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Musk Says Twitter Must Prove Bot Claims for $44B Deal to Proceed

33 points by ckastner 4y ago

joebob42 4y ago
Apparently Twitter claims only 5% of users are bots. It seems impossible to me that this claim is remotely true, and I imagine Musk knows this. This kind of sounds to me like he's decided he doesn't want to buy and is creating a reason not to.
- dazc 4y ago
  >This kind of sounds to me like he's decided he doesn't want to buy and is creating a reason not to. You can offer to buy a house knowing full well there are going to be problems which will show up in the surveyor's report. You can then adjust your offer accordingly. This offer will likely reflect what you were willing to pay all along. A low initial offer would be rejected since, at that point, the problems were not public knowledge. Now they are public knowledge, accepting a revised low offer may be the only option left? I've mentioned this story elsewhere but it's still relevant... Year's ago I had a few twitter accounts that I was holding purely for the handle/name. I never followed anyone or tweeted anything, they were dormant accounts and I rarely logged in. After a couple of years these accounts were following random celebrities, rock bands and public figures. It seemed obvious at the time that twitter were using dormant accounts to bolster follower numbers and I expect this has been happening on a huge scale for years. So, bots aside, twitter's numbers are the stuff of dreams and fairy tales.
  - CJefferson 4y ago
    However, legally Elon is past that point. He decided he didn't want to do a surveryor's report, and "signed on the dotted line", and gave his price. As far as I understand, he's on the hook now, unless he can show serious Twitter's numbers are wrong enough to cause a "Material Adverse Effect" on the company, which is super difficult and this bot thing probably isn't enough.
    - mhoad 4y ago
      Especially when you have him repeatedly on the record talking about the bot problem prior to the sale. There’s zero compelling evidence at this stage that he was in anyway unaware of it or it’s scale.
    - throwntoday 4y ago
      I keep seeing people say this, but where did you all read that he agreed to the deal without any due dillegence? I read someone calling Musk the idiot and confidently stating twitter would run their bot checks against the entire userbase because they're competent. Then Musk tweeted their internal check is literally from a sample size of 100. Next twitter called him to say he violated NDA by publicly disclosing that fact. Twitter does not come off as an honest company. They don't use a standard measurement for DAU, they admitted to inflating the numbers on top of that, and now we know their bot check for what, 100MM+ accounts was from n=100?? I honestly hope he tanks their stock price when he backs out and buys them for $10b or something.
      - shrikant 4y ago
        > I keep seeing people say this, but where did you all read that he agreed to the deal without any due dillegence? Literally every single news outlet -- just search online for "musk twitter due diligence" Some selected sources: - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/twitter-takeover-was-brash-and-fast-with-musk-calling-the-shots https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/twitter-t... - https://www.ft.com/content/f60b6385-eef6-461e-9fcc-b3cb999a70c6 https://www.ft.com/content/f60b6385-eef6-461e-9fcc-b3cb999a7... - https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-says-44-billion-twitter-deal-hold-2022-05-13/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-says-44-billion-twit... - https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-pause-on-twitter-takeover-triggers-a-flap-12612206 https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-pause-on-twitter-takeo...
        throwntoday 4y ago
        The bloomberg article provides no source for the claim. It even says neither twitter nor Musk's camp commented. Your second link is paywalled. And the last two only mention it as though it is fact but also provide zero sources. I don't care if every news outlet is saying it, where is the source of this? Sadaam also had WMD's according to every news outlet. I know Musk moves quick and frantically sometimes, but it's hard to believe he waived DD. And if he did, why would he be doing any DD now?
  - cafard 4y ago
    Two words: inspection contingency. You can offer a contract to buy a house with or without one.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > You can offer to buy a house knowing full well there are going to be problems which will show up in the surveyor's report. You can then adjust your offer accordingly. I think you mean home inspector, not surveyor? Problems: 1) The home inspection contingency has to be in the offer. 2) The buyer has to hire a professional, independent home inspector. You can't just send in anyone and make up stuff. 3) The seller has the opportunity to remedy any problems that arise in the inspection report. So in this case, by analogy, Twitter could do a mass purge of accounts under looser criteria than usual, taking out a bunch of spammers and likely a bunch of innocent accounts at the same time. Then the deal would still have to go through at the original price. In home buying, I've never heard of anyone taking this strategy you're suggesting. It would be reckless and probably not work as you hoped. Once an offer is accepted by the seller, it's very hard to get out. If you suspect there are significant problems with the house that need repair, and the seller knows there are significant problems, it would be extremely extremely dumb to make a higher offer than you'd pay, hoping the home inspection will save you.
    - MrMan 4y ago
      why are you two taking about home buying? Mergers and Acquisitions cant be done by analogy.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        This is rather bizarre reply to me, because I myself was replying to someone who made the analogy with home buying, and I was trying to explain how the analogy didn't even work. To make an analogy, it's like if I asked you why you're talking about home buying. ;-)
