjo 5y ago
    hostile takeover is a common way to describe the fact that you are taking over a company by buying back its public share. Nothing unusual if you read financial news.
    • qsi 5y ago
      And specifically without the board's consent, or in active opposition to the board.
• helsinkiandrew 5y ago
  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 different.
  • metafunctor 5y ago
    Yeah. I mostly left Twitter about 9 years ago (!) for the same reasons. I wonder if a celebrity like Musk is overestimating how important Twitter really is. Because in my view, it's a cesspool of self-promoters, hate, corporate marketing and superficial populism. I believe correcting that course is impossible. It's been like that for 10 years with no change.
    • AlexandrB 5y ago
      > Because in my view, it's a cesspool of self-promoters, hate, corporate marketing and superficial populism. Isn't this all social media?
      • metafunctor 5y ago
        I count HN as a social media, so no.
  • gitfan86 5y ago
    There are four goals. #1 make twitter efficient. firing 80-90% of the employees and replacing them with effective workers and management saves a ton of money. #2. Mitigate the bots and trolls by requiring payment and identification. #3. Open the feed algorithm and give people more control #4. Reduce the silencing of users. The last one is probably going to turn out to be harder than Elon expects. If Elon owned Youtube this week he would be sued for enabling the NYC subway terrorist. Same thing will happen on Twitter once he owns it.
• lvl102 5y ago
  He actually dismissed Twitter’s management so I am guessing they’re slated to be demoted or fired if he takes over. Should they sell? I mean it’s such a bizarrely undervalued company. It’s like buying a plot of land on fifth avenue that’s owned by a convenience store and the store owner wants to charge for a skyscraper market rate.
  • objclxt 5y ago
    > I mean it’s such a bizarrely undervalued company. Is it, though? Snap's market cap is $56 billion right now, and they have more MAU than Twitter (~320 million vs ~220 million).
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • l-lousy 5y ago
      I have NEVER seen an ad on Snapchat because all I do is send pictures and chat. Twitter has a user base that is a lot more engaged and can easily be captured by ads.
      • whimsicalism 5y ago
        You are just a millennial, this is why you undervalue Snapchat.
    • barnabee 5y ago
      Twitter is where people who are or will be powerful, influential, or impactful get their information, form their opinions, and often debate really important topics. So I’d agree it’s undervalued in terms of utility if it’s not priced an order of magnitude or more higher than Snap. Whether that value can or should be captured as profit or is a public good, implying Twitter should operate more like a utility or non-profit is another question…
      • UncleMeat 5y ago
• MichaelRazum 5y ago
  Why not. Makes totally sense. Twitter gets a better image. Right now there is a real risk that something like gettr will take off.
  • lorenzfx 5y ago
    You live in a very different world than I if for you, the associating of Twitter with Mr. Musk improves Twitters image.
    • MichaelRazum 5y ago
      I live in world where Mr. Musk have developed the two most amazing companies SpaceX and Tesla. So in what world do you live?
  • ctvo 5y ago
    I don’t know what I worry about more, sinkholes swallowing my car whole on the way to work or needing to register on Gettr when it replaces Twitter.
• endisneigh 5y ago
  It’s interesting to contextualize this with a regular persons life. This amount will present about 1/7 of his net worth. However unlike a traditional purchase this will be n investment and depending on how it goes, he can get even more money. If an average person had a max net worth of 3 million this would be like them deciding to buy a 400K investment property, or a laundry mat. That aside, this is also a great example of how easy it is to become richer if you’re rich. Musk buys at $39 pumps all month to $54. He can either sell and easily make billions profit or take over the entire company at what can only be described as a discount compared to potential. Not to mention twitters stock hardly does well. He can just try again on the next dip if he likes.
  • qsi 5y ago
    That's not quite how it works if you make a formal takeover offer. It's basically telling existing shareholders that he'll buy their stock at $54. If enough of them don't want to sell (depending on how it's structured), the deal falls through. It's a one-off purchase at $54 if it does go through. He can't buy more stock in the interim (I think).
    • endisneigh 5y ago
      Yes, but if they do not agree the price will: 1. Go to above $54, in which case musk profits and he can try again later (headwinds are strong in tech generally right now) 2. Go between $39 and $54 in which musk profits 3. Drop under $39 in which musk can further solidify his stake, for much cheaper than his takeover offer. There’s basically no scenario in which musk loses assuming he’s serious and is willing to play the long game. Musk will either make a lot of money, or own Twitter.
      • asdfaoeu 5y ago
        > Musk will either make a lot of money, or own Twitter. I mean maybe he still acquires Twitter but that could be in 20 years after it's been run into the ground.
    • Aeolun 5y ago
• michelb 5y ago
  What a clown. Probably made the offer knowing it won't get accepted anyway. Then sells his shares at a nice profit and goes on with his day. That said, it would be interesting to see how Musk would destroy Twitter, instead of seeing Twitter continue to do it themselves.
  • gonzo41 5y ago
    How is that not market manipulation? Isn't this sort of thing regulated?
    • baq 5y ago
      wouldn't be the first fine he got from the SEC... he'll get the laws changed at some point if he keeps being himself, maybe that's half the point?
      • rcstank 5y ago
        Why would he get a fine from the SEC? He filed this takeover with the SEC in the first place. He's following all of their rules.
    • qsi 5y ago
      Because he filed the takeover offer with the SEC (the regulator) today. This is the way it should be done.
  • BukhariH 5y ago
    He made the offer at a 40% premium on the April 1st close. Twitter is a dying social network - sounds like a pretty good deal.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• gonzo41 5y ago
  This seems like a massive waste of money. Firstly, it will kill remaining trust in twitter and secondly the opportunity cost of spending that much money, like why not expand Telsa into India, or Asia in a big way.
  • belter 5y ago
    Look at Oligarchs Yachts and that tells you everything about the ego of Billionaires. It is not about the money.
    • gonzo41 5y ago
      Yeah, I get that, but for someone who talks a lot about his singular desire to do more space exploration, things like a tunneling company, a rocket company and an electric car company make sense. Twitter doesn't fit in that group too easily.
      • Iolaum 5y ago
        Elon's ventures are big enough now that they are a key thing in the politics game. I 'd wager one aspect of this is making sure his voice stands out (to be able to influence politicians 'bottom up').
        • gonzo41 5y ago
          Seems like a cheaper move to open a PAC.
          • Ekaros 5y ago
            What I missing about this is that is he actually going to take it private or fold it to some other company with massive over valuation like Tesla... In later case it will make money for him, because people are stupid... In first case it really seem expensive wasteful thing, billions buy lot of lobbying power...
• panick21_ 5y ago
  I don't think on Twitter we should be 'free speech absolutists'. Its a private company, no need for lots of people. What I would actually like is seriously shooting down these idiotic bots. Like seriously, they have the exact same name and picture as the main account. How the fuck do we not have machine learning, fuck a bunch of bash-scripts to figure this out? It makes the platform borderline unusable how much crypto spam bots exist on it. That said, not a fan of Musk waste his time with Twitter. SpaceX, Tesla are plenty.
  • somehnacct3757 5y ago
    The bots are necessary for the quarterly user counts to look good during the shareholder report. Once they've finished pretending the bot accounts have ad-watching eyeballs, they follow up a couple months later with a token crackdown of some small amount of them.
    • panick21_ 5y ago
      Maybe less relevant if it were private.
  • trollied 5y ago
    Musk already proposed a small fee per user to verify them. This would add a cost to bots, which would dramatically reduce the numbers. https://techxplore.com/news/2022-04-musk-twitter-dogecoin.html https://techxplore.com/news/2022-04-musk-twitter-dogecoin.ht...
    • LegitShady 5y ago
      musks fee is proposed on blue checkmarks only, not all users. Not sure it would dramatically reduce anything except blue checkmarks.
• refurb 5y ago
  Sometimes being reckless and a heretic helps society move forward. I'm starting to become a fan of Musk. Guy is sitting on $256B in net worth. That's so rich it's like trying to picture the distance from the earth to the sun, your brain struggles. I get the sense he's going to be the Howard Hughes of our time. Weird ideas and a ton of money make for some interesting moves. Not everything he does will be positive, but his imprint will be one for the history books.
  • john_the_writer 5y ago
    When I hear people bag on him I ask a few questions.. Name one man who has done more for EV and by extension the environment? Name one man who has done more for SelfDriving, and by extension road safety? Space travel? He might fail at half what he does, but yeah..
  • suction 5y ago
    The most American take possible, I guess.
• jdrc 5y ago
  Well you should have nationalized it while you could've BTW why is this called hostile?
  • refurb 5y ago
    Nothing better than the CIA having a say on what tweets are allowed.
  • neonnoodle 5y ago
    Standard terminology for when an acquisition is pitched directly to the shareholders against the wishes (or irrespective of the wishes) of the board.
  • k8sToGo 5y ago
    Who is you?
    • jdrc 5y ago
      americans. we had a discussion about that a few days ago
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • xxs 5y ago
    Non-hostile version of a takeover requires a board approval at least. Depending on the jurisdiction and the company bylaws certain amount of the shareholders (say 75%+) has to vote for the takeover to actually happen. Edit: Under normal circumstance, single entities cannot 'easily' obtain a large share of the stocks even if they actively buy.
• edent 5y ago
  So he is pumping up the share price and, if he doesn't get his way he will dump his shares. I wonder if there's a name for this sort of behaviour?
  • bogantech 5y ago
    BDE
  • robjan 5y ago
    If the hostile takeover fails the price will tank before he exits.
    • rdsubhas 5y ago
      > price will tank making a subsequent buy/takeover even more easier?
  • trixie_ 5y ago
    It would make sense if he needed the money, but he doesn't.
• frays 5y ago
  This time last year he was the reason why Dogecoin skyrocketed. Look at where it is now. Don't let him do this to Twitter.
• RivieraKid 5y ago
  This is terrible. A person like Elon Musk should not hold more power.
  • laichzeit0 5y ago
    A person “like” him? What does that even mean? You mean a successful entrepreneur? Or will we instead only focus on what you believe to be any negative characteristics? Do us a favour if you reply: list what is great about people like Elon Musk, and then list what is bad about people like him please.
    • RivieraKid 5y ago
      Someone who: - is deeply dishonest - manipulative - narcissistic - is known to have outbursts of rage during which he shouts and insults employees - is known to publicly humiliate employees - has been reported to physically assault an employee - takes revenge against journalists, Twitter users or divers - the forms of revenge includes doxxing, personally asking the person's employer to get them fired, publicly accusing the victim of pedophilia - is a narcissistic attention whore who has complained in leaked emails that the media don't talk about him enough - has no empathy
      • laichzeit0 5y ago
        Ah ok so you deliberately choose to ignore listing all his positive attributes. I can’t take your criticisms seriously because it shows wilful bias. You realize half of what you wrote could be levelled against Steve Jobs as well?
        • RivieraKid 5y ago
          No, I deliberately chose to not follow your order. And I was actually writing this for other readers, not for you.
  • Ekaros 5y ago
    Can't be worse than current leadership or direction of Twitter...
• TigeriusKirk 5y ago
  What's the relationship between Jack and Musk? Are they buddies? Do they hate each other? Is that relationship a factor here?
• wdb 5y ago
  Buying Twitter is probably an easy way to get that Twitter account tracking his airplane to be closed down Personally, I am seeing this a potential way to limit the freedom even more on Twitter than already happening.
  • H8crilA 5y ago
    Lol. There will be about 99 new accounts sharing the same information, since ADS-B data is public information.
  • mlindner 5y ago
    Why do people keep thinking this is about petty minor things?
    • sigmar 5y ago
      I mean, the above comment leaves open that there are many reasons. Is it so crazy that he would use money to take down the account after offering money for the owner to take down the account?
      • mlindner 5y ago
        You assume that he wasn't just trying to make it worth the guy's well for a bit of privacy. He didn't think the guy had any other reasons to be tracking his plane than making a quick buck through his donations page. He stopped bothering once he realized the guy had petty ambitions for fame. (Which btw that guy continues to play up for the media and drags out the idea long after Musk has dropped it.)
  • misiti3780 5y ago
    Let me guess, the 2020 election was stolen and you also believed in Pizzagate?
• paganel 5y ago
  I personally think this is excellent, in the great scheme of things, maybe this will open a real discussion about the real oligarchic nature of the US political and societal life at the top. I mean, with tech titan (and second wealthiest man on the planet) Bezos owning the WaPo, the moment the tech titan (and the wealthiest man on the planet) Musk will put his hands on Twitter hopefully will also be the moment of some "enlightenment" for the educated masses. Or maybe I'm just day-dreaming.
  • BeKindAndLearn 5y ago
    Oligarchs controlling every form of my mass communication can only make things worse, though.
    • jesusofnazarath 5y ago
    • SteveDR 5y ago
      Isn’t that the current state of things? If musk makes this purchase it won’t centralize power any more, but it will draw attention to how centralized that power is. Which is a good thing
      • sohdas 5y ago
        You're saying that oligarchs taking control is good because it will cause more people to realize that oligarchs are taking control?
        • addingnumbers 5y ago
          He's saying that ownership by a loud, conspicuous oligarch generates more public scrutiny than a quiet, inconspicuous one.
          • quickthrower2 5y ago
• exikyut 5y ago
  Ooooh, maybe this is what the > "There will be distractions ahead ... let's tune out the noise and stay focused on the work and what we're building" from the other day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984215) meant...
  • gigglesupstairs 5y ago
    Haha good catch
  • randomsearch 5y ago
    Complete speculation, but after seeing that and then the offer, i immediately thought “ok, they had some negotiation, Elon made demands, the board refused, he threatened to buy the company and fire them, the board refused… and now he is following through.” I don’t think he’s an idiot though, so there must also be some other upside here. Certainly there’s value to unlock in Twitter. Does he need the cash?
    • sangnoir 5y ago
      > I don’t think he’s an idiot though, so there must also be some other upside here. Maybe he's just petty? There wasn't an upside to calling that diver a "pedo guy", but Musk was nursing a vendetta due to perceived slights in the past.
      • randomsearch 5y ago
        I take that particular insult to be something spontaneous and the purchase of twitter to be something more considered.
        • sangnoir 5y ago
          Only if he intends to through with it. Without making any claims; it is in the realms of possibility that a pissed off billionaire would intentionally tank the stock price of a company whose board offended them and make a small profit, or small loss (relatively), depending on the spread of shares he'd already bought. Even if the stock price doesn't tank, they'd spin wheels for weeks, while mired in busywork.
• pavlov 5y ago
  I’ve been very unhappy with my Twitter use because it has an addiction pattern. I set a short screen time limit on my phone, but I keep breaking it. Yet browsing the feed generally makes me feel sad and anxious. This news may be what I needed to delete my account.
  • cbg0 5y ago
    It sounds like you should be unhappy with your own addictive tendencies and not necessarily Twitter. You may want to reach out to a specialist if you feel this is negatively impacting your life, as you'll likely start doing the same with some other app.
• arrakis2021 5y ago
  Good. Twitter is a hate factory. And it is failing as a business. A shake up is overdue.
  • bikamonki 5y ago
    Can it be fixed though? The hate factory is the end-game of how the software was built (follows, retweets, etc) and how people use the software. What is the plan here? Re-program Twitter? Invent a new social network where the end-game is not a hate factory?
    • thehappypm 5y ago
      I don’t see Instagram as a hate factory at all.
      • bikamonki 5y ago
        Yet...
• MrMan 5y ago
  the things Musk says about twitter in the press release, dont seem to be necessarily true - that twitter has some unique social utility, or a great deal more value that is not being maximized. I guess reality distortion fields work, but people are wise to twitter, and what it is and isnt good for. and any changes or enhancements that make it worth 70 per share once more are likely to be more about new engagement models like 10 second videos or something, not crossing some imaginary line of maximal free speech. I dont know.
• ss108 5y ago
  > Free speech absolutism is possible and is beneficial I don't think we have evidence to support this. Pursuant to the last major thread on the topic, I was thinking further about it, and realized that the vast majority of progress civilization has made has been under conditions much more regulated in terms of which ideas may propagate. We've never had a situation where fake news can and does spread the way it does today, where authorities are being undermined like this and casually dismissed by people with no knowledge of the respective fields, etc. The notion that all speech should be allowed actually seems stupid to me on its face, the more that I consider it.
  • civilized 5y ago
    > the vast majority of progress civilization has made has been under conditions much more regulated in terms of which ideas may propagate. Lots of good things have happened in spite of bad conditions that hampered progress. These bad conditions have often revolved around a lack of freedom of expression, especially in the modern era, where this has been extensively documented. For example, there has historically been intense stigma for expressing skepticism of the local religion, and scientists have famously suffered for it. Should we bring that back as well, since most progress has been made under such conditions? If not, why? Do you like today's authorities better than those of centuries past?
    • beowulfey 5y ago
      Aren’t we already there? Just replace local religion with local ideology/belief. Edit: parent expanded their comment.
      • ianai 5y ago
        And isn’t twitter really reinforcing that already? So the sun rises and sets as it has for billions of years in the past and will another billion at least.
        • beowulfey 5y ago
• LightG 5y ago
  Deleted my 3 twitter profiles last week when this started going down. I feel incredibly healthier mentally. You should try it.
• mupuff1234 5y ago
  How did it actually get to the situation that none of the Twitter co-founders have any significant ownership?
  • aliswe 5y ago
    external capital exchanged for shares. Twitter has been a loss making company for most of the years
  • traviswt 5y ago
    Maybe losing faith and selling out?
    • mynameishere 5y ago
      When someone gives you a million dollars for a weekend project you take the million dollars.
  • HWR_14 5y ago
    Twitter never issued supervoting shares like most tech other companies did to the founders.
• thenoblesunfish 5y ago
  The title of this should be changed to the title of the article, "Elon Musk Makes $43 Billion Unsolicited Bid to Take Twitter Private". The current title given here implies that Musk is likely to take over Twitter, which doesn't seem true after reading the article (which includes a quote about the proposed price being too low to be taken seriously).
  • oska 5y ago
    I'd suggest instead that the submission should be changed to point to Elon's actual official offer statement: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465... We don't need Bloomberg's analysis/interpretation, we can do that here.
• prepend 5y ago
  I think social media is a real negative force in the world and welcome this as potentially a way to make it better, or at least destroy Twitter and remove one outlet. I don’t think public companies can reform social media because it’s too profitable. As a private company it may be possible to reform it to still be profitable, but not in a way that harms people.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • nonethewiser 5y ago
    Well Twitter is both public and unprofitable.
  • SamineDylah 5y ago
    I feel a benevolent dictator could actually move Twitter in the right direction here... better that than a malevolent (profit motivated) plutocracy. (Although a. At best it would only be partially benevolent, and b. It will still be a plutocracy)
• Tenoke 5y ago
  >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.
  • rosndo 5y ago
    That’s not how any of this works.
  • aliswe 5y ago
    Excuse to sell? by doing this and then selling though would dump the stock price. Why not just simply sell?
    • Tenoke 5y ago
      Because then he'd have created less pandemonium AND looked even worse (especially with the late filling).
    • peeters 5y ago
      Private takeovers usually assume a premium share price. The more credible a buyout offer is, the closer the stock price will rise to the offered price. It's exactly what got Musk in trouble for tweeting about taking Tesla private in 2018.
  • asdfaoeu 5y ago
    He only needs a majority of the shareholders to agree.
• justforfunhere 5y ago
  Any twitter employees here? Whats your take on this? Do you feel happy or anxious or do not care?
  • Havoc 5y ago
    I doubt any of them are stupid enough to comment publicly on hostile takeovers...
    • gigglesupstairs 5y ago
      No one is verifying their identity here, if they want to make a comment, they very well can
  • bombcar 5y ago
    Given the reports of how freaked out employees were on the possibility of Musk on the board, they must be fleeing in droves now that he'd own the company.
• sdfjkl 5y ago
  I hope the Fediverse can handle the onslaught of two consecutive marketing campaigns.
  • jdrc 5y ago
    Time to dust off those RSS readers
• tasubotadas 5y ago
  This is great news. Twitter definitely has potential but at the moment it is a cespool of triggered personalities where the voice of the sane and interesting people is drowned in an endless screaming.
  • dorkwood 5y ago
    Is Elon one of the interesting people? Let's look at a couple of his most recent tweets: "Weather is fake. I seen Truman Show!" "69.420% of statistics are false" Personally, this content is exactly the type of thing I try to filter out. Unfunny, uninteresting fluff.
    • mhh__ 5y ago
      He genuinely isn't funny. Even Trump had a certain traumatized stand-up element to his rambling, whereas Elon just sounds like a man surrounded by people telling him how smart he is all the time.
    • NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
      I find it hilarious and refreshing for someone so rich and so powerful to not have a focus group tested, bland, grey façade. He completely embraces the juvenile humor that I hope I have until the day I die. Just my personal opinion.
• markus_zhang 5y ago
  I wonder who is his ally (inside and financial). This could be interesting.
• incomingpain 5y ago
  Who didn't know this was coming? Imagine you're Musk. You have a bijjilion and 1 $. You use twitter heavily and see huge issues, you even see the results of your poll. You buy it for $50 billion and you fix those huge issues because they are in fact trivial to solve. The valuation of twitter would only go up, but Musk isn't even looking at it from a value investing point of view. He's looking at it from a societal point of view. He's looking at it from a 'worth more than currency' value. Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding. -Albert Einstein This isn't about nation to nation. This is about so many subjects. The peace between the republicans and democrats is only being kept by force right now. Censoring your political opponents eliminates the possibility of understanding.
• crocwrestler 5y ago
  • gigantecmedia 5y ago
    truth! very excited about Twitter's future after hearing about this.
    • toiletfuneral 5y ago
  • idk1 5y ago
    I think Elon Musk is a free speech absolutist, so woke people - or who are against social injustice and racism - will remain on Twitter. (Which I personally think is a good thing.)
    • emerged 5y ago
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • weakfish 5y ago
    Could you provide a beneficial contribution besides writing 'deranged wokies' ? Comments like this add _nothing_ and just make people angry at each other.
• snowwrestler 5y ago
  As a Twitter shareholder I would vote against this. Musk says there is tremendous financial potential in Twitter but then offers $54 a share, which is not even 2x the IPO price. That’s not a “tremendous potential” premium. There is a lot of evidence that platforms which de-prioritize moderation have trouble attracting revenue and experience significant compliance costs. See: the sad story of Moot, who ran one of the most popular social websites in the world and ended up with absolutely nothing to show for it. This looks more like a hobby to me than a business decision. Hobbies are fine as long as they don’t distract from the job, like Bezos buying Washington Post (he is a hands-off owner who spends very little time on it). But Musk is in two high-risk positions with Tesla and SpaceX. He worked over last Thanksgiving and sent a rather dramatic email about it. So I would be concerned about his ability to multi-task. He has already tried to run three businesses at once and he had to use Tesla to bail himself out of Solar City’s troubles.
  • hackernewds 5y ago
    This assumes Musk is serious about his offer. Recently he did the same with Doge _buys Dogecoin_ "TSLA will accept Dogecoin" TSLA does not accept Dogecoin. Musk sells Dogecoin for a profit "Jk"
  • jmull 5y ago
    My first thought on hearing this was, "What a low-ball offer. This isn't really serious."
    • polski-g 5y ago
      25% over current share is price quite typical.
      • JacobThreeThree 5y ago
        Yeah, the idea that if an offer is not twice the IPO price it's not a good offer, doesn't make much sense.
        • 5y ago
• hmate9 5y ago
  Arguably he already has it but if Elon manages to turn Twitter around and grow it to be on par with Facebook and TikTok then nobody could deny he has the greatest Midas touch in the world.
• tannerbrockwell 5y ago
  "The Reporting Person intends to review his investment in the Issuer on a continuing basis. Depending on the factors discussed herein, the Reporting Person may, from time to time, acquire additional shares of Common Stock and/or retain and/or sell all or a portion of the shares of Issuer common stock held by the Reporting Person in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions, and/or may distribute the Common Stock held by the Reporting Person to other entities." [1] [1]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...
• Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  From observing various internet forums, including this one, I noticed that people from the "first world" countries don't know the value of free speech and often take it for granted. Sometimes even coming to such views as "free speech is dangerous" and that "we should limit free speech" (by blocking the views I don't like). Understand this: limits on free speech are far more dangerous to society than allowing fringe extremists to spread their ideas. Coming from a country that had made a transition from a (rather messy) democracy to an authoritarian fascist police state in just 15 years, I tell you this: it all started with limits on the freedom of speech.
  • TameAntelope 5y ago
    This is a naive view. Twitter does not enable free speech for a single person on this planet. Every el single prison in the world who can access Twitter can also access any number of other ways to speak freely.
    • Koshkin 5y ago
      But there is a reason why people choose Twitter.com over OtherWaysToSpeak.com.
      • TameAntelope 5y ago
        Not a reason related to their human rights.
  • psyc 5y ago
    Thank you for saying so. As an older American, it’s absolutely maddening and I feel exactly the same way, insofar as people taking it for granted.
  • andrepd 5y ago
    Nice comment (in the style of "I'll get downvoted for this but"), but I don't see how this is remotely related to the article at hand. A multi-hundred-billionaire is bidding for a takeover of one of the largest internet public forums. How is this conducive to free speech?
• RickJWagner 5y ago
  Hee hee. Let's see what The Babylon Bee has to say about this.
  • VerminOctopus1 5y ago
    I’m sure The Onion, but for morons, will have some great insightful takes
  • dmead 5y ago
    I'm sure it consists of owning the libs and maybe other things.
  • ausbah 5y ago
    some horrible bit of "satire" right, something about "two genders" like 99% of their content?
• Zigurd 5y ago
  Twitter shouldn't have part time leadership. So now Twitter should have part time leadership. I'm being unfair, right? So let's qualify that: Twitter shouldn't have part time leadership that is distracted by cryptocurrency. Wait, no...
  • MrMan 5y ago
    ttt
• mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  This isn't what a hostile takeover is. Is it?
  • pyb 5y ago
    Buying a company through a tender offer in order to replace the management is your textbook hostile takeover.
    • DigiDigiorno 5y ago
      I understand hostility isn't a term-of-art or something special, but in business parlance the sources I've read seem to point at hostility being the practical term for "without board/director/management approval" The board determines management, and it appears the offer is only to the board at this time. Hostility depends on the board's lack of approval and continuation of the offer. Maybe I've missed some news, but I only see Musk making a request to the board at this time. Although everything else seems to fit the normal fact-pattern of hostility (wanting change, not being satisfied with current power, escalation, etc.), technically I don't think we are there yet.
• suction 5y ago
  So if he purports that Twitter now limits freedom of speech, the only thing he can mean by that is hate speech, dangerous medical misinformation, conspiracy bs, or calls to violence. I've always had a gut feeling that Musk is politically on the far right spectrum farther than most people would believe, but now that he has joined the ranks of these misguided new right-wing "muh freedom of speech"-warriors, who never had any point to begin with, it's a strong indicator rather than just a feeling.
• adamrezich 5y ago
  pretty crazy to see the sheer unadulterated terror that the mere possibility of free speech absolutism instills in people. this way of thinking was not common like sixteen years ago—what changed?
• 542458 5y ago
  As somebody from the first world who has had the experience of moderating Internet forums… free speech in the sense of “the government generally shouldn’t control people’s speech, with limited exceptions” is good and necessary. Free speech in the sense of “everybody should be forced to platform every idea” is silly IMO. Left alone user content rapidly devolves into the most low-effort salient content - flame wars, political proselytizing and porn, mostly. If you want your platform to be about anything other than those, you need curation and moderation. This is key for a good user experience. Note that you’re choosing to spend your time on HN (a relatively strongly moderated forum) instead of a less moderated forum like 8chan’s /b/.
  • bluescrn 5y ago
    Governments don’t control these massively influential communications platforms (Maybe they should?) In some ways, huge tech companies are more powerful than governments. So why should they have the power to essentially remove ideas from public discussion?
    • boplicity 5y ago
      > So why should they have the power to essentially remove ideas from public discussion? They don't. They never have. You're ascribing way more power to tech companies than they've ever had. That being said, the combined power of tech companies and media companies -- of which there are many -- does have the ability you're talking about. (For example, Fox, Warner, Google, Nytimes, etc.) The lines certainly have become a bit blurred, with Comcast and Verizon buying media companies though.
      • ccn0p 5y ago
        I agree a single company doesn't have all the power, but for some reason they generally seem to act in concert with one another. Take for example the Hunter Biden laptop story. It was suppressed "by mistake" according to Jack himself [1]. Later, survey indicated many voters believed it was a "very important" story [2]. Another example is lab leak. Thus, yes, yes they do. [1] https://nypost.com/2021/03/25/dorsey-says-blocking-posts-hunter-biden-story-was-total-mistake/ https://nypost.com/2021/03/25/dorsey-says-blocking-posts-hun... [2] https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/march_2022/hunter_s_laptop_from_hell_is_an_important_story_voters_sayhttps://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/march_2022/hunter_s_laptop_from_hell_is_an_important_story_voters_say https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/gen...
• avipars 5y ago
  He couldn't have just joined the board first?
• croes 5y ago
  Private company and free speech sounds like an oxymoron. This isn't free speech that's benevolent dictatorship at most.
• Starlevel001 5y ago
  I assume this will mean that if you post the picture of him with Ghislane Maxwell you get instantly banned
• codeulike 5y ago
  I'm worried that something is wrong at Spacex and this is a displacement activity
• koalaman 5y ago
  What happens to employee unvested stock grants when you're taken private?
  • quaintdev 5y ago
    I guess they are forced to sale?
• u801e 5y ago
  The closest thing we had (have) to online free speech was (is) Usenet. But distributors of child porn along with Andrew Cuomo (when he was the New York state attorney general) making a deal with a number of major ISPs resulted in most ISPs discontinuing their Usenet service.
  • Gollapalli 5y ago
    I used to just take accusations of CP at face value, but knowing how entrapment-happy and truth-ambivalent the US Government can be, I find myself wondering if the killing of usenet wasn't just a part of the "hacker crackdown" and the crackdown on piracy. Piracy in particular is not something that most people had/have any real or natural compunction against.
  • imiric 5y ago
    The unregulated nature of Usenet and spam/malware arguably killed it, not a NY politician. ISPs generally didn't carry a lot of newsgroups anyway, and the best service was always from dedicated Usenet providers. Sadly these days it's only useful for binary downloads if you also use an NZB indexer. Does anyone still use it for discussion?
    • u801e 4y ago
      > The unregulated nature of Usenet and spam/malware arguably killed it, not a NY politician. But it did lead to a lot of major ISPs dropping their usenet service around the same time. That killed a lot of existing newsgroups because most, if not all, the regular posters stopped participating. That's what happened to the newsgroups I used to frequent by the late 2000s. > ISPs generally didn't carry a lot of newsgroups anyway, and the best service was always from dedicated Usenet providers On the 3 or so ISPs I used when posting to usenet, they pretty much carried the vast majority of groups under the big 8 hierarchy. But what you say was definitely true for binary groups, where retention and completion were far more important metrics in terms of level of service and usability. > Does anyone still use [usenet] for discussion? I've heard that several of the groups under the comp hierarchy are still relatively active.
• mlindner 5y ago
  As a fan of Musk and his companies, I personally hope this fails. He's already busy enough running SpaceX and Tesla which matter significantly more to the future of humanity than a website that lets people type 280 characters.
  • xwdv 5y ago
    Social media has value to humanity. Long after people land on Mars and spread to the farthest reaches of the solar system, humans will still be social creatures, and thus there will be social media. All of mankind’s achievements and technological advancements eventually culminate in more social media.
    • AlexandrB 5y ago
      Social media, especially in a narrow sense (e.g. Facebook and Twitter are "social media", forums and chat programs are not) is not necessary for humans to interact. Nor is the current model of social media - with "influencers", viral content, and a strong incentive for performative interaction - necessarily the best one for society. Internet communication has value to humanity. I'm not so sure that's true about social media as it exists today.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• owlbynight 5y ago
  It will be fun when the Internet mobilizes a mass exodus to a new or competing platform to fuck him over. He lives his online life with a foot three inches from his mouth, cocked and loaded, and waiting to scatter his brains to the wind. The first time it goes off after the takeover, Twitter will burn to the ground. Because at its core, woke culture isn't righteous; it's petty and it's fueled by have nots fucking with haves because they can.
• mrkramer 5y ago
  What a drama queen. He says Twitter is important for freedom of speech but it is not even open, it is walled garden just like FB, IG etc.
• 5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
  $43 billion to stop some kid from tracking your flights.
• beowulfey 5y ago
  Has Musk made it clear why he thinks Twitter doesn’t serve the goal of free speech with explicit reasons? I don’t follow him so he may have mentioned them in the past.
• thejackgoode 5y ago
  Mostly but not entirely off topic, just something I thought about this morning, a hypothetical feature of twitter. Imagine being able to flip a switch (a “green profile check mark”) that would disable banning and muting features for you. And will only allow another green check marks to engage in conversations with you. Will this help break the echo chambers, or will it create a tyrannical majority? Both?