        dazc 4y ago
        I think he was replying to both of us. And yes, maybe, the analogy wasn't great.
    - dazc 4y ago
      I am in the UK, where my analogy would be valid, you do get a surveyor's report and you can back out. I accept your system is different and, likely, a whole lot better.
- arinlen 4y ago
  > This kind of sounds to me like he's decided he doesn't want to buy and is creating a reason not to. Bloomberg's article points out that this sort of desperate copout is not possible under the merger deal that Elon Musk signed, and even if Twitter decided not to push for a legal dispute they are automatically entitled to a $1B payment from Elon Musk.
- bambax 4y ago
  He renounced the opportunity to do any serious due diligence, and signed a contract forcing him to buy no matter what. It's a little late for this now. If he's seriously worried about bots _now_, he's stupid (or high?) The other explanation is that there is a bigger scheme, maybe involving a reason to sell some Tesla stock. That's possible, but it seems a little too complex to be actually true.
- knotofvipers 4y ago
  I would think this number can be highly massaged anyway. I hate twitter but have an account I barely ever log into and have never tweeted anything. If you want bots to be lower then count me in the sample. If you want bots to be higher don't count me since I am not really active. If you want bots to be lower then take the sample at 4am EST on a Tuesday of US users. If you want bots to be higher take the sample right after a major news story breaks. Instead of 5% you could say 10 million active bots a month to make the number sound higher too.
- dagw 4y ago
  Apparently Twitter claims only 5% of users are bots. I can't find the exact wording right now, but I recall when I read their original statement from Twitter the number came with several caveats and conditions. Basically they didn't say that only 5% of accounts where bots, but that of accounts that fulfil criteria A, B, C and D, only 5% are bots. edit: the full information is on page 5 of their Q-10 here [1]. [1] https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=15778368 https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-fi...
  - karencarits 4y ago
    Relevant parts (mDAU = monetizable daily active usage or users): > We define mDAU as people, organizations, or other accounts who logged in or were otherwise authenticated and accessed Twitter on any given day through twitter.com, Twitter applications that are able to show ads, or paid Twitter products, including subscriptions. Average mDAU for a period represents the number of mDAU on each day of such period divided by the number of days for such period > We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter
- ZuLuuuuuu 4y ago
  It is not "5% of all users". The filing by Twitter says "5% of monetizable, daily, active users (mDAU)". Not only that, the filing also says that Twitter used heavy judgment to end up with this number, so the real number might be higher. The filing by Twitter: https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=15778368 https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-fi... The relevant paragraph: "We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false or spam accounts for a period represents the average of false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly analysis period during the quarter. In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated." Basically, I feel like there is no legal substance to Elon Musk's "excuse".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  95% maybe
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
Does Musk hold some puts under another name or something? I mean just all this stuff looks like what I would be doing if I thought, hah hah I am going to manipulate market because I can!
- emteycz 4y ago
  Maybe he just decided to expose the real amount of bots on Twitter and this is the only way it could actualy end in something accurate and something most people will take as a fact? I really don't think he needs market manipulation at all. He has much easier, much faster and much safer ways to make orders of magnitude more money. I don't think going to prison is a part of his plan to go to Mars.
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    probably right, although it would make a nice premise for a book - going to prison as the best way to get to Mars.
  - arinlen 4y ago
    > Maybe he just decided to expose the real amount of bots on Twitter and this is the only way it could actualy end in something accurate and something most people will take as a fact? This hypothesis lacks any credibility given that, according to Bloomberg's article, "The [merger] contract gives Twitter the right to force [Elon Musk] to close, and put up the $27.5 billion of equity 1 that he has committed to the deal, as long as his debt financing is available." No one in their right mind signs a contract binding them to pay up billions just to check how many active users does a social media service have.
    - swores 4y ago
      In the hypothetical where that's what he wanted to do, maybe he's hoping (or even knows based on conversations) that one or more of the companies that agreed to finance his debt will say "sorry not any more, now that Musk has tweeted about a bots problem"? Or are those partners as legally bound to providing him with the loans as he is to buying Twitter?
CJefferson 4y ago
This article gives a really interesting overview of the facts: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-musk-trolls-twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-m... Basically, legally Musk is already past this point -- he signed a contract promising to buy Twitter without doing any real investigation. I've felt for a while he's looking for ways to squirm back out, but he legally can't (unless he simply can't raise the funds at all, that's what the $1 billion "exit fee" you may have heard about is). Of course it's possible Elon will simply ignore the law, as in practice the rich can often simply ignore laws they don't like with limited consequences.
- helsinkiandrew 4y ago
  Musk appears to care less and less about the law or his word. He broke numerous SEC rules in the bid and the share buying beofre, he's broken agreements with Twitter. He could let Twitter take him to court and drag it out for years whilst they stagnate in limbo and not really care. The best leverage Twitter has is to threaten to take away his twitter account - hit him where it hurts.
  - bambax 4y ago
    > Musk appears to care less and less about the law or his word. True, but that is because nobody tries to go after his stupid moves. Even the SEC seems to have given up. Twitter can absolutely force him to honor the contract he signed; but it's true it's unlikely they will do it, but they may. Why write up a big contract like this if there was no intention to enforce it in the first place? > The best leverage Twitter has is to threaten to take away his twitter account - hit him where it hurts. Yes, that would be extremely funny, and a big relief for everyone.
    - hollander 4y ago
      Twitter didn't want him to buy Twitter, so they should be happy to accept the $1B fine. Whether Musk follows the law or not, I think that anybody except maybe DT will be happy to see this deal fail.
deleted 4y ago
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blippage 4y ago
I don't get it. Was this deal some kind of drunken bar bet? I said before that Musk wouldn't buy Twitter. Having glanced at the finance documents, he seemed to have financed a long-term investment with a lot of short-term loans (I'm thinking especially of the bridging loan and using Tesla shares as margin). Terrible idea! Then there's the matter of the $1b "exit fee". And even if he wrangles out of that, I'm sure his financiers would have charged a pretty penny just to put the finances in place. I can only assume that Twitter agreed to being acquired knowing full well that Musk will walk away with egg on his face.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Also they might have considered that fighting it was more trouble than letting him make an offer accepting it and then having it fall through... Either way at price level they would have won.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  > I said before that Musk wouldn't buy Twitter Saying that then was the most logical, but even here it would get attacked and downvoted.. two weeks ago. I am starting to think the bot fascination is more projection by Muskyrat like the pedo comments he made before.
- crmd 4y ago
  Elon seems like a genuinely interesting person, and like many very successful people, I think he exhibits some clear manic depressive and ADHD traits. Just looking at his Twitter feed, he was absolutely on fire in the week after the deal was announced; I can only imagine the rush he was feeling from such a large purchase. Now that the rush is subsiding it would make sense that he’s paying more attention to his negative feelings around the financial risk and future workload he created for himself with the purchase.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > like many very successful people, I think he exhibits some clear manic depressive and ADHD traits Do you have any evidence to back this? There are people both successful and unsuccessful who have these conditions, but I've never got the impression that they're a common trait of successful people.
andrewdb 4y ago
Twitter's method for counting bots, according to Parag: 1. Sample random X accounts from known mDAU accounts 2. Use human analysis to manually review sampled accounts, using public and private data and metadata 3. Bucketize account accordingly Twitter's process for finding bot accounts may be flawed, but if it's the process they use for their SEC filings, the deal is on.
nickstinemates 4y ago
The amount of people who knows what Musk is thinking either here or on Twitter as this story has developed that have been continually wrong at every step is, frankly, really surprising. Yet still people speculate as if they know him, know his thoughts, know his intentions. It feels like pure projection. I have been following the story with curiosity because I think disruption at Twitter could be fascinating. The impact other than pretending to know what Musk is thinking has already been profound. I say this as someone without any skin in the fight.
- MrMan 4y ago
  I agree - everyone who predicted that musk would try to get out of this deal was wrong. Fascinating
  - nickstinemates 4y ago
    Just like everyone KNEW/predicted he wasn't going to get or want a board seat after he bought 9%. Just like everyone KNEW/predicted he was going for a hostile takeover. Just like everyone KNEW/predicted that he wasn't going to be able to raise funds. With all sorts of projection and rambling and confidence. It's so weird.
    - MrMan 4y ago
      this isnt a sports team subreddit - no one needs to hear you complaining about mythical aggregated other users' wrong opinions. it comes off as petty and preening
    - thaway2839 4y ago
      I have never seen any of those claims being made. 1) The 9% was surprising because everyone believed Musk had not taken any steps, because he was legally required to publicly declare when he acquired 5%. Which he did not do until much later, in order to lower his acquisition price, and is now under an SEC investigation for it. 2) I'm not sure who was predicting a hostile takeover. His suggested price was high enough that most commentators said it would be fiscally irresponsible of the board to turn down the offer. Which is why the board accepted the offer the moment Musk showed any signs of raising funds. 3) No one believed that he wouldn't be able to raise funds. It was pretty obvious he could. The question was whether he was interested in, considering he had taken no steps to raise the funds and it was fairly obvious that it would require him to sell/pledge Tesla shares hurting the TSLA stock price, and it wasn't clear he would want to do that.