  • heartbreak 5y ago
    This site has a feature called showdead, and I imagine this hypothetical green checkmark would be about as useful.
    • Siira 5y ago
      Showdead is useful. There are so few dead posts that not turning it on is foolish, at least game theoretically if not pragmatically.
• nprateem 5y ago
  He's blatently planning on running for president
  • Ekaros 5y ago
    Not a natural citizen...
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • xwdv 5y ago
    Just not US President since he was born in South Africa.
  • haunter 5y ago
    Can't see South Africa electing a white person for president in the near future or ever
• vishnugupta 5y ago
  It’s an all cash offer. Do folks here who manage such things educate us how could Musk muster such cash? Genuinely curious.
  • chernevik 5y ago
    He can borrow against his Tesla and Space X holdings. The Twitter stake itself can be used as collateral. Or he can sell shares of them. There is LBO financing, where the purchased company itself borrows to fund the purchase. But I doubt a company as risky as Twitter can borrow a significant fraction of the purchase price. And Musk doesn't have a history of using financial engineering like that.
    • funshed 5y ago
      LBO with Personal Guarantee and Tesla shares as security is strong.
      • chernevik 5y ago
        You're mixing terms. "Leveraged buyout" is really a term of art referring to a purchase largely financed by debt issued by the purchased company. It only works with well established businesses with really reliable revenue streams. If the business fails, the debts go unpaid. I would be surprised if Twitter could raise as much as 10% or 20% of its own purchase price.
  • boeingUH60 5y ago
    Debt financing. It’s easy when you have an enormous net worth as collateral and close relationships with leaders of big banks/investment firms. You can get an idea from Michael Dell’s takeover of his eponymous company. https://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you-wont-have-michael-dell-to-kick-around-anymore/?sh=2649adb62a9b https://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you-...
    • heartbreak 5y ago
• xwdv 5y ago
  As a free speech absolutist, I might actually start using Twitter if it were run by Elon. Unfortunately I’m not terribly optimistic about it happening.
  • amir734jj 5y ago
    The same!
• throwawaymanbot 5y ago
• nojs 5y ago
  Why is the market cap of Twitter so low (not even 10% of fb)?
  • actuator 5y ago
    Facebook has two social media applications, one chat product, Oculus etc. They are more diversified than Twitter. Also, the simple reason is profit. Unlike Twitter, FB makes very high profits on 25x revenue of Twitter
  • Ekaros 5y ago
    It is not actually generating much of net income. Or even losses money.
  • HWR_14 5y ago
    Twitters ads never generated as much as facebooks, and FB offered as services on 3rd party websites.
• IYasha 5y ago
  Removed my tw?tter account in a week, after reading the Terms of Service. Won't regret even if it dies.
• HstryrsrBttn 5y ago
• TeeWEE 5y ago
  Since Elon bought his 9% stake, the value of Twitter increased. He mentions selling his shares if the takeover is not accepted. That would make him a lot of money! His offer is also on the high side, this might make people bullish about twitter. On the other hand, I do think he is genuinely interested in buying twitter. But can't help to feel this might also be lucrative for him if the deal doesn't go through. It seems like Musk has a love hate relationship public companies... That's why SpaceX is still private.
  • algoatecorn 5y ago
    I would argue that SpaceX is private due to its susceptibility to share price crashes. It is an event driven firm. Balance sheets matter, but a SpaceX share price would be just as influenced by a rocket blowing up on live TV (if not more)
  • themitigating 5y ago
    This isn't illegal?
  • joshmlewis 5y ago
    He's not going to be able to sell his 9% stake at the current price without the market reacting negatively. The share price would drop because of the immense selling pressure it would cause. Unless there is another billionaire wanting to eat up all those shares, the supply would simply overwhelm the demand which in turn causes the price to drop until the market was able to meet the supply.
    • hayd 5y ago
      Another thing that makes this take over hostile. If it's rejected, Musk begins to sell his 9%, the stock price tumbles... and share-holders will sue the board. I don't see how they don't have a fiduciary responsibility to sell here.
  • LatteLazy 5y ago
    Of course, if the deal doesn't go through, the price will collapse before he can sell...
• carnitine 5y ago
  The fact it is an all cash offer should finally put an end to the ludicrous claim so often made that billionaires can’t access liquidity.
• motohagiography 5y ago
  Imo, he's taking responsibility. If as an individual you can deploy the most money in the world, what do you do with it? Twitter became a negative-sum game of people competing to debase themselves in service of narrative in exchange for nothing but the approval of others who had already done the same. Unlocking that negative cycle can release a lot of captive value for everyone. The best way to do that is to connect great minds and scale them based on their revealed desires. I remember Musk offered to solve world hunger but the NGO people who said they could do it flaked when (pen in hand) he offered to cut them a cheque. The next best thing is to provide a platform for discourse so that smart people indexed on truth and reality can thrive and wield influence. The opportunity is that Twitter just isn't funny, and as a signal of alignment to truth, that's a pretty honest sign it has become oppressive and that it has become a thing that most people just do not want. The controversial censorship on Twitter has been against humour, which makes Musk's play such an obvious win. As an activist target, Twitter has spent almost a decade contorting itself and spending a lot of effort to make itself suck, and it just needs to suck slightly less to be a benefit to humanity. Value for money, it's probably the most effective $43B anyone has spent in the US.
  • shmageggy 5y ago
    > I remember Musk offered to solve world hunger but the NGO people who said they could do it flaked when (pen in hand) he offered to cut them a cheque. I hadn't heard about this, but looking it up now, it seems that your account isn't accurate. According to these articles he asked the UN to detail how they would spend the money and they did. https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-solve-world-hunger https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-solve-world-hunger https://fortune.com/2022/02/15/elon-musk-5-7-billion-donation-weeks-after-asking-un-world-hunger/ https://fortune.com/2022/02/15/elon-musk-5-7-billion-donatio...
    • motohagiography 5y ago
      According to the mashable link, the world food program people just said, "it's complicated, let's meet," to shift responsibility, and then said went around saying he didn't follow through.
• ComradePhil 5y ago
  tWiTtEr iS A PrIvAtE CoMpAnY, tHeY CaN Do wHaTeVeR ThEy wAnT Elon Musk: buys Twitter to run it how he wants to nO NoT LiKe ThAt
• dghughes 5y ago
  Why isn't Elon buying Truth Social? Because it's not the hardware and software that he would be buying it's the equity which is people. Truth Social can have piles of servers and the best software but it can't buy or generate truth.
  • tgv 5y ago
    The power of the megaphone is what's he's buying. Idk what "Truth Social" is, and that's precisely the point: it isn't worth a dime. Musk is buying users by the millions. Attention craving users, but still users.
• quantumhobbit 5y ago
  Who else thinks he's hype driving the price up to dump the shares he already owns at a profit? He clearly has no reason to fear the SEC...
• danShumway 5y ago
  I'm not sure Musk knows what he's doing, this feels like a personal vendetta. I'm also not sure he has any likelihood of succeeding in the first place, I wouldn't necessarily assume anyone is going to take him up at that price. And (quite frankly) I don't think that Musk is a very good free speech activist. I think he's regularly hypocritical about free speech and regularly engages in his own forms of censorship; I don't think he has a particularly coherent philosophy about how to approach free speech. All that being said, I don't really see the problem with him trying this, and I don't necessarily see a ton of downside to him succeeding or failing. I'm perfectly willing to grab the popcorn and just watch. Twitter is not a great social network, and I don't think it's amazingly well managed. If it gets worse and Musk does a bunch of radical changes, maybe more people will start using Mastodon. If he fails, no harm done. If he joins on and does nothing and just monetizes it more aggressively, then :shrug:, Twitter is probably eventually headed in that direction anyway. Go for it. I've got no confidence that Musk can actually innovate in this space, and little to no confidence that he'll actually even get the control he wants, and he might actually make things worse if he does succeed, but on a certain level who cares? It really stinks for artists/communities on Twitter that might be hurt by that happening, but again, I don't really have a lot of confidence that Twitter isn't going to start hurting them anyway, so I don't know that this really matters all that much for them. :shrug: Maybe 2 years from now I'll look back at this comment and think it's naive.
  • loceng 5y ago
    He arguably didn't know what he was doing with Tesla or SpaceX, nor The Boring Company et al, though he seems quite good at solving for problems he deems worthy enough of his attention - or that draw his attention strongly enough. Elon also doesn't need to innovate himself, he simply needs to be a signal, a beacon or lighthouse to others who know they are capable of innovating - and where they may now actually attempt to work for/at Twitter/with Elon because they may now believe they have a chance of implementing systems as they may believe Elon will be able to understand their design - and therefore getting approval.
    • Spooky23 5y ago
      The obvious question is, “What problem is he seeking to solve?”
• molticrystal 5y ago
  Just to verify that I understood the concept I looked up the definition of "hostile takeover" from various places, its common theme is taking over a company without approval of the board. The actual offer states [0]: >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. Which means he is asking for approval, which seems to contradict the headline and the quote from Mirabaud Equity Research which was used to make the headline more sensational as they were quoted saying “This becomes a hostile takeover offer which is going to cost a serious amount of cash”. If the board disapproves of the offer and he acquires a larger stake of ownership, that would be more inline with what a hostile takeover is. [0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...
  • kyle_martin1 5y ago
    Agreed. The title should be neutralized to something like “Elon Musk offers to purchase Twitter for $43B”
  • bombcar 5y ago
    Any hostile takeover becomes non-hostile if the board/shareholders acquiesce.
    • coffeeblack 5y ago
      Any takeover is non-hostile if the board/shareholders acquiesce. So far, it is merely an offer for a takeover.
  • zwily 5y ago
    That's correct - his offer is not hostile. If they reject it, he could attempt a hostile takeover by buying up enough stock to install his own board.
• TimPC 5y ago
  Twitter and Facebook should either be forced to accept regulation around banning and denial of access to their content or should be forced to remove accounts of government officials and government utilities. It’s somehow become the defacto standard that government can release updates on social media at faster rates than any other channel of communication that they use and that people can be banned from accessing that communication. I think it’s disingenuous to say Twitter is not a public utility given the way it is used by government offices and politicians to communicate. Especially given the way Twitter had actively worked to facilitate that. Barring a legal requirement for government to share all information to citizens on other channels at the same pace as they do on Twitter, being banned from Twitter prevents access to information that one is legally entitled to. That is clearly unacceptable. I think Twitter should be able to moderate content as a private entity. But they’ve knowingly created a situation where outright banning is a powder keg and I feel like they’ve mostly lost the right to do so. They should have a good case for making accounts read only but they are definitely causing huge problems when they ban someone.
  • HPsquared 5y ago
    If this was enacted, they'd probably just change the effect of a ban such that banned users can view "utility" / "government" content (but no other?) Also, can't unregistered users see that information anyway?
• tailspin2019 5y ago
  As much as I very much admire the output of Elon's various ventures, I'm not sure of the value of this move, either for him or Twitter. I think Twitter often brings out the worst of his character (or perhaps "reveals"?) I wonder if he might be too emotionally invested in how Twitter operates for this to be a good move, given his numerous Twitter-led controversies. I worry about the motivations behind him trying to do this. But I could be wrong. And to be fair, I can think of worse owners...
  • thethimble 5y ago
    I’d be very surprised if this is emotional thrashing from someone who has been very long-term focused and first principles oriented in all of his other endeavors.
    • tailspin2019 5y ago
      That’s a reasonable opinion. I guess I’m judging him based on his moments of “unwise” behaviour on Twitter, but perhaps that’s focussing on the wrong thing when compared to the progress of the likes of SpaceX and Tesla.
    • mhh__ 5y ago
      What does first principles even mean in this context? It's not like he's ever been vindictive... (He has)
• dgellow 5y ago
  Nobody saw it coming… /s
• thepasswordis 5y ago
  Can anybody make a good argument as to why Twitter (in its current form) isn’t a major detriment to society? If Twitter poofed out of existence today, it would be a major win for this planet. People talk about a frightening future with a human hostile AI that wants to destroy humanity. That exists, it’s twitter. Elon buying it, even if he runs it into the ground is a good thing. Getting rid of some of the hostile AI is a good thing.
  • xutopia 5y ago
    In some parts of the world Twitter has been used to overthrow governments and bring democracy. Check the article on Wikipedia regarding the Arab Spring and how social media played a role. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring
  • fullshark 5y ago
    Twitter is where you can see journalists craft narratives and talking points about news stories in real time. It’s been incredibly revealing imo.
    • tjpnz 5y ago
      At the very least it does reveal why the narratives constructed by some journalists are so utterly divorced from reality.
    • superdude12 5y ago
      Can you elaborate on this? Perhaps share some threads or an article summarizing the effect?
      • fullshark 5y ago
        I don't know of any good article on the subject, but I think the red/blue war in America is where you can see some of the most extreme examples of this. A simple illustrative example that comes to mind: A politician on the other side of the aisle makes a gaffe, a journalist amplifies the video/text of their statement, based on their followers' reaction a journalist decides if it's something their followers care about and either writes a piece about it with supporting information about just how wrong they are and takes on it from their followers/colleagues or just ignores it and moves on trying to find more red meat for the political partisans that read them.
• fullshark 5y ago
  Is he able to sell his 9% stake while the board mulls his offer?
  • Jyaif 5y ago
    I want to know the answer to this question.
    • bombcar 5y ago
      I suspect his shares are now "locked" whilst the offer is considered; perhaps he can acquire more but I suspect he cannot sell, as it would be an obvious deception. He would have to announce the withdrawal of the offer and then I assume he can begin selling. Note: I am not an SEC.
• bambax 5y ago
  I personally dislike Musk and most things he says and does, but I am grateful for the fact that his actions lead to more hilarious chronicles by Matt Levine (Money Stuff). Can't wait for today's installment!!!
  • bombastry 5y ago
    Unfortunately the newsletter is on break until Monday, although he did end up writing a column about Musk on one of his days off a week ago[1]. We may be limited for now to his brief reactions to news on Twitter[2][3]. [1] 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... [2] https://twitter.com/matt_levine/status/1514549976910770182 https://twitter.com/matt_levine/status/1514549976910770182 [3] https://twitter.com/matt_levine/status/1514562166740992005 https://twitter.com/matt_levine/status/1514562166740992005
    • bambax 5y ago
      He had to write a column, and he did! It ends like this: "Anyway I really truly am on vacation but I assume that by Monday Elon Musk will have somehow acquired Money Stuff. In a sense he already has." https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-15/sure-elon-musk-might-buy-twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-15/sure-e...
• gotaquestion 5y ago
  If he's so rich and smart, just make a better Twitter and people will flock to it, right? I mean, I thought he's for the invisible hand of the market yadda yadda yadda.
  • danlugo92 5y ago
    What is network effects?
    • seanw444 5y ago
      Exactly. Better things are overshadowed by more established things all the time.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • gotaquestion 5y ago
        Seems very non-Elon, because he's about disrupting established things, right? Or no. Pick one.
        • danlugo92 5y ago
          > strawman
  • funshed 5y ago
    If he's so rich and sport, buy twitter and build on the shoulders of a giant.
    • gotaquestion 5y ago
      But Elon is a disruptor, no?
• trynewideas 5y ago
  That's cool. When I'm bored I usually just fire up a game in my Steam backlog, but whatever.
  • seanw444 5y ago
    Elon has Twitter in his Steam backlog.
• gotaquestion 5y ago
  The only people complaining about free speech are literally right-wingers spreading verifiable lies (and this includes non US right-wingers). The fact that this is an issue is a tragic flood of propaganda by these liars.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• mark_l_watson 5y ago
  I have to admit: I hope this happens mostly for the entertainment value. Also, I think that this business of shutting down opinions of people we dislike or disagree with is really bad for society long term. I think Musk might stop that.
  • greenhorn123 5y ago
    I am 100% sure that Musk would be fine with people criticizing him, Tesla or SpaceX or anything else that he has a hand in and would never shut anything like that down. Like that time when he started a personal vendetta against someone who suggested he didn't know what he was talking ... oh, wait.
  • rootusrootus 5y ago
    > I think Musk might stop that. Given how he responds to employees at his companies exercising their free speech rights, you may be disappointed.
  • bluehorseray 5y ago
    I agree. People on HN love to theorize about reshaping current social media platforms, and now we may get to see someone actually attempt to do it. I hope people aren't so invested in Twitter they would rather this not happen.
  • Lutger 5y ago
    I'm of the opposite opinion. I think being even more lax than Zuckerberg on psy-ops, hate speech, denialism, racism and misinformation will be quite dangerous to society. Some of the necessary conditions of speech itself might collapse, in a way that the very idea of 'speech' will become nearly impossible. It will be terrible, for the Western democracies anyway - it will likely help Putin and Xi tremendously though.