33 points by ckastner 4y ago

Apparently Twitter claims only 5% of users are bots. It seems impossible to me that this claim is remotely true, and I imagine Musk knows this. This kind of sounds to me like he's decided he doesn't want to buy and is creating a reason not to.

dazc 4y ago
>This kind of sounds to me like he's decided he doesn't want to buy and is creating a reason not to. You can offer to buy a house knowing full well there are going to be problems which will show up in the surveyor's report. You can then adjust your offer accordingly. This offer will likely reflect what you were willing to pay all along. A low initial offer would be rejected since, at that point, the problems were not public knowledge. Now they are public knowledge, accepting a revised low offer may be the only option left? I've mentioned this story elsewhere but it's still relevant... Year's ago I had a few twitter accounts that I was holding purely for the handle/name. I never followed anyone or tweeted anything, they were dormant accounts and I rarely logged in. After a couple of years these accounts were following random celebrities, rock bands and public figures. It seemed obvious at the time that twitter were using dormant accounts to bolster follower numbers and I expect this has been happening on a huge scale for years. So, bots aside, twitter's numbers are the stuff of dreams and fairy tales.
- CJefferson 4y ago
  However, legally Elon is past that point. He decided he didn't want to do a surveryor's report, and "signed on the dotted line", and gave his price. As far as I understand, he's on the hook now, unless he can show serious Twitter's numbers are wrong enough to cause a "Material Adverse Effect" on the company, which is super difficult and this bot thing probably isn't enough.
  - mhoad 4y ago
    Especially when you have him repeatedly on the record talking about the bot problem prior to the sale. There’s zero compelling evidence at this stage that he was in anyway unaware of it or it’s scale.
  - throwntoday 4y ago
    I keep seeing people say this, but where did you all read that he agreed to the deal without any due dillegence? I read someone calling Musk the idiot and confidently stating twitter would run their bot checks against the entire userbase because they're competent. Then Musk tweeted their internal check is literally from a sample size of 100. Next twitter called him to say he violated NDA by publicly disclosing that fact. Twitter does not come off as an honest company. They don't use a standard measurement for DAU, they admitted to inflating the numbers on top of that, and now we know their bot check for what, 100MM+ accounts was from n=100?? I honestly hope he tanks their stock price when he backs out and buys them for $10b or something.
    - shrikant 4y ago
      > I keep seeing people say this, but where did you all read that he agreed to the deal without any due dillegence? Literally every single news outlet -- just search online for "musk twitter due diligence" Some selected sources: - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/twitter-takeover-was-brash-and-fast-with-musk-calling-the-shots https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/twitter-t... - https://www.ft.com/content/f60b6385-eef6-461e-9fcc-b3cb999a70c6 https://www.ft.com/content/f60b6385-eef6-461e-9fcc-b3cb999a7... - https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-says-44-billion-twitter-deal-hold-2022-05-13/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/musk-says-44-billion-twit... - https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-pause-on-twitter-takeover-triggers-a-flap-12612206 https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musks-pause-on-twitter-takeo...
      - throwntoday 4y ago
        The bloomberg article provides no source for the claim. It even says neither twitter nor Musk's camp commented. Your second link is paywalled. And the last two only mention it as though it is fact but also provide zero sources. I don't care if every news outlet is saying it, where is the source of this? Sadaam also had WMD's according to every news outlet. I know Musk moves quick and frantically sometimes, but it's hard to believe he waived DD. And if he did, why would he be doing any DD now?
- cafard 4y ago
  Two words: inspection contingency. You can offer a contract to buy a house with or without one.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > You can offer to buy a house knowing full well there are going to be problems which will show up in the surveyor's report. You can then adjust your offer accordingly. I think you mean home inspector, not surveyor? Problems: 1) The home inspection contingency has to be in the offer. 2) The buyer has to hire a professional, independent home inspector. You can't just send in anyone and make up stuff. 3) The seller has the opportunity to remedy any problems that arise in the inspection report. So in this case, by analogy, Twitter could do a mass purge of accounts under looser criteria than usual, taking out a bunch of spammers and likely a bunch of innocent accounts at the same time. Then the deal would still have to go through at the original price. In home buying, I've never heard of anyone taking this strategy you're suggesting. It would be reckless and probably not work as you hoped. Once an offer is accepted by the seller, it's very hard to get out. If you suspect there are significant problems with the house that need repair, and the seller knows there are significant problems, it would be extremely extremely dumb to make a higher offer than you'd pay, hoping the home inspection will save you.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    why are you two taking about home buying? Mergers and Acquisitions cant be done by analogy.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      This is rather bizarre reply to me, because I myself was replying to someone who made the analogy with home buying, and I was trying to explain how the analogy didn't even work. To make an analogy, it's like if I asked you why you're talking about home buying. ;-)
      - dazc 4y ago
        I think he was replying to both of us. And yes, maybe, the analogy wasn't great.
  - dazc 4y ago
    I am in the UK, where my analogy would be valid, you do get a surveyor's report and you can back out. I accept your system is different and, likely, a whole lot better.
arinlen 4y ago
> This kind of sounds to me like he's decided he doesn't want to buy and is creating a reason not to. Bloomberg's article points out that this sort of desperate copout is not possible under the merger deal that Elon Musk signed, and even if Twitter decided not to push for a legal dispute they are automatically entitled to a $1B payment from Elon Musk.
bambax 4y ago
He renounced the opportunity to do any serious due diligence, and signed a contract forcing him to buy no matter what. It's a little late for this now. If he's seriously worried about bots _now_, he's stupid (or high?) The other explanation is that there is a bigger scheme, maybe involving a reason to sell some Tesla stock. That's possible, but it seems a little too complex to be actually true.
knotofvipers 4y ago
I would think this number can be highly massaged anyway. I hate twitter but have an account I barely ever log into and have never tweeted anything. If you want bots to be lower then count me in the sample. If you want bots to be higher don't count me since I am not really active. If you want bots to be lower then take the sample at 4am EST on a Tuesday of US users. If you want bots to be higher take the sample right after a major news story breaks. Instead of 5% you could say 10 million active bots a month to make the number sound higher too.
dagw 4y ago
Apparently Twitter claims only 5% of users are bots. I can't find the exact wording right now, but I recall when I read their original statement from Twitter the number came with several caveats and conditions. Basically they didn't say that only 5% of accounts where bots, but that of accounts that fulfil criteria A, B, C and D, only 5% are bots. edit: the full information is on page 5 of their Q-10 here [1]. [1] https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=15778368 https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-fi...
- karencarits 4y ago
  Relevant parts (mDAU = monetizable daily active usage or users): > We define mDAU as people, organizations, or other accounts who logged in or were otherwise authenticated and accessed Twitter on any given day through twitter.com, Twitter applications that are able to show ads, or paid Twitter products, including subscriptions. Average mDAU for a period represents the number of mDAU on each day of such period divided by the number of days for such period > We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter
ZuLuuuuuu 4y ago
It is not "5% of all users". The filing by Twitter says "5% of monetizable, daily, active users (mDAU)". Not only that, the filing also says that Twitter used heavy judgment to end up with this number, so the real number might be higher. The filing by Twitter: https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?FilingId=15778368 https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/sec-fi... The relevant paragraph: "We have performed an internal review of a sample of accounts and estimate that the average of false or spam accounts during the first quarter of 2022 represented fewer than 5% of our mDAU during the quarter. The false or spam accounts for a period represents the average of false or spam accounts in the samples during each monthly analysis period during the quarter. In making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated." Basically, I feel like there is no legal substance to Elon Musk's "excuse".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
95% maybe