    • whimsicalism 5y ago
• cs702 5y ago
  OK. I'm a huge admirer of everything Musk has a accomplished, but... W.T.F.? Taking on Twitter will not only be a huge amount of work, it is likely consume a ridiculous amount of talent -- which could be focused instead on building next-generation humanoid robots, electric vehicles, energy solutions, reusable spaceships, and space stations. Musk has a long history of taking on more than it's humanly possible, but so far he has been narrowly avoided failure. Recall that Tesla was ready to file for bankruptcy at one point in 2019.[a] He hasn't sold any shares, so he's likely borrowing against his Tesla stock to finance this hostile takeover, exposing himself to all sorts of potentially ugly debt squeezes. I really, really, really hope Twitter doesn't become a black hole that sucks talent and energy away from more important things. More than that, I hope this latest battle doesn't become Musk's Waterloo. -- [a] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/musk-tesla-was-about-a-month-from-bankruptcy-during-model-3-ramp.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/musk-tesla-was-about-a-month...
  • guiseroom 5y ago
    I don't really follow Musk, what has he accomplished?
    • nabaraz 5y ago
      Leader in Space and Leader in EVs to start with.
  • zzzeek 5y ago
    • draw_down 5y ago
  • mountainriver 5y ago
    I agree, this seems like a distraction for him, and probably more ego driven than anything. Although much of his success has been through being a public figure on Twitter, maybe he sees it as investing in his image.
• kyle_martin1 5y ago
• vernie 5y ago
  This is playing out like the Russian invasion.
• Vladimof 5y ago
  I hope that it succeeds and that the effects trickle down the whole industry.
• tambourine_man 5y ago
  Time to take a second look at Mastodon. Or third.
• sjones671 5y ago
  That’s a lot of zeros for some frozen peaches.
• chasd00 5y ago
  Elon, if you’re reading, pull the plug. Nuke the entire site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
  • tempfs 5y ago
    I really wish this situation was anything close to a real effort to protect free speech or even better to nuke Twitter from orbit. I hope people realize that he is just trying to protect his favorite stock manipulation platform.
• sixhobbits 5y ago
  Elon being in headlines is good for him and his companies. Making noise related to Twitter gets Elon in headlines. It's the good old trick of 'there is no such thing as bad publicity' that Trump used so effectively too. I feel like this is a huge publicity stunt and he would probably not follow through with it even if Twitter shareholders wanted it.
• retrocryptid 5y ago
  buying twitter will not make people like you.
• alberth 5y ago
  Dumb question: what makes this a “hostile takeover”? Elon’s bid was non-binding, and unless I’m unaware - he isn’t trying to actively change the board or management. So what makes this “hostile”?
  • peeters 5y ago
    By definition a hostile takeover is one that is done without the blessing/recommendation of the current board of directors. Most private takeovers are negotiated by the board/management (ostensibly on behalf of the shareholders). Going over their head and straight to shareholders is when it's called a hostile takeover. As far as Elon not planning to replace the board/management. I would say that it is a foregone conclusion that he will clean house if his takeover succeeds. He has been actively critical of their management.
    • ChrisPebble 5y ago
      Which this is not. He is making an offer to buy which the board has to approve. The title is wrong in this case.
      • peeters 5y ago
        I'm not sure what is needed from the board here, but I think there's a difference between a board recommending something, and having a fiduciary duty to present an offer to shareholders. Where are you reading that this needs the board's blessing?
        • bombcar 5y ago
          If the board doesn't approve, he goes to the shareholders and asks them to replace the board (or becomes such a large shareholder he can do it himself).
          • ChrisPebble 5y ago
            Twitter's bylaws contain anti-takeover provisions which would make a hostile takeover difficult. In their latest 10K they list these provisions which includes "authorizing 'blank check' preferred stock, which could be issued by our board of directors without stockholder approval and may contain voting, liquidation, dividend and other rights superior to our common stock". So if Musk attempted to get shareholders to vote out the board, the board could issue preferred stock with voting rights which could dilute Musk's votes. Link: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/947c0c34-ca90-4099-b328-a6062adf110f.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/947c0c3...
• throw7 5y ago
  A "free speech" platform would give users more power to control their communications with others and transparency of how the "system" worked. Very simple things that we had with usenet like killfiles and threaded conversations are foreign things to the younger generations. Things like shadowbans and a central authority that just decides to disable your account would be non-existent. Heck, we even had a form of "blue checkmark" with finger daemons. I have no idea what musk is thinking.
  • seanw444 5y ago
    Fully agree. Open source the platform. Nobody cares to copy Twitter's software. It's not revolutionary. It's tailored to their infrastructure specifically. They have the network effect going for them. If they were going to be displaced by a technologically-superior platform, Mastodon would have done it already. There really isn't a downside. Let people censor who they want for themselves.
• cgtyoder 5y ago
  This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth - they become all-powerful and too easily subvert the will of the people. They become their own ruling class, which is unacceptable in a functioning democracy.
  • rwmj 5y ago
    That, or they piss it away on vanity projects like this and level themselves downwards in the process.
  • hatsubishi 5y ago
    • akie 5y ago
      It seems to me that you are actually the one who doesn't understand how extreme concentration of wealth has the potential to steer and disrupt societies.
    • CoastalCoder 5y ago
      Your comment seems to cover a lot of territory, but it's not very specific. If you'd like to go deeper on a single line of criticism of the GP, I'd be interested in reading it.
  • misiti3780 5y ago
    If you were our supreme leader, how would you prevent private individuals like Musk, Bezos, etc from acquiring their wealth, given it is tied up in the value of very useful companies they created ?
    • matsemann 5y ago
      Perhaps by sharing that value with others in the company, thus diluting it from any one person. Like, there are tens of thousands slaving for these big companies, and a few on top reaping the rewards.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• rdl 5y ago
  This seems like a win/win. If Elon takes over Twitter and fixes it, we get free speech there (plus, product innovation!). If Elon is rejected, battle lines clearly drawn and hopefully many alternative platforms (innovating on product as well as terms of service; enjoy tankie-twitter!). This is like the great unbundling of Craigslist, probably created 100x consumer surplus over a decade.
  • dmix 5y ago
    At worst it's amusing to see all of the hysteria it generates from the people use see 'free speech' as a slur. Although these Twitter people seem to get off on FUD and hysteria.
    • NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
      People mocking the very concept of free speech by saying "freeze peach" during The Fattening of reddit in 2015 was one of the most appalling things I've ever seen.
• Foivos 5y ago
  Why 100% and not just the majority?
• tapatio 5y ago
  This is awesome. Way to go Elon!!!
• m1117 5y ago
  I don't understand how making twitter private will be beneficial for free speech? Isn't it the point that the company ownership is distributed?
  • jesusofnazarath 5y ago
  • another_devy 5y ago
    It's never about free speech its about investment, money and control over digital media
• blackearl 5y ago
  Twitter is trash and I'm happy when any chaotic nonsense is happening to it.
• alphabetting 5y ago
  If I was an investor in Tesla or SpaceX I'd be extremely opposed to this. Calling the shots at three important companies is basically a disaster waiting to happen, especially if you spend a lot of time posting memes on Twitter.
  • hayd 5y ago
    This already happened with Solar City and share holders [in all three companies] are doing just fine.
• gigatexal 5y ago
  No. No. Do not want. Why is he going to ruin something good? I hope the shareholders reject this.
• nameirrelevant 5y ago
  [flagged]
• bannedbybros 5y ago
• dolekemp96 5y ago
  I believe this is not a hostile takeover. It's an unsolicited bid to purchase the company directly to the board. A hostile takeover would involve a tender or purchases directly to shareholders to purchase stocks ignoring the board or likely against the wishes of the board.
  • mzs 5y ago
    It's an unsolicited offer - so Musk can sell his shares, watch it depress the price, and then attempt the hostile take-over. Big stakeholders are signaling to the board not to accept the terms: https://twitter.com/Alwaleed_Talal/status/1514615956986757127 https://twitter.com/Alwaleed_Talal/status/151461595698675712...
    • nonethewiser 5y ago
      He would need to buy shares to take a controlling stake.
      • mzs 5y ago
        Yes that's what a hostile take-over is and twitter just adopted a poison pill: > reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/twitter-adopts-limited-duration-shareholder-rights-plan-enabling-all-shareholders-to-realize-full-value-of-company-301526627.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/twitter-adopts-limi... https://www.marketwatch.com/story/twitter-board-approves-shareholder-rights-plan-after-musk-offer-2022-04-15 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/twitter-board-approves-sha...
• CosmicShadow 5y ago
  Scary if he wins. One super powerful shit disturber with a personal agenda controlling one of the largest social news sources out there. It goes from a company fighting to survive, who probably has little agenda (or time and power to really fight for it), to a company that exists simply to serve the whims of one man's agenda and every change and action will be for that purpose, albeit not advertised as such. How else better to amplify one's voice and discredit anyone else's? Sow chaos, fuel rumours, surface chatter that will affect markets to his favour and to dick around with politicians and countries that aren't doing him any favours. It definitely doesn't sit right. The real question is why, because I very much doubt he wants to "improve" twitter, it's more like what does he want to accomplish by owning the platform to advance his other goals.
• unglaublich 5y ago
  Another billionaire that buys a media outlet to massage the public's opinion to their need.
• matthew40 5y ago
  I see this positively. Musk cannot save what the Internet is becoming, but he may be able to prevent Twitter from being completely captured by leftists fascists.
• tbirdny 5y ago
  For $1B he could make an exact twitter clone, and he could probably do it for much less than that. You might say, yes, but he's paying for the brand, and no one would use his clone. He could pay for a flood of advertising and other promotions to get people to switch. He could pay 42,000,000 people $1000 each to switch to his twitter clone.
  • moralestapia 5y ago
    >He could pay 42,000,000 people $1000 each to switch to his twitter clone So that he could have a shitty twitter clone with a fraction of its users? For the same cost of real twitter? Whoa what a great deal ...
    • flavius29663 5y ago
      > shitty twitter clone I doubt you can make Twitter shittier, it's not just dark patterns, it's downright hostile to the user
      • the_only_law 5y ago
        These days, it’s hard to find apps that aren’t.
  • ttul 5y ago
    Frankly, Musk could pull this off and it might be his plan anyway. Twitter has a lot of tech and very talented people.. not to mention the existing user base. But Musk has the star appeal to draw in famous users and make it at least somewhat appealing to the masses who want to follow along. The social media space is stagnant and looking for change, but as yet nobody can match Meta’s $55/user in ARPU. Maybe Musk can get there.
    • objektif 5y ago
      I think he can. I see twitter to be a much better platform than FB and based on my observation engagement in the platform is only getting better. With politics, tech, markets as hot topics as ever TWTR could be worth much more under Elon.
• carride 5y ago
  Why is this discussion only about the free speech on the internet? This is a business news story about an SEC filing. There is certainly other possible interesting discussions in regards to the financial aspects of this story. If it cannot happen here in this discussion, HN should not be so quick to flag/dupe/dead the other submissions which are from other business or news publications.
• ProAm 5y ago
  Twitter would have killed for this type of buyout offer 6 years ago.
• 1970-01-01 5y ago
  This is the coolest mid-life crisis purchase I've ever seen. I hope he enjoys it and has some fun from the boring office work of rockets, tunnels, robots, AI, and of course bullet-proof trucks.
  • jiveturkey42 5y ago
    I agree! I'm shocked to see a fun and positive comment on HN and not sarcasm, irony, or the endless steam of 'what I think the world's must successful man should do'
    • aerovistae 5y ago
      > the boring office work of rockets, tunnels, robots, AI, and of course bullet-proof trucks. .. > not sarcasm hmm
      • jiveturkey42 5y ago
        Sorry, sarcasm was the wrong word, I meant pedantic nit-pickers
        • Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
          I always enjoy calling out those excessively pedantic users. Their pedantry is just annoying, adds nothing to the conversation, and half the time is just outright incorrect. Luckily, HN is not as infested with them as it used to be.
          • ResNet 5y ago
            It can be easy for many on here (lots of lurkers too) to feel a sense of "HN imposter syndrome," believe it or not, so comments like this are really valuable in communicating that that sort of pedantry is not the norm!
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
• unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  "Elon Musk's raging narcissism launches all-out $43B assault on his credibility and fortune" Without any understanding that the his right-wing narcissistic suppliers who rage in public about being prevented from raging in public are not the sort of people who become good paying customers for a free platform. This is like the universe seeing Elon Musk and issuing a course correction. For the avoidance of doubt: this is dreadful for Twitter's longevity. Twitter's only sustainable future while staying true to its roots, is as a market utility co-owned by media companies. A billionaire pouring money into a money-pit is fine only for as long as it holds his interest as a plaything (which might be a long time, considering his narcissism)
  • LegitShady 5y ago
    Twitter is on a years long decline and heading faster and faster towards stagnation with features no one cares about. Twitter "staying true" to its roots means continued decline and loss of shareholder value. Musk can pay for Twitter and still be the richest man in the world. It's like buying a boat for a normal person. Sounds like a lot of salt on your part.
    • unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      Salt? I've fully grasped that he is rich. Though he is not, actually, $43bn liquid rich, at all; he's going to need to sell chunks of his other businesses to do this. That potentially means handing over significant influence over SpaceX or Tesla, so he can buy the cause of his hurt feelings in his spat with the SEC. I don't give a damn whether he is the richest man in the world now (he is not -- Putin is) or continues to be. I don't think Twitter want to be compared to someone buying a pleasure boat. That really does underscore my point about it being a narcissism purchase though, with the added frisson of white male mid-life crisis, so I'll stipulate if you will! The strategy I outlined in a single sentence for twitter to stay true to its roots means not having to worry about shareholder value or decline. There are several viable, thriving market utilities run on this basis (e.g. in currency trading markets). They do not decline and they are beholden to their shareholders only in continuing to provide the utility. There is no way that Twitter owned by a random rich narcissist won't decline as it tilts at windmills. Twitter owned by a set of media companies that have come to depend on it as a means to exist -- as a utility that supports the media market through enlightened self-interest -- is viable.
• phamtrungkt 5y ago
  Wow
• culitrum 5y ago
  Wow
• yabatopia 5y ago
  Let's ignore personality and societal issues for a moment and look at the value proposition. The 'best and final offer' of $54.20 per share is just too low to be acceptable for major investors. Just over year ago, Twitter shares traded at about $70 per share. Musk's offer is about 25% lower than last years peak. There's no reason to assume Twitter shares can't reach the same levels ever again, nothing much has changed fundamentally over a year. Musk's offer is a cash only offer. $43 billion is a lot of cash. That's a lot of Tesla shares to sell, or massive loan. If Musk thinks Twitter is that valuable to take such risks, current major investors will probably want to unlock that value themselves. I think the takeover offer is just as believable as last week's announcement that Musk was joining the Twitter board.
  • JaceLightning 5y ago
    That's dumb. My company IPO'ed at $20/share. Hit $50 in the first year. Second year went down to $18. Then dropped low. A few years later the company was bought out for $7 a share when we were trading at $3. Twitter is a dying company. They would be dumb not to take that money.
  • unicornmama 5y ago
    That’s not how market valuation works. You’re worth your share price today. Not what your share price was last year. Not what you think your price should be. > current major investors will probably want to unlock that value themselves. This isn’t how risk or portfolio allocation works. Musk has offered current investors $43 billion as risk-free guaranteed cold hard cash. Depending on their portfolio and risk allocations they may prefer the $43 billion today instead of an uncertain chance at the future. And to take that cash and diversify in alternative endeavors.
  • Infinitesimus 5y ago
    "Best and final offer" is certainly a weak claim but it doesn't seem your argument about Twitter's value is much stronger. Yes Twitter was $70 a share in the past but it was also sub $30 in the past and it's not clear which is the "right" price.
  • riffraff 5y ago
• bitwize 5y ago
  This is like Warren Buffett's hostile takeover of Berkshire Hathaway (then a failing textile company) because their CEO made him assmad, that ultimately just prevented him from becoming even more disgustingly rich. Musk is gonna be left with a pile of worthless, shit stock. Of course once one of the streaming services releases a docu-drama about Twitter's rise and fall (like they did for Theranos, Uber, and WeWork), Musk can charge decent money to play himself.
• duxup 5y ago
  I don't know what anyone means by "free speech" sometimes. Often I think it is just "I get to say what I want." but beyond that they've no idea.
  • the_doctah 5y ago
    Yes, the people who run these platforms don't have any idea what it means either.
    • duxup 5y ago
      I don't think they offer "free speech" it's just not what most any site offers.