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

Does Musk hold some puts under another name or something? I mean just all this stuff looks like what I would be doing if I thought, hah hah I am going to manipulate market because I can!

emteycz 4y ago
Maybe he just decided to expose the real amount of bots on Twitter and this is the only way it could actualy end in something accurate and something most people will take as a fact? I really don't think he needs market manipulation at all. He has much easier, much faster and much safer ways to make orders of magnitude more money. I don't think going to prison is a part of his plan to go to Mars.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  probably right, although it would make a nice premise for a book - going to prison as the best way to get to Mars.
- arinlen 4y ago
  > Maybe he just decided to expose the real amount of bots on Twitter and this is the only way it could actualy end in something accurate and something most people will take as a fact? This hypothesis lacks any credibility given that, according to Bloomberg's article, "The [merger] contract gives Twitter the right to force [Elon Musk] to close, and put up the $27.5 billion of equity 1 that he has committed to the deal, as long as his debt financing is available." No one in their right mind signs a contract binding them to pay up billions just to check how many active users does a social media service have.
  - swores 4y ago
    In the hypothetical where that's what he wanted to do, maybe he's hoping (or even knows based on conversations) that one or more of the companies that agreed to finance his debt will say "sorry not any more, now that Musk has tweeted about a bots problem"? Or are those partners as legally bound to providing him with the loans as he is to buying Twitter?

CJefferson 4y ago

This article gives a really interesting overview of the facts: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-musk-trolls-twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-m... Basically, legally Musk is already past this point -- he signed a contract promising to buy Twitter without doing any real investigation. I've felt for a while he's looking for ways to squirm back out, but he legally can't (unless he simply can't raise the funds at all, that's what the $1 billion "exit fee" you may have heard about is). Of course it's possible Elon will simply ignore the law, as in practice the rich can often simply ignore laws they don't like with limited consequences.