  • seanw444 5y ago
    In the literal sense, it would be banning zero content. Not even gory, adult-themed/non-family-friendly content. Personally, I'm all for that. You can't have good without bad. Giving more freedom means giving it to bad actors just as much as good actors. That's just something people can't seem to come to terms with.
    • duxup 5y ago
      I think the scale of automation and spam is far larger than any given individuals at a keyboard. The "anything goes" forums are hardly the land of free speech and different views / ideas.
      • seanw444 5y ago
        I left out the "spam" from my comment, because I agree, automated spam detracts from conversation. That's something I think 99% of people can agree on. But banning someone for mentioning firearms, or their skepticism of <insert-latest-corporate-media-push-here> is crazy to me. Same with people talking about their sexuality or whatever liberals do these days. Nobody gets banned for saying what's on their mind. And it's not the platform's job to prevent people from getting their feelings hurt.
• metalliqaz 5y ago
  Twitter has immense influence on the zeitgeist than any other single media property. For a person like Musk, $43B is an investment that would pay for itself in short order by the various kinds of market manipulation he could engage in. He has cheated so many times without consequence. Why not take it to the next level? Pump and dump, favorable sentiment for his companies, signal boosting his pocket politicians, and so on. Truly frightening.
• Cypher 5y ago
  Gogogogo Elon! free us from the cancel culture
• danielktdoranie 5y ago
  Someone explain to me how this is a "hostile" take over?
  • KarlKemp 5y ago
    Any unsolicited takeover is considered „hostile“. It’s just a term. Check a dictionary.
  • XargonEnder 5y ago
    Basically if you don't like Musk then all this behaviors can be explained as hostile. I certainly don't agree with this viewpoint but this is functionally what is happening.
    • KarlKemp 5y ago
      No, it’s not what’s happening. It’s just what ill-informed Musk fans think it means, because they don’t know the term, don’t bother to check it, and consider everything that doesn’t praise Musk as explicit condemnation. Sort-of exactly the mechanism you’re complaining about.
• poxwole 5y ago
  Twitter should be nationalized. No man should control such a large medium
  • greenhorn123 5y ago
    By which nation?
    • Researcherry 5y ago
      China
  • seanw444 5y ago
    Nationalized media has historically always turned out so much better.
• jcadam 5y ago
  So what I'm hearing is, there may be some job openings at Twitter soon.
• MichaelMoser123 5y ago
  Elon Musk is into politics, isn't that looking strange somehow? I mean he wants to go to Mars, his project was "Flyin' mother nature's silver seed to a new home in the sun", and now he goes right in the opposite direction. Did he have any major setbacks with his Starship?
• deltaonefour 5y ago
  Free speech is an ideal that doesn't really exist. Even in the USA I can't threaten to kill you or announce that a bomb is in the building.
  • imiric 5y ago
    Free speech must have sane boundaries drawn at some arbitrary level. Death threats and terrorism surely go beyond what should be acceptable.
    • deltaonefour 5y ago
      Then it's not free speech. It's speech with sane boundaries. Calling it free is a lie. You are conflating the ideals of free speech and trying to merge it with realistic expectations. The reality is free speech does not work.
      • imiric 5y ago
        We can label it something else then, but I agree that absolute free spech does not work.
        • deltaonefour 5y ago
          "absolute free speech" lol. If I used Free wifi at starbucks and before I left the clerk tried to charge me a dollar for internet because it wasn't "absolutely free" then I would call it false advertising. Don't use the words free and speech together if it's not "absolutely free."
• overrun11 5y ago
  I suspect most of the commenters supporting the right of a private company to moderate content is completely contingent on what those moderation policies are. Commenters feign holding an absolute position but would certainly balk if the moderation ever turned against them and the idea they support. If you believe on principle, the right of private companies to moderate content, then you must support all kinds of absurd outcomes: Twitter deciding to subtly push pro-Russian viewpoints, Facebook deciding to boost antivax content etc.
  • Imnimo 5y ago
    I believe those things would be within Twitter's rights, but would object to them as being bad ideas that would make me not want to use the platform. That isn't the same as saying I think Twitter doesn't have the right to do them, though.
  • frabcus 5y ago
    Well, I also believe that no single company should be allowed to have more than 10% market share in any market. So I would have competition, with different companies having different moderation policies.
    • afrodc_ 5y ago
      How would you even enforce this? You'd require a minimum of 10 companies at all times and mandate user distribution? That wouldn't work
  • AlexandrB 5y ago
    Isn't the free-market answer to this problem for users to move to other social media platforms that moderate in a way they prefer? The problem here is how powerful and walled-off Facebook and Twitter are, making competing difficult if not impossible. Perhaps if we solve that problem, everyone can get what they want. I think saying that, on principle, companies should not moderate content at all is equally absurd as it would allow malware, CP, abusive content, and spam to run rampant. All we're really arguing about here is to what extent do we want these platforms to moderate content. Should they be limited to only removing illegal content? What's the line on "illegal" (no company could afford to consult lawyers for every post they remove)? What about spam, which is not necessarily illegal but disruptive to the service?
• marricks 5y ago
  There’s an account called Elon Jet which uses publicly available information to track Elon's private jet and post take off and landings. Elon offered 5k to the owner to take it down[1]. He has blocked loads of people for mocking or disagreeing with him. Are those actions evil or wrong? Not really, but I also don’t think they’re the actions of an ardent believer in free speech which this thread is making him out to be. Saying you believe in free speech and acting out a belief that everyone should have an equal right to say their piece without fear of being silenced are two different things. 1 https://www.techtimes.com/articles/271211/20220130/elon-musk-50-000-teen-track-private-jet-elon-musk.htm https://www.techtimes.com/articles/271211/20220130/elon-musk...
  • sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Offering money to take down a twitter account seems totally reasonable. If you're saying that Elon would've terminated the account if he owned Twitter, I don't think there's any evidence to support that.
    • marricks 5y ago
      In 2016 Elon personally cancelled a bloggers Model X order because said blogger roasted a Tesla event. I'd say it sounds totally plausible.
    • SomeCallMeTim 5y ago
      No, there's no evidence. But it seems trivially obvious that, if Musk owned Twitter, that account and ones like it that target Musk will disappear. As much as I like Tesla and respect SpaceX, I do note that Musk rarely misses an opportunity to benefit himself. The whole crypto market manipulation event is one obvious example; what abstract ethical behavior was driving that debacle? I say there was none and that it was a transparent attempt to make money while trolling the crypto community. Not that I actually fault him for doing that. It just points out how broken the entire cryptoverse is. But my point is that he is prone to doing things for his own benefit and/or without regard for the consequences. What I haven't seen is evidence that he would take some kind of high moral position on free speech absolutism against his own self interest. To me it's more a question of "prove that he won't do it" than to prove he will. If he ends up buying Twitter, we'll find out either way.
• sword_smith 5y ago
  I just realized that we can use the current stock price to derive a probability that Elon Musks offer will be accepted. Let `cp` be the current stock price; let `op` be the original price, before the offer was made; let `bp` be the bid price, what Musk offered; and let P be the probability that the offer is accepted. Then it must apply that `cp = op + P*(bp - op)` Meaning: The current price is the original price plus the probability that the offer is accepted times the stock price premium if the offer is accepted. => P = (cp - op) / (bp - op) Plugging in the current numbers gives us a probability of about 50 %.
  • ericjang 5y ago
    Good idea, but actually you'll probably want to look at the option markets as well, to take account the exact strike price at which Musk wishes to take Twitter private. If you only look at spot price (i.e. TWTR stock), then you need some way to factor out all the other beliefs market participants have about Twitter (e.g. stat-arb correlations with NASDAQ index). As of time of writing, the delta on a $55 TWTR call option expiring 2 months from now is 0.297, representing a ~30% probability it will be in-the-money. But you still need to subtract the probability that the share price gets there without Mr. Musk's help. You can also google "merger arbitrage" on google scholar to find some more maths on the subject.
    • sword_smith 5y ago
      Good point. The spot price is definitely not the most accurate measure of this probability. For liquid stocks with advanced derivates it's probably possible to find a better probability using one of those advanced derivatives.
  • seanw444 5y ago
    "It could go both ways, nobody knows how it will play out." "Let's use math to calculate the probability!" ... "It could go both ways, nobody knows how it will play out." No hate, just thought it was kinda funny.
• neillyons 5y ago
  Can someone give me a layman's explanation as to why taking Twitter private would allow Elon to make the changes he wants to make that he couldn't do if it was still public?
  • Jsebast23 5y ago
    This is just opinion. Twitter lost the trust of important users who have seen people censored for tweets that go against management's politics. Nobody thinks it's cool to build a community of hundreds of thousands of followers, only to be censored out at the most critical moment. That confidence will never be regained as long as Twitter has the same management and the same board. You would need to replace the board (the owners) and the management. Musk will also add his own name—a powerful brand itself—to Twitter's brand; but for the thing to work, Musk needs to be in full control. A private company also has less disclosure obligations, which is a valuable plus.
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    If he takes the company private (solo or with other investors), he'll make sure to have the votes to impose the CEO of his choice, with the option to change him/her whenever he pleases. That should be a sine qua non.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• soheil 5y ago
  For all those saying govnt should control platforms like this bear in mind that the free market is working even in this case. A single person decided to take a massive social media private only after a few years of it being a bad actor (see anti free speech sentiment around Twitter.) In a socialist/state-run world any regulation would take years to pass to only then cripple the platform and make it a worse version of itself in many ways maybe except the primary goal of the regulation. A non-public Twitter will have less pressure from the outside to "perform" and not taken hostage to follow the current dogmatic norms of the population allowing it to undergo much needed and necessary changes to make it a better platform.
• AlwaysRock 5y ago
  This feels more like hes trying to make the Twitter stakeholder lawsuit go away by announcing an offer (who wants to be suing their new boss?) than an actual acquisition attempt.
• dang 5y ago
  All: speech here isn't very free when the server can't stay up, and it's smoking right now, for obvious reasons. I'm going to prune some of the top-heavy subthreads and possibly restrict the page size a bit. There are over 2500 comments in this thread, and if you want to read them all you're going to have to click "More" at the bottom of each page, or go like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=5 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=5 ...and so on. Sorry everyone! (Yes, fixes are coming, yes it's all very slow.) Edit: also, if some of you would log out for the day, that would ease the load considerably. (I hate to ask that, but it's true. Make sure you haven't lost your password!)
• titzer 5y ago
  I liked Elon Musk better when he was less focused on a being a celebrity and trying to protect his effectively infinite stack of virtual cash. At one point he was worth $300 billion--today it is merely $265 billion. He could literally retire 100,000 times over (a comfortable middle-class $80k/yr lifestyle)--or maybe just 10,000 times over (comfortably in the 1% at $800k/yr). Money aside, clearly that's just not enough for him anymore. He got sucked into the fame game and inevitably had to step on faces to keep climbing. And that made him a target, and now he's going to go punish those Twitter trolls like a baby with an enormous wallet.
• kmeisthax 5y ago
  Everyone here is talking about free speech and Twitter censorship, but I have a different take: How do we know Elon Musk won't just ban criticism of him or his business ventures (Tesla / SpaceX / The Boring Company / Starlink / etc)? We know that his claims of being a "free speech absolutist" are absolute bullshit, because the moment the speech is about him he turns to every trick in the book to try and censor it[0]. This includes firing internal critics of himself and getting dox on anonymous bloggers so he could threaten to sue their employers. If Elon buys Twitter and makes any major changes to it's policies, it will be for the worse. I probably will delete my account at that point. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-elon-musk-censors-employees-critics-2022-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/free-speech-absolutist-elon-...
  • zackmorris 5y ago
    Your sentiment was my first instinct as well, that the only power worth that kind of money is the power to erase history. It's not about who's got the most bullets, it's about who controls the information. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk0Mzci2Sks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk0Mzci2Sks
  • trixie_ 5y ago
    He literally said today an interview unless a tweet was blatantly illegal it should not be deleted. He also said if there is any grey area as well it should not be deleted. He wants to open up all the shady algorithms twitter is using to promote/demote tweets.
• oneepic 5y ago
  And just like that, Twitter engineering might somehow develop the same poor culture and work-life balance as Tesla and SpaceX. If I was there, I'd be groaning at this news.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• ravenstine 5y ago
  I can't imagine Musk can make Twitter any worse than it is. As much as I would have liked it to be a medium that elevated humanity, with some exceptions, it's served to be quite the opposite. I'd be pleased if Twitter disappeared from existence, but maybe Musk either improves it or leads to demolish it, and by no means would I suggest standing in the way.
  • Angostura 5y ago
    You see, I think Twitter is different things to different people. I use it quite a lot - for putting out news about my local swimming club, the school’s parent teacher association and at work communicating with customers. I find it great, and don’t have to deal with toxicity because I don’t go out looking for it.
    • hans1729 5y ago
      Unfortunately, you don’t have to go out and look for it though. Twitter was not supposed to be a worse RSS-feed, so if that’s your use case, nice, but that scope is ignorant to the reality of its market-fit.
      • Angostura 4y ago
        'Twitter was not supposed to be a worse RSS-feed' I was "meant" to be a micro-blogging platform - so the use-case is pretty central to how many people use it.
    • ravenstine 5y ago
      That's true, and is the case with Facebook as well. I'm mostly commenting on the overall effect Twitter has had on civilization, and not so much that on the individual level. If Twitter has enriched society, I've yet to have noticed. In contrast, at least Tesla makes electric cars, expensive they may be, and even Facebook Marketplace is an improvement over Craigslist.
  • abap_rocky 5y ago
    It's easy to imagine how Twitter can be worse because you can just look at Facebook.
• amznbyebyebye 5y ago
  They are backed into a corner here. They don’t have a choice. Elon’s got ‘em.
  • akhmatova 5y ago
    Substantiation needed.
    • frankbreetz 5y ago
      There is a threat about Elon dumping his shares if he doesn't get his way.[0] Elon has been known to pump and dump various things. Look at what happened to Bitcoin when Tesla announced they would no longer be accepting it. He is essentially saying take this offer or I am going to tank your share price. “If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” said Musk.
      • amznbyebyebye 5y ago
        Yes exactly this
• timoteostewart 5y ago
  Let the “420” aspect of the share price offer be lost on no one…
• enumjorge 5y ago
  It’s amazing to me that people really think someone like Musk would a good steward of free speech. This idea that the obscenely wealthy are going to come in and save us from ourselves, if only we can let them be in charge, is a tale as old as time, yet people keep believing it.
  • ajmurmann 5y ago
    Didn't he also try to shut down a Twitter bot that publishes flights of his private jet? I also recall him firing people who supported unionization and employees who talked to reporters.
    • tedivm 5y ago
      Yup. He's also removed people from Tesla beta programs if they say anything negative about the company. He's also accused people of being pedophiles for saying negative things about them- going so far as hiring people to try and prove the baseless accusations. Elon is not a free speech advocate. He'll pretend to be occasionally, but that's not the same thing.
    • NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
      If by "tried to shut down" you mean "offered the kid running it $5,000 to stop" then sure. But the way you spin it is way worse than what actually happened.
  • emptyfile 5y ago
    Just a different kind of strongman political fantasy.
  • naoqj 5y ago
    As if the current board of directors were “ourselves” when they are nothing but rich people just like musk, just a left wing political leaning.
  • pphysch 5y ago
    The current "stewards of free speech" on Twitter appear to be from the military-industrial complex (recalling when Twitter implied "undermining faith in NATO" is a bannable offence, since confirmed, and unironically citing ASPI as an "independent source" on which accounts to ban), so I personally view an eccentric oligarch as an upgrade. Of course, he might just continue this trend.
• firstSpeaker 5y ago
  It will be end of Twitter, or beginning of the end.
  • themitigating 5y ago
    based on what?
    • firstSpeaker 5y ago
      Elon Musk is The genius for manufacturing, super deep research, and science as evident with success he has. He has no experience, or at least none that I read about. Social media is complex simply because of human element involvement and immense regulatory push and pull. Given that, I cannot see how he can replicate the success for science, manufacturing, tech in the social scene.
      • trixie_ 5y ago
        Pretty sure his expertise is hiring the right people and having no qualms about firing the wrong people either.
• weakfish 5y ago
  The thing that is absolutely puzzling to me in these conversations is it seems that people who generally believe in the free market desire what amounts to regulation on social media platforms, inversely, to protect 'free speech' when in fact Twitter has the absolute right in the free market to moderate as they see fit when free speech only protects from governmental actions. And to those who would make the argument that Twitter is too big to not be protected under free speech, I would say that Twitter is _excellent_ at making its user base seem more important than it is. Go outside, talk to people. Twitter is just a shitty microcosm.
  • ErikVandeWater 5y ago
    Big social media companies, just like all other companies, desire regulations that solidify their market share and make it more difficult to create a new competitor. What generally happens in the US is a new regulation is drafted that theoretically achieves some good end, but whose true purpose is to make it more difficult for competitors to enter the space. That's why companies pay lobbyists.
    • nimajneb 5y ago
      You can't have regulatory capture if there's no regulation. They want regulatory capture so others can't join their party.
    • sfe22 5y ago
      Yep, and the government enables and facilitates this malicious action for all statists that wonder what regulation could fix it.
  • hackernewds 5y ago
    Twitter holds a massive amount of soft power. And the sooner we acknowledge it, the better. It seems a matter of national security that a foreign power could accumulate the centralized reigns of Twitter as well. (not that decentralized solutions will solve this. It will actually be even riskier that they will be abused similarly) Jack could have maneuvered so it stays in the hands of the board, but as expected he has pooched that.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• basisword 5y ago
  Anyone else curious how Musk would handle that Twitter account tweeting about his private jet flights if he owned Twitter? Strange to think that might be the real litmus test of how much he cares about free speech.
  • tomlin 5y ago
    He said he'd keep it. I don't even know what this gets mentioned so often. He has barely ever talked about it.
    • oldstrangers 5y ago
      He also said he was making a Tesla Roadster. And a Tesla Cybertruck.
      • tomlin 5y ago
        So your logical conclusion is to make up a scenario? k.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
      • beeboop 5y ago
        Giga Texas literally has the machinery in place to start building Cybertruck. It's happening. Roadster isn't far behind.
    • Hamuko 5y ago
      I don't really trust Musk on his word.
    • coolso 5y ago
      It’s so strange. At first it was intriguing since I had never heard of it before, but now given how often it’s brought up, I suspect some sort of forced Streisand effect deal is at play from all the people who don’t like Elon or are using it as a speculative argument of how he’s ackshually not technically free speech because clearly he spent billions just to take that account down.
• ecf 5y ago
  Every second my brain spends thinking about this man is unsolicited.
• TheDesolate0 5y ago
• RustyConsul 5y ago
  > "if my offer is rejected i will reconsider my ownership in twitter." Thats an immense amount of selling pressure on the stock... This is a threat. He's negotiating with a gun to their head.
  • schainks 5y ago
    They don’t call it thirsty Thursday for nothin’!
  • ryanSrich 5y ago
    Seems like an amazing move by Elon. Buy a sizable portion of the business to hold hostage, and then make the company an offer that they essentially can’t refuse because of fiduciary responsibility. If they reject Elon’s offer the stock price will sink like a rock. They pretty much have to take it.
    • wavefunction 5y ago
      Or the SEC could finally go after Elon for market manipulation. There's always options.
      • tonetheman 5y ago
        THIS THIS THIS. It is absolutely illegal what he is doing.
        • musingsole 5y ago
          How? The laws absolutely allow for hostile takeovers. If Twitter gets to determine what to censor because it's a corporation, well, they get to get bought like one too.
          • systemvoltage 5y ago
            The mental gymnastics going on in this thread is crazy. Let's separate two concerns: 1) Belief system – whether you philosophically support Elon's take over or not 2) Objective facts, corporate finance and legal aspects of what's going on All I can see in this thread is 1) masquerading as 2).
• akomtu 5y ago
  Such events is the moment when news agencies reveal their true faces. Compare how different outlets want to frame the narrative. Axios: "Elon Musk goes into full goblin mode". This outlet pretends to be neutral in quiet times. They usually frame the narrative by omission of inconvenient news. Reuters: "Elon Musk makes $43 billion cash takeover offer for Twitter". That's plain and factual. RedState: "Liberals Absolutely Lose It Over Elon Musk's Hostile Takeover Bid of Twitter". But they don't pretend to be neutral: it's in their name.
• gunapologist99 5y ago
  So Twitter was at $70 per share a year ago. So what? Jack Dorsey was CEO a year ago, too. The share price was $33 less than a month ago. But, despite an absolutely incredible roller-coaster news cycle, things have been definitely trending down at Twitter ($33/share last month), which was reflected in its share price. The current executive team (and Dorsey) had wasted time focusing on things that didn't matter instead of things that did matter. Boards have several fiduciary duties to the shareholders. As an all-cash offer, this generates for the shareholders a substantial return with NO RISK, and so the board has a serious legal obligation to carefully review this offer and make a decision. If the board elects to reject this offer, then their reasons for doing so need to be very clearly elucidated, because, as Twitter is a public company, they would have to see something in their crystal ball that the rest of the market does not.
  • mikestew 5y ago
    ...and so the board has a serious legal obligation to carefully review this offer and make a decision. [citation needed] on that "legal obligation" myth that is continually propagated. As a real-life example, there's Microsoft's offer to Yahoo.
  • alecco 5y ago
    And to note, Musk is going against the trend. Ark, the tech permabull, reduced its Twitter position. Cathie Wood just said she started selling after @jack stepped down as CEO. Interesting times.
    • mgfist 5y ago
      I don't think he is. He stated that he doesn't see a future for Twitter with current management.
    • filoleg 5y ago
      To be fair, Ark isn't doing so hot. So I wouldn't be concerned much about what Cathie "God wanted me to create an ETF and told me about it as a child" Wood thinks or does, when it comes to financial performance of tech companies. Here is the yearly performance for every single fund that Ark is running. Keep in mind that some of them have existed for barely a year if that, but the point still stands. ARKK (ARK Innovation ETF) - 54% down. ARKW (ARK Next Generation Internet ETF) - 50% down. ARKG (ARK Genomic Revolution ETF) - 53% down. ARKQ (ARK Autonomous Tech. & Robotics ETF) - 25% down. ARKF (ARK Fintech Innovation ETF) - 53% down. ARKX (ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF) - 18% down. I am not trying to attribute such performance exclusively to poor decisions, not at all. There is definitely a good amount of unforeseen circumstances that drove ARK ETFs down. But it is difficult to consider ARK's actions as a good source of predictions for tech companies they get involved with, given that 4 out of 6 of their funds are over 50% down in a year, and the rest are still down by a significant amount.
• YossarianFrPrez 5y ago
  43 Billion Dollars!? Of all the important issues in the world, Twitter is where this sort of money might go? Twitter! Oy vey have we lost sight of whats important. That's enough to give every research PhD student in the USA a sorely needed extra $15k every year for the next ~50 years. Sure glad we aren't living in an age where incentivizing technological breakthroughs on a societal level is an important thing to do. I use twitter, I get something out of it, and I probably disagree with Musk politically on several issues. But if he were to take Twitter private, and change it, or whatever... Honestly, that's his prerogative; I'm certainly not in a position to stop him. Whether it's "good" or "bad" is not something that's really under my control. It's just a shame that this wealth isn't used for something more productive.
  • neonate 5y ago
    Twitter is the public square for elite discourse in the US. It's surprising the price is that low. As a business maybe not, at least not in the short term, but the externalities are...compelling.
    • thethimble 5y ago
      Also this is an investment - not a donation. The expectation is that the $43b will drive direct ROI - not something that a donation to students will provide to an investor.
      • YossarianFrPrez 5y ago
        That's a good point. I guess I just question the value of having any more "direct ROI" when you already have a quarter of a trillion dollars. Surely, at that level, the things that improve the quality of your life -- especially to a systems thinker type -- are positive social changes?
  • thepasswordis 5y ago
    He doesn’t lose $43 billion. He goes from osning $43B of one thing to $43B of a different thing.
• shmde 5y ago
  I really hope twitter burns to the ground.
• htrp 5y ago
  Madlad here....
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• api 5y ago
  What a profound waste of his time and talent.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• TimMeade 5y ago
  I am just going to throw something new out here. EVERYTHING Elon does is circled around his belief that we need to be living on Mars. Spaceships to get there. Satellites for communications when we get there. Electrical cars since no oil to drive there. Tunnel boring to make the roads and cities there. Why would buying Twitter be any different? He currently is meeting serious resistance from USGOV and FAA on launching Starships. Postponed many times and may be postponed yet again due to environmental studies in TX. Maybe; just maybe; total guess here; He thinks twitter would be a benefit to him during future elections to help either steer the future governments to directions he wants; or at a minimum move away from the one currently in power that's holding him back. I can certainly see it helping with his mantra "Going to Mars soon". Just another cog in the engine. I just do not think this is about the money. A lot of people are talking about his stock price etc. Elon has never been about the money. It is about his end goals. Either the purchase of twitter is his repairing a social injustice he perceives, not normally on his radar. Or; it is a move to further his goal.
  • The_rationalist 5y ago
  • thebradbain 5y ago
    I really think this whole "everything Elon does is for Mars" is yet another story/myth he's perpetuated. He's a businessman. He wants money; he wants respect; he wants power. Like most businessmen/politicians/people of stature of that caliber, he's just couching it all within a story that's much more palatable to the general public than saying that. Also, I personally have always found how Tesla fits into this Mars equation laughable: why are we building sprawling infrastructure that needs cars on Mars? Is his imagination limited to Atherton, but on Mars? A much better use of limited resources (and oxygen) to build infrastructure would be to build denser, walkable colonies with major corridors served by public transit. Electric light rail or self-guided people movers are not new or novel, but we all know how Elon feels about public transit.
    • TimMeade 5y ago
• officeplant 5y ago
  Prediction: I delete my twitter account and move on to a new platform because none of this matters and that's the cycle of online platforms.
  • no-dr-onboard 5y ago
    Followup Prediction: You join the ranks of many other people who leave for alternative platforms only to return less than 6mo later. Not an insult, just speaking from experience.
    • officeplant 5y ago
      Oh I know, this is like twitter account number 5 since twitters introduction. I tried Mastadon, Diaspora, and many others over the years. The only platform I've managed to leave for good (5 years and counting) is anything associated with facebook because that's the easiest set of platforms drop.
  • garbagetime 5y ago
    Is that the cycle? I've been using Twitter for 10+ years and I doubt I'll stop anytime soon. Heck, I still use Reddit daily despite it having been in steady decline for many years now. Personally, I suppose that the internet has become significantly more stable over the years.
• outside1234 5y ago
  • hayd 5y ago
    Putting Trump back on Twitter is the only way Democrats could win in 2024.
    • tmpz22 5y ago
      • Firmwarrior 5y ago
    • bko 5y ago
      Wouldn't you think it would be weird for all social media platforms refuse to air content from a leading contender for the presidency? Does the platform just pretend he doesn't exist? Can they play clips of him speaking in the debates? How about if he wins, do they just block anyone posting his inaugural address? Create two worlds, one in which he is president and another social media world in which he doesn't exist. Very weird.
      • outside1234 5y ago
        Not if the candidate incites violence - there should be no difference on these social media platforms for how they treat us and the elite. We would get kicked off and they should too.
  • marsven_422 5y ago
    Another what? Outside the leftists echo chamber Jan 6 was a nothing burger.
    • Swenrekcah 5y ago
      You mean that time when the sitting president of the US encouraged his followers to storm the Capitol and stop Congress from formally ratifying the democratically elected next president? When he encouraged them to behave violently and actually told them he’d be right there with them? That time when, what, 4 people got killed, directly related to a call by the president to urge his supporters to stop the peaceful transition of power? Out here in the real world outside the Trump cult that’s what these events were.
• labrador 5y ago
  • Trufa 5y ago
    I don't know how to ask this question without it sounding charged, but please take it as literal as possible and coming with absolutely no aggression: Do you think removing Trump was pro-democracy? I stand very firmly against being removed on principle of him being an ex-president of the US, this comes from someone who probably thinks he should be prosecuted for (likely) falsely claiming election fraud, or IMHO stretching the definition in his favour. I think this should be regulated, if not for everyone, at least for highly important accounts, and it should NOT be a private country that has so much power over the next US election.
    • labrador 5y ago
      > Do you think removing Trump was pro-democracy? Yes, absolutely. A former president was undermining trust in the democratic system with no evidence of wide spread fraud, who encouraged people to attack the capital during the peaceful transfer of power, who was also encouraging people to subvert the election process at the state level. He and his assosciates had an anti-democratic plan to keep him in power.
  • RVtyper 5y ago
    we are a flawed democracy/republic. people on parlor and gab, which i'm not one of, are for traditional values because that is what built this country. the only pro-authoritarian ive seen is from the social media giants and blue sate gov's.
    • labrador 5y ago
      I put "traditional values" in quotes because I don't think anti-LGBTQ+ deserves to be traditional
  • labrador 5y ago
    I guess my opinion is not popular, but I'll just say this: If Musk lets Trump back on I'm deleting my account. I've heard others say the same thing. That's a fact, not an opinion.
• riffic 5y ago
  Elon Musk can not buy Mastodon (https://www.joinmastodon.org https://www.joinmastodon.org) This is the best ethical replacement for what Twitter provides, and it gives control back into operators of communities because it is based on a standardized specification for a federated social web.
• caiob 5y ago
  [dead]
• no-dr-onboard 5y ago
  > As an all-cash offer, this generates for the shareholders a substantial return with NO RISK, and so the board has a serious legal obligation to carefully review this offer and make a decision. What a gut check. I'm sure this is an obvious comment by now, but seeing the board's response to turning down something like this is going to be an olympic level display of mental gymnastics. Exciting times.
  • ajaimk 5y ago
    Microsoft + Yahoo comes to mind
    • tempnow987 5y ago
      Exactly what I was thinking of! To catch folks up MS offered Yahoo $44B in their CHOICE of cash or stock (58B inflation adjusted). Yahoo said no, then imploded.
      • sharken 5y ago
        That fate seems unlikely for Twitter, it's right now the go-to place for last-minute info on Putins invasion of Ukraine. After that who knows. Well, apparently Elon Musk knows.
        • lumost 5y ago
          reddit is pretty good at up to the minute information as well, it also benefits from topic filters/groupings and moderation.
          • tremarley 5y ago
            Reddit is infected with the same problem as Twitter and YouTube though. It use to be a place with free communities and free speech. But now, if you dare to post anything that doesn't align with what the MSM agenda for the day is. Your comment, post or even your whole sub-reddit gets banned.
• honeybadger1 5y ago
  I appreciate this man.
• bfgoodrich 5y ago
  [dead]
• grumple 5y ago
  We've talked about compliance and advertising revenue, which I think are good points for discussion. The motivations of Elon are unclear. What is clear is that he hates feeling like his behavior is being controlled or monitored. He loves attention. He's petty. For someone who wants to advance the world and get to Mars, he obsesses over small slights and squabbles far too much. Twitter is far from being some technological marvel. They have a decent application with lots of reach. Doesn't really match the rest of Elon's assets. Doesn't seem to align with his goals. But let's imagine Elon's Twitter. Let's say he isn't bound by laws and contracts preventing it and he says "anything goes" on the platform. What happens to advertisers? I assume they leave. What happens to staff? I assume they get fired when the revenue dries up. We know what "free speech twitter" looks like; an uber-conservative site devoid of real life and full of misinformation. Does allowing medical (and other) misinformation and promotion of violence to spread on Twitter serve Elon's ends? Perhaps, if he wishes to make an attempt to become an autocrat (which wouldn't be surprising; it's every geek and billionaire's dream) or support one. It doesn't seem like he'd fight the spread of that misinformation with corrective speech, as he has what's (at best) a loose relationship with the truth.
• ROARosen 5y ago
  The reason this bothers me in principle, is that whatever the side of politics you are, the "public" will have effectively zero control on affecting any board decisions at Twitter, moderation-wise or otherwise. Its true that the public had little say in that regard till now but at least this buyout threat shows that it is "possible" to stand up to whatever decisions their board makes. As an aside, I doubt people and governments would have the same confidence in Twitter were it a private company, which leaves me to believe that this whole buyoff thingy is just a power play by Musk to gain some power over the board without actually joining the board.
  • xixixao 5y ago
    I don’t see any connection between ownership and moderation. Perhaps Elon does. But he can be called on by the Senate just as any board appointed CEO. Curious if someone can explain the connection.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • philosopher1234 5y ago
      If you own twitter you can chop heads till the moderationpolicy changes
  • sidcool 5y ago
    It's such a dichotomy. Twitter's main assets are its users. Twitter is valuable only because of its user base. And the users do have a say. If majority of the users decide against this takeover, they can boycott the platform. But a collective action at this scale is pretty difficult to orchestrate. It's quaint, users have the power to shut down Twitter, but still they can't do it.
    • fleddr 5y ago
      Twitter's users are worthless. Recent studies show that a very small percentage is responsible for some 97% of all tweets. And worse, 80% of those 97% of tweets are retweets. There's almost no original content of any value on Twitter. You could now delete half of all Twitter users and absolutely nothing will happen. Twitter is a bunch of celebrities/politicians saying things that fuel division and outrage, which generates the bulk of activity. They won't ban anything as because without Twitter richly rewarding them for idiotic takes, they are nothing.
• dm319 5y ago
  This thread is hilarious. In the cesspit of a social media website, people accuse Twitter of being a social media cesspit. I've seen people arguing for absolute freedom of speech, except in malicious circumstances, but seem to think that malicious is easy to define. I've seen people ask if there really are any other alternatives to individuals owning huge wealth. Or people saying that doing immoral things is ok if it's within the law. I think I've had enough of this site for a while.
  • imbnwa 5y ago
    Don't forget the majority of comments in this very popular and reasonable thread [0] [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087309&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087309&p=2
    • RONROC 5y ago
      Incredible thread. Definitely logged off for a while after that
    • mardifoufs 5y ago
      Imo that thread was worse and not comparable. This one is mostly revolving around Twitter and it's moderation policy, there's no veiled racism as far as I can see
    • dang 5y ago
      That thread begins at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087309. Linking to the second page gives a skewed impression, since downvoted and flagged comments are ranked lower and thus more likely to be on later pages.
  • kbenson 5y ago
    Eh, it's just the squeaky wheels, like it is anywhere. I find that people are much more likely to speak out (or up/down vote) in support of something they also do that they feel vaguely guilty for, possibly in an effort to assuage their guilt be explaining themselves and looking for people to tell them it's okay, than people are to condemn others, depending on the acceptableness of what's being discussed. I think most people don't want to come across as puritanical hard-asses, so either keep quiet or are not as forceful in their criticisms and condemnations in a public forums like this with lots of different subgroups. That may make it seems like people are generally accepting of a behavior when they're not. Importantly, I think this isn't limited to online forums, but it is lessened when there's more conformity in group discussion which is easier when it's smaller. That has it's own dangers though, such as being much more accepting of problematic behavior because the group is all similar in a way that makes it acceptable. I think the solution is to see it for what it really is, and just realize what you see isn't always representative of the norm.
• bikamonki 5y ago
  I am not sure Elon can fix Twitter b/c I am not sure Social Networks can be fixed at all.
  • another_devy 5y ago
    Social networks in essence mirrors the society so its hard to run a company without judging and censoring free speech if comany doesn't want to be something like 4chan. The bigger problem arises when this censoring and controlling starts affecting democratic processes, there are other bad side effects too. Maybe there should not be any Social networks or maybe we should have better democracy which doesn't crumble under these new powers of information age.
• jollybean 5y ago
  "Boards have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders." Xi and the CCP/Chinese Government make a bid to buy Google, for a 20% premium. They also bid to buy Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft. All for 20% premium. Should shareholders do 'the right thing' and sell? Assuming you're not a Twitter shareholder why do you care about investors interests? Why don't you care about your interests? Why do plebes constantly argue against their own interests? As a Twitter user, I pretty much don't want Elon Musk involved, and I don't really care too much otherwise. Every organization has stakeholders: customers, suppliers, financiers (investors and debtors), execs, employees. If a Union forms, they can take considerable control away from investors. If debtors come calling, they can take considerable control, away from investors. 'Externalizations' such as issues in the public good, or environmental issues - matter. Usually, we like to think of those things, in the context of a 'Charter' that highlights those things i.e. some 'Crown/Gov. Corporations', things like the CBC, US Post etc.. When you say 'things that don't matter vs. things that do' - that could be true, or only even true from a certain perspective. For example, you might think they should not focus on moderation, but instead, advertising. Well, without appropriate moderation, the ship could sink. Also, issues like moderation can be hard and ultimately satisfy nobody, and frankly, might not even be an operational distraction (although it probably is). Finally - as property of Elon Musk - Twitter will be literally whatever he wants it to be. Rich People have, throughout history, bought newspapers etc. for the entire purpose of slandering their opponents. The news wasn't even 'real' until just a few generations ago, it was all tabloid. Elon Musk could will likely censor those who disagree with him and his colleagues, and boost/amplify those who's interests are aligned with him - maybe not as badly as others, but it could be that. If you're going to take a 'principled stand' on this issue, it's going to have to be one probably of the externalized common good, not so much shareholders.
  • RandallBrown 5y ago
    > Xi and the CCP/Chinese Government make a bid to buy Google, for a 20% premium. They also bid to buy Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft. All for 20% premium. Should shareholders do 'the right thing' and sell? The right thing isn't necessarily selling. In that case the right thing is to consider the offer and decide if it's worth it or not. In this case the answer would probably be "No" and the US Government probably wouldn't let it happen either.
• lumost 5y ago
  My take, this is about putting a valuation on non-twitter social. Reddit has more users than Twitter, and a valuation 1/5th of twitters. If Twitter is worth 47 billion to someone, then reddit should be worth 50-100 billion. Unfortunately it's not possible to know if Elon has a major stake in any privately held social companies.
  • jdrc 5y ago
    The media is usually not profitable, they have other uses. Countless newspaper and tv networks go bankrupt
• wnevets 5y ago
  That is certainly one way to kill twitter
• dgudkov 5y ago
  I bet some of those who advocated "it's a private company, it can deplatform whoever it wants" are probably re-thinking their stance on deplatforming from a major social media.
  • mcintyre1994 5y ago
    Musk can ban whoever he wants if he buys Twitter. I assume he’ll want to do at least some of that given his past actions and the fact that there are critics of him and his companies on there.
  • x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
    Not really. When moderation goes away, platforms become rife with racism, spam, scams and less than desirable actors. We've seen this with Gab and Parler.
    • CivBase 5y ago
      While I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that assessment, I think those examples of Gab and Parlor are weak. Those platforms were essentially created and marketed specifically to individuals and groups who were kicked off of other platforms. That demographic will naturally include a much higher proportion of "less than desirable actors". Many of the largest platforms featured much less moderation in their past - even when they were much larger than Gab or Parlor - while also enjoying a smaller proportion of "less than desirable actors". Of course, whether that level was acceptable is debatable. Free speech is a double-edge sword and moderation is an astoundingly complex problem.
      • bduerst 5y ago
        Gab, Parler, Voat, et al are marketed as forums with lax moderation. The flavors of prejudice that they attract are the direct result of their function. Platforms that start to grow large without controls against hate and other bad actors simply do not continue to grow.
    • indiv0 5y ago
• bg117 5y ago
  Twitter does not make any great money. It has to go private backed by a wealthy individual to stay afloat for more time without the regulatory worries. It's just a noisy online market place with mostly garbage.
• ab_testing 5y ago
  If I was Jack Dorsey, I would take this deal in a heartbeat. Twitter stock has not gone anywhere in the last 9 years it has been public. It does not make any money. This is like the Yahoo deal where Microsoft offered a bunch of money for Yahoo.
• marricks 5y ago
  Oh I’m going to make one of those wild guesses: 1) musk buys twitter because it’s difficult to reject the offer 2) musk states “free speech is very important” and reinstates a lot of banned conservatives, namely trump 3) trump’s reelection gets put into high gear with twitter back as his main platform Actually feels more obvious than wild if 1 happens.
• 40acres 5y ago
  I don't know about the validity of the bid (fifty.. four twenty?) but man does Twitter need a kick in the ass. The product has been stagnant since birth but has so much potential, I'd be interested to see what reforms Elon would bring in.
• Vladimof 5y ago
  How common are bids solicited?
• zzleeper 5y ago
  What's the chance of him just polling off a dogecoin? Price went up, he sells, then says "sorry for rejecting my offer" (which of course had "secured funding" and all that). Would be a great way to make a few extra billion and of course the SEC won't do mcuh
• qeternity 5y ago
  *MUSK: `NOT SURE I'LL ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO BUY' TWITTER
• Zigurd 5y ago
  The offer will fail: The tell is that it is a "final" offer. In fact, if the offer were accepted, Elon would be hard pressed to come up with the actual cash for an all-cash offer. The offer isn't meant to be taken seriously. After his "final" offer is rejected, Elon will rage quit his position in Twitter.
• thebackstall17 5y ago
  All
• daenz 5y ago
  What if Twitter employees threaten to leave en-masse? I'd seen some reports that people quit when he became the largest shareholder. It's not outside the realm of possibility.
  • no-dr-onboard 5y ago
    I can't recall a time where a tech corp has been significantly burdened by an employee strike. Netflix employee tantrums over Chapelle was the most recent one that comes to mind.
    • daenz 5y ago
      The tech industry appears to be closer to favoring unionization than we ever have been. I take your point, but the Chapelle outrage is a very small example compared to what's happening here. Tech workers are poised to leave their jobs far more readily than many other professions.
  • ricardobeat 5y ago
    Why would they do that? Do the current owners have any kind of noble motive that would be undermined?
    • daenz 5y ago
      My read on it is that the employees who work at Twitter, when they can work at any other tech company, prefer to work at Twitter because they think that by moderating the world's messages, they are making it a better place.
      • ricardobeat 5y ago
        Wow, I had never heard that. Seems quite an odd thing to be proud of - it's a necessary evil. You'd think the exact opposite, like 'giving people a voice', would be a stronger motivation.
  • NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
• thebackstall17 5y ago
  What he did today is thousand times better than shelling money behind the charity that many billionaires doing. Under Elon twitter can enable true "freedom of expression." Parag's one sided stand to enable woke culture, and board's support to that clearly showing how extreme right mindset they have when running this company. Today we can't hear the voice of other side on this platform, they are either shutdown or suspended even if you are former prez https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003891153108997 https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003891153108997
  • archagon 5y ago
    If the former prez is someone who blatantly and consistently violates Twitter policy, then good riddance.
    • cwkoss 5y ago
      I think it's hard to say whether idiocy/hatred is more dangerous in the spotlight or in the shadows.
  • ulkesh 5y ago
    Freedom of expression does not mean tolerating outright lies and bigotry and harm on a non-government-owned/controlled platform. So Trump, since you decided to not say his name for some reason, was rightly kicked off the platform after being warned numerous times about his policy violations. It's funny how people seem to think that such freedoms extend beyond the boundary of government and into the private sector (publicly-traded company or not). They do not. They never have. Twitter can set whatever rules they wish and the chips may fall where they will, despite what @jack may say. You are free to choose a different platform to support. But don't sit there and think that the "other side" is somehow oppressed because you simply disagree with the policies of Twitter.
• mkl95 5y ago
  > Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk offered to take Twitter Inc. private in a deal valued at $43 billion, lambasting company management and saying he’s the person who can unlock the “extraordinary potential” of a communication platform used daily by more than 200 million people. That's intriguing. Twitter's user facing APIs have been pretty stale in the last decade or so, in fact it could be said that they have regressed. If you regularly use something like Slack then it's easy to see how Twitter have wasted 1000s of integration opportunities. With the right direction it could become an exciting platform again. I don't think Musk intends to do anything like that, though.
• partiallypro 5y ago
  I've always felt Twitter has been poorly run, it's almost like the people that work for the company don't actually use it often and are completely disconnected from the userbase. Remember when they completely screwed API users? Various Twitter third parties had to shut down entirely because of it. Twitter has some of the most valuable and useful realtime information in the world, but everyone there seems content on not using it for anything worth anything. They even killed Vine, which is basically the exact same thing as Tiktok and Stories...years before both. Then tried to push their own version of stories, which was just awful. Jack and the current CEO seem(ed)s totally disconnected from any sort of reality going on with their own product. Even Jack, while he was still in power, seemed confused by Twitter's own censorship/moderation rules at times. How is that possible? Moderation is also totally uneven with some accounts getting away with certain jokes (or outright threats) and others are completely immune to it. I personally love Twitter as a product, but it's so insane to me how the current CEO has his job, or how Jack was able to remain CEO for so long when he had clearly long abandoned it for Square. For major news, no one talks about Facebook/Tiktok/Instagram...they talk about Twitter. It's so incredibly valuable, and it's shackled by sheer incompetent and complacency. If it's not Elon, someone needs to come in and restructure it and get rid of those holding it back.
  • Kye 5y ago
    >> "I've always felt Twitter has been poorly run, it's almost like the people that work for the company don't actually use it often and are completely disconnected from the userbase. Remember when they completely screwed API users? Various Twitter third parties had to shut down entirely because of it." They did this to make sure people saw ads. It's why Twitter is profitable now. The vast majority of people on Twitter never knew Twitter had a vibrant developer ecosystem in the distant past.
    • partiallypro 5y ago
      That's not why Twitter is profitable, and the engineering team and Jack have expressed how badly they screwed up the API situation. Google has managed to offer the Maps API and others at a reasonable cost/to free and had no problems at all. Twitter on the other hand...completely botched it.
• jandrusk 5y ago
  If the bid is accepted, he's going to want to build his own app store otherwise Google & Apple will kick the Twitter app off if his version of free speech doesn't align with their version of censorship. Gab discovered this early on and pivoted accordingly.
  • colechristensen 5y ago
    Gab isn't Twitter. If the two app stores tried to deplatform Twitter there would be a landmark court case which would likely reach the Supreme Court.
  • cwkoss 5y ago
    The twitter app is unnecessary - works fine in a browser.
    • shmde 5y ago
      It works just as well as how "FB" and "Insta" work in mobile browser. Absolute shit, half of the features locked. Bad experience overall.
      • chiggsy 5y ago
        Yes, you cede much more of your personal data using the apps than the browser. I would view myself as deranged were I to install those apps on my phone today. The features are there to entice you you install the app.
• scurraorbis 5y ago
  Hackernews is just as censorious as twitter. Comments get flagged and moderated solely by the positions taken within and then system has the gall to then tell you to read the comment policies which you didn't violate as they are from the libertine age that preceded this one. Controversial post rarely reach the front page anymore and if they do they are full of reasonable and true comments fading into gray and finally away. Meanwhile the most on the nose, vile and hateful propaganda get's voted to the top with rarely anyone speaking against it. I understand you do this for a good cause, because you think it will save lives or make society better. It won't. There is an underlying reality with it's ground truth and that can only ever be glimpsed through the verbal sparring of ideas and ideologies. To those truly concerned about "harmful misinformation", you should know that the greatest atrocities in human history were committed when one side, faction or ideology could dictated what everyone said and wrote. This is not an accident. The most harmful misinformation is that which no one is allowed to correct.
  • simondotau 5y ago
    You've been posting tedious conspiracy theories based on little more than misunderstood statistics. It's not interesting. Everyone here is bored of politely entertaining such junk.
• PaulHoule 5y ago
  I would say: (1) Twitter is a poorly managed company and has been for a long time. A shake up could be a good thing. (2) I don't see Musk as the person to do it. Mostly he uses Twitter to shoot himself in the foot and his free-speech fetishism doesn't ring true. Is he going to reinstate Trump's Twitter account? Is he going to encourage Narendra Modi to use Twitter to organize pogroms next?
• yumraj 5y ago
  I am 100% convinced that this is driven by the failure of Trump's social media platform which leave Trump without a megaphone. Elon Musk wants to deliver Trump the Twitter megaphone before the elections.
• hitovst 5y ago
  This is terrific. He said it will require threat with guns to get them to violate free speech. If true, this type of leadership is exactly what humanity needs. I still don't understand the interest individuals have in proprietary, restrictive, unnecessary, platforms.. but for those who tolerate that sort of thing, I assume Twitter will become more valuable to them.
• GrumpyNl 5y ago
  Just to much money for one person.
• LeicaLatte 5y ago
  With the original founders gone, why not? He is literally twitter’s most passionate user.
• Kapura 5y ago
  It's sorta funny; I had a call scheduled to talk to a recruiter at Tesla but seeing this reminded me just what kind of guy is ultimately the CEO of the company. I feel very strongly that company culture permeates from the top, and I don't want to swim in whatever cesspool is leaking from the top of that pyramid.
• sidcool 5y ago
  I am a Musk fanboy. But I don't think he should be a gatekeeper for free speech evangelism. No matter how fair Elon thinks he is, a completely private entity or person cannot guarantee unbiased free speech. There has to be regulation and oversight. So if Musk wants to take over Twitter, sure, no one's going to stop him. But let's not expect it means that free speech principles will be upheld. It's probable that under Elon's regime, Twitter might suppress anti-Tesla topics.
  • brink 5y ago
    > No matter how fair Elon thinks he is, a completely private entity or person cannot guarantee unbiased free speech. The gov has shown to be unwilling to hold free speech laws to social media companies, and Twitter has been so aggressive in censoring dissident political opinion.. what else are you proposing we do?
  • bhelkey 5y ago
    Ironically, I suspect Musk publicly buying Twitter is likely the shortest path to regulation. Talk of regulation and oversight has been going on for years but I suspect that this could be the trigger for such legislation.
• sidcool 5y ago
  A major Twitter shareholder and Saudi prince Alwaleed rejects Elon's offer to takeover Twitter. https://www.reuters.com/technology/saudi-prince-alwaleed-bin-talal-rejects-elon-musks-twitter-takeover-bid-tweet-2022-04-14/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/saudi-prince-alwaleed-bin...
  • systemvoltage 5y ago
    I just learned this today, a bit shocked. Isn't anyone concerned that Saudi Arabia – not exactly a beacon of human rights and dignity for all people – holds 5% stake in Twitter?
    • LegitShady 5y ago
      https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/tech/twitter-employees-saudi-arabia-spying/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/06/tech/twitter-employees-saudi-...
    • cwkoss 5y ago
      definitely an order of magnitude more concerning than elon's stake
  • jtdev 5y ago
• hindsightbias 5y ago
  My prediction: this is how democracy ends.
  • tofuahdude 5y ago
    That's insanely hyperbolic.
• Communitivity 5y ago
  Does anyone else think he is trying to do this so it gets accepted and announced on 4/20? I worry, because Twitter is a very real outlet for many oppressed people. Matrix technology is good, but nowhere near as widespread or easy to use yet. I worry that Twitter will be bought and Musk turns out to be a far-right or far-left extremist that makes Twitter into a much more biased political platform.
  • nitestunk 5y ago
    Twitter is already about as politically biased as they come. Removing its current censorship would improve the platform as an outlet for oppressed people.
  • NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
    >Does anyone else think he is trying to do this so it gets accepted and announced on 4/20? Would be absolutely in character for him. I mean Musk is obviously Lib Right (shoutout to politicalcompassmemes). Everybody on the bottom half of the spectrum is pro-free(speech|dom).
• taf2 5y ago
  My only issue is they used the wrong name.. he now goes by Elona
• voldacar 5y ago
  Journalists and bluechecks seem to be particularly mad about this. I guess they don't like the prospect of having to follow rules that are transparently enforced rather than the current system of favoritism and opacity
  • outoftheabyss 5y ago
    Always a good barometer of the merits of an idea
  • jasonhansel 5y ago
    And if there's anything Elon Musk is known for, it's being completely transparent and unbiased! /s
    • nonethewiser 5y ago
      He suggested making the algorithm open source.
      • nowherebeen 5y ago
        Playing devil's advocate here (I like the idea). Won't that make it worst since people, having the blueprint, are going to game the system like how they try to do with SEO?
        • leodriesch 5y ago
          Sure, people will do that, but the algorithms of popular search engines are closed source, yet they are getting gamed all the time. The more interesting aspect I find here is that in an open-source algorithm it is difficult to hide shady patterns that keep the user doom-scrolling. So open-sourcing the algorithm would signal to me that a membership program is supposed to be a major contributor to Twitters revenue and ad revenue, which it currently most relies on, is going to be less important. In my eyes that is a net positive.
• WalterBright 5y ago
  I have some Twitter stock, and will be happy to transmorgrify it into another Musk company!
  • systemvoltage 5y ago
    Elon just tweeted: > Will endeavor to keep as many shareholders in privatized Twitter as allowed by law https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514681422212128770 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514681422212128770 So I now wonder what is the % of shares one has to hold to obtain private investor status by law?
• grammers 5y ago
  So when is he finally going to Mars?
• janekg 5y ago
  Well done, he won't be on the Supervisory Board - so bought the shares for useless. Now complete takeover announced - rejected - share price rises - shares sold again, good money made
• HonestOp001 5y ago
  Good. Twitter is a top heavy company that could have its staff halved and still be good. Elon would do a great job firing the staff and right sizing the company. There was a chap who was involved in their AI department. Despite the initial question of why is there an AI department, the follow up is why is it doing so badly?
• tikiman163 5y ago
  I cannot think that Elon Musk owning/controlling Twitter will go even half the way he expects. He clearly only sees it as a potential platform for disseminating his opinions, which have regularly been wrong when it came to things like the pandemic. He's a potentially dangerous egomaniac and if he is allowed to own Twitter the best case scenario is that Twitter experiences a mass user exodus, worst case it turns into a social media platform for crazy nonsense like Newsmax and OAN. Sure, it could just turn into a Fox News equivalent, but that's barely better.
  • cwkoss 5y ago
    Both of your cases seem quite implausible to me. Sounds like cynical wishful thinking.
  • systemvoltage 5y ago
    He wants to make the Twitter algorithm open source. Complete transparency whether something is demoted or promoted. Anything but is terrifying. The current status quo of few SF algorithmists controlling the world is far worse than putting up with Elon's bs.
• fleddr 5y ago
  Twitter is a mob launch pad. It's ran by outrage addicted, sadistic, cruel bullies. It's as if all of the world's village idiots joined forces and became the ruling class in culture and speech. It is Twitter that has normalized and promoted inhumane tactics like context switching, bad faith discussion, talking behind you to others instead of towards you (quote tweeting), screenshotting, obsessively digging through one's history, mob launches, and in some cases cancellations, death threats, etc. No normal person engages with another person like this. They are tactics to use when at war, but this is business as usual on Twitter. Worse, it's richly rewarded. It's a place where brains and conversations go to die. I hope the offer gets accepted, it's not like he can make it worse. Or perhaps he should intentionally make it worse and sink it.
  • fleischhauf 5y ago
    while this might be true for most of Twitter, my experience is very different. I've been following researchers mostly and aside from very recently published work there are very interesting conversations or thought threads.so i guess it heavily depends on your Twitter bubble
  • boredumb 5y ago
    It's a nice thought, but 43 billion dollars is a helluva price to pay for an intentional sepoku.
  • Karrot_Kream 5y ago
    I'm not usually one for this kind of schadenfreude but I find myself agreeing. It really can't get any worse.
  • Teandw 5y ago
    People have always engaged with other people like they do on Twitter. You don't think even before social media there was a world where people spread lies about you, spread hatred and people who would do anything in their power to ruin your marriage, career or life in general? You just see it more these days because it's more easily visible. It doesn't mean it happens more than it used to.
  • 5y ago
• paparush 5y ago
  I think Scott Galloway is right, Elon doesn't add value, just volatility.
• pastor_bob 5y ago
  just adding to this historic post
  • lampshades 5y ago
    me too bob
• fareesh 5y ago
  My hope is that he does things that the "Twitter is a private company and they can do what they want" crowd hates. Twitter may cost $43B or more, but to witness the prostration of that crowd is truly priceless.
• blinded 5y ago
  Nothing would compel me to use that junk site.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• indigodaddy 5y ago
  So after Twitter’s stock price doubles and Musk dispenses with these foolish antics, he dumps his shares, yeah?
• qualudeheart 5y ago
  Elon if you’re reading this. Do it. They can’t stop you. We believe in you!
• PokestarFan 5y ago
  Absolute idiocy going on with Elon, man is sorta like Kanye but also the richest in the world and has no verifiable mental illness yet
• resters 5y ago
  All he has to do is buy it at a discount and let Donald Trump back on for a significant profit. Sad but true.
• dontblink 5y ago
  Bezos has Washington Post as his mouthpiece. Murdoch has Fox News. Musk doesn't really need more money. I don't think this is just pump and dump. Is it possible Musk is looking to buy a method to influence a populace for his own ends? I.E. is this a method for him to influence a population to gain power and sway over elections, organizations, etc?
  • usefulcat 5y ago
    Certainly wouldn't be the craziest thing that has happened in the past 6 years.
  • trixie_ 5y ago
    He wants to bring transparency to all the shady shit twitter does to manipulate the feed.
• floatinglotus 5y ago
  Elon Musk is trying to out-troll current world champion Kanye West.
  • cwkoss 5y ago
    Kanye is just a clown, far from the greatest troll in the world.
• rsolva 5y ago
  This underscores the importance of federated social media like Mastodon, which offers a broad range of instances (servers/communities) that never will be owned and controlled by a single guy.
• LoveMortuus 5y ago
  Two options: a) He buys Twitter for ~35.5bn (he already owns ~9.2%) IN CASH mind you. b) He's trying to sell all of his stocks without people saying he's manipulating the market.
  • catsarebetter 5y ago
    Yeah I like this perspective I don't think it's anything more than that
  • MrStonedOne 5y ago
• dav_Oz 5y ago
  What he certainly has produced already is a lot of attention, now, if he can't buy up this specific platform at his final bid maybe a dump and a 51% will follow ... whatever the case he got an extraordinary amount of people in and outside of TWTR discussing his intentions and captured hopefully some imaginations so in the end if nothing succeeds in terms of an acquisition he can at least effectively leverage this huge attention to jump start a new platform. I'm not for obscenely wealthy single individuals i.e. 'oligarchs' sponsoring "open source free speech platforms" but I welcome the mainstream opportunity for stirring up the dead end (social dilemma) in which social platforms find themselves (from out-of-spiral censoring ("moderating") to basically uncontrolled anon image boards) I guess from an engineering perspective sensible new solutions are very much needed.
• zo1 5y ago
  How does one like Elon Musk go about "planning" this? Lawyers?
• krick 5y ago
  It's hard to navigate comments, but I cannot find the important stuff being discussed. I mean: how the hell can he even remotely viably secure $43B in cash?! All this "$200B net worth" is pretty much bullshit — it's multiplying current stock price by the amount he holds. (Hugely overpriced stock, in his case.) Sure, he can borrow insane amounts of money using this stock as a leverage, but no way it can be even close to $40B! Right?
  • x-complexity 5y ago
    Overcollateralized loans are a real thing, & when used right offer substantial opportunities in risk hedging, leveraging, & limit sells. He'll need to post ~$55B in stocks to make it happen, but it's doable. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/overcollateralization.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/overcollateralization.a...
    • krick 5y ago
      No, I am sure this happens, but at $50B, really? Maybe I don't understand something, but the absolute amount sound impossible to me. I mean, no matter how much collateral you are going to offer, to borrow the money, you need somebody, who can lend you that money. It's not like you can ask for $50B in a pawnshop. Sure, you are gonna split it between 10 banks, it's still a lot. That is, it has to be an institution that can move so wast amounts of cash, that these billions Musk borrows are kind of insignificant in comparison. And the collateral Musk offers must look nice specifically to them. Now, how are they going to price the collateral? I don't understand where you got $55B from, but all risks taken into account it still has to represent what they think the stock will cost after the deal. Surely Musk fanboys may believe TSLA is underpriced, but you are not gonna deal with them, you are gonna deal with the analysts of that financial institution. And no matter how much more optimistic than me you/they are, what do you think will happen to Tesla stock if Musk sells even 30% of what he owns? I'd think he may as well offer "$200B worth" Tesla stock, as per today's market price. It still can turn into rubble the moment after it becomes public knowledge and Musk fanboys start selling theirs. I mean, it would be hard enough to buy $50B for gold. Harder still to buy gold for $50B. But to borrow $50B for Tesla & SpaceX stock? Really? Am I underestimating things? Do such crazy deals actually happen?
• rtkwe 5y ago
  He's already backing off the deal which should be a surprise to no one. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/elon-musk-not-sure-hell-be-able-to-buy-twitter.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/elon-musk-not-sure-hell-be-a...
• sexangel 5y ago
  remember: Musk is the same person that posted this: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503276966874595330 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1503276966874595330 democracy doesn't matter when the rich seek to bend the world to their will.
  • nonethewiser 5y ago
    That tweet is funny
• Maursault 5y ago
  So Musk offered $43B to purchase Twitter, but it can't be a serious offer because $43B is only $1083.00 /rimshot c'mon... it's a hex joke. No? Ok.
• memish 5y ago
  Chris Anderson of TED asked Elon a lot of the questions and concerns being discussed here. Check it out if you want to understand his perspective and goals with twitter. “Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization” To that end, he committed to transparency. For example, changes to tweets or users would be made visible and apparent so there's no more behind the scenes manipulation. The algorithm itself would be open sourced. Anyone could view it on Github and suggest changes or point out issues. https://youtu.be/cdZZpaB2kDM?t=666 https://youtu.be/cdZZpaB2kDM?t=666
  • hooande 5y ago
    if the algorithm is open source, bad actors can see it as well. it'll become remarkably easy to spam and game the system. this could drive users away, decrease revenue and leave Mr. Musk holding a $40B hot potato
    • sgillen 5y ago
      Counter point, maybe it just accelerates the game of cat and mouse already played between bad actors and algorithm designers, possibly leading to faster iteration and improvement of their algorithm to find hard to fake signals.
      • ece 5y ago
        Musk could start his own Mastodon right now and do what he wants, but if he wants to bring along his Twitter network (or make it easier for any Twitter user to switch), then perhaps hurrying up Bluesky is another way to get what he wants short of taking Twitter private. It seems like the focus needs to be on what can fight back misinformation/spam better given the context: more speech or moderation. The need for human moderation will likely still exist, but if Musk wants to accelerate the process as you say, Bluesky seems like a good way to start. If Twitter is making choices that increase their bottom line at the expense of community, then absolutely, more transparency and open source would help with that.
      • deleted 5y ago
• known 5y ago
• srcreigh 5y ago
  > Musk said that if he succeeds in his bid, he would seek to retain as many other shareholders as the law allows for a private company, rather than being sole owner. This really changes the equation for stakeholder value. The offer isn't Twitter-owned Twitter or $54.20/share, it's Twitter-owned Twitter or Elon-owned twitter.
• marincounty 5y ago
• arrty88 5y ago
  Wonder if Bezos will out bid? The WashPo and twitter under one roof would be kind of cool
  • hstan4 5y ago
    Sounds awful
• brentis 5y ago
  He could load up on puts and sell his position. Pretty sure he does these games read somewhere there was massive Doge purchase weeks prior to his fandom of said coin. With this play, "funding secured" for his Twitter killer.
• saul_goodman 5y ago
  I can't believe this many people really care wtf is going to happen to Twitter. I hope Musk takes the hardware running it and makes it into an AGI who's sole job is to pass the butter.
• dotcoma 5y ago
  Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. — A.J. Liebling
• hetoh 5y ago
  Elon is just a troll who happens to be richest man on earth. He is just trolling SEC. Bid price 54.20 is a joke and people do not yet realize and take him seriously, anyone notice 420 ? Everyone remember he wanted to take Tesla private for 420 and funding secured.. he is just doing classic pump and dump.. he did with Tesla and took out all short sellers.. Now he's doing the same for Twitter, he will make money and sell twitter stocks. SEC is a joke.. they should come hard down on him.
  • tux1968 5y ago
    > SEC is a joke.. they should come hard down on him. Honest question, what is the illegality or infraction he is committing? He's filing the proper paperwork, presumably he will follow through if the offer is accepted. What can the SEC actually do?
    • hetoh 5y ago
      Only reason he filed paperwork this time is last time he got fined. So his calculation was lets do paperwork and avoid fine.. Does anyone really think 54.20 is a serious offer or its just in his regular pattern of 420 behavior? I can almost guarantee it will never go through even he knows it. Thats why its his best and final offer. Do you really think Twitter is sudden interest to him away from Tesla/SpaceX or Hyperloop? last time he was in "Web" was PayPal and thats ages ago.. it Never has interested him probably very boring. He was never into social. he's just thinking this as a quick way to make 15-20% return in few months and have fun. He got bored of pumping Dogecoin, now he's on twitter trying to make money, even though he does not need it. its just fun for him to send people in loop and trigger bunch of folks.
      • tux1968 5y ago
        None of that has anything to do with my question, though. It doesn't matter what his motivations are. The question is, what law or regulation has he violated? On what basis can the SEC go after him, specifically?
        • 4y ago
• toephu2 5y ago
  The Twitter exec team & board is between a rock and a hard place. If they take the offer, half the exec team (or the entire exec team) will be axed (Musk already indicated he's not happy with management in the SEC letter [1]). If they reject the offer, they will be drowning in lawsuits due to not filling their fiduciary duty (getting a good deal for their shareholders [2]). [1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922... [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514718700674306052 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514718700674306052
  • catothedev 5y ago
    They can hire bankers to try and find an investor who is 'management friendly'. Although, honestly, I can't see why any investor would really respect them given TWTR's performance.
• marincounty 5y ago
• fredgrott 5y ago
  Hmm, Mark Cuban for no cash starts a cost-based online pharmacy to help people. I really do not see any factual proof that Elon making money saves civilization. Or I do not see how refusing to follow SEC rules will get Elon any closer to buying twitter as I do not think SEC would ever allow it without doing a massive lawsuit to block it. Which means Leon is motivated by his beef with SEC not saving civilization.
• mickotron 5y ago
  As a SpaceX customer, this makes me sad. I want that money to go into his existing businesses. Not some ego trip for silly idealogical reasons. $43B could go some way for more satellites, more ground stations. Investing in businesses already making him money.