helsinkiandrew 4y ago
Musk appears to care less and less about the law or his word. He broke numerous SEC rules in the bid and the share buying beofre, he's broken agreements with Twitter. He could let Twitter take him to court and drag it out for years whilst they stagnate in limbo and not really care. The best leverage Twitter has is to threaten to take away his twitter account - hit him where it hurts.
- bambax 4y ago
  > Musk appears to care less and less about the law or his word. True, but that is because nobody tries to go after his stupid moves. Even the SEC seems to have given up. Twitter can absolutely force him to honor the contract he signed; but it's true it's unlikely they will do it, but they may. Why write up a big contract like this if there was no intention to enforce it in the first place? > The best leverage Twitter has is to threaten to take away his twitter account - hit him where it hurts. Yes, that would be extremely funny, and a big relief for everyone.
  - hollander 4y ago
    Twitter didn't want him to buy Twitter, so they should be happy to accept the $1B fine. Whether Musk follows the law or not, I think that anybody except maybe DT will be happy to see this deal fail.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

blippage 4y ago

I don't get it. Was this deal some kind of drunken bar bet? I said before that Musk wouldn't buy Twitter. Having glanced at the finance documents, he seemed to have financed a long-term investment with a lot of short-term loans (I'm thinking especially of the bridging loan and using Tesla shares as margin). Terrible idea! Then there's the matter of the $1b "exit fee". And even if he wrangles out of that, I'm sure his financiers would have charged a pretty penny just to put the finances in place. I can only assume that Twitter agreed to being acquired knowing full well that Musk will walk away with egg on his face.

Ekaros 4y ago
Also they might have considered that fighting it was more trouble than letting him make an offer accepting it and then having it fall through... Either way at price level they would have won.
encryptluks2 4y ago
> I said before that Musk wouldn't buy Twitter Saying that then was the most logical, but even here it would get attacked and downvoted.. two weeks ago. I am starting to think the bot fascination is more projection by Muskyrat like the pedo comments he made before.
crmd 4y ago
Elon seems like a genuinely interesting person, and like many very successful people, I think he exhibits some clear manic depressive and ADHD traits. Just looking at his Twitter feed, he was absolutely on fire in the week after the deal was announced; I can only imagine the rush he was feeling from such a large purchase. Now that the rush is subsiding it would make sense that he’s paying more attention to his negative feelings around the financial risk and future workload he created for himself with the purchase.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > like many very successful people, I think he exhibits some clear manic depressive and ADHD traits Do you have any evidence to back this? There are people both successful and unsuccessful who have these conditions, but I've never got the impression that they're a common trait of successful people.

andrewdb 4y ago

Twitter's method for counting bots, according to Parag: 1. Sample random X accounts from known mDAU accounts 2. Use human analysis to manually review sampled accounts, using public and private data and metadata 3. Bucketize account accordingly Twitter's process for finding bot accounts may be flawed, but if it's the process they use for their SEC filings, the deal is on.

nickstinemates 4y ago

The amount of people who knows what Musk is thinking either here or on Twitter as this story has developed that have been continually wrong at every step is, frankly, really surprising. Yet still people speculate as if they know him, know his thoughts, know his intentions. It feels like pure projection. I have been following the story with curiosity because I think disruption at Twitter could be fascinating. The impact other than pretending to know what Musk is thinking has already been profound. I say this as someone without any skin in the fight.

MrMan 4y ago
I agree - everyone who predicted that musk would try to get out of this deal was wrong. Fascinating
- nickstinemates 4y ago
  Just like everyone KNEW/predicted he wasn't going to get or want a board seat after he bought 9%. Just like everyone KNEW/predicted he was going for a hostile takeover. Just like everyone KNEW/predicted that he wasn't going to be able to raise funds. With all sorts of projection and rambling and confidence. It's so weird.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    this isnt a sports team subreddit - no one needs to hear you complaining about mythical aggregated other users' wrong opinions. it comes off as petty and preening
  - thaway2839 4y ago
    I have never seen any of those claims being made. 1) The 9% was surprising because everyone believed Musk had not taken any steps, because he was legally required to publicly declare when he acquired 5%. Which he did not do until much later, in order to lower his acquisition price, and is now under an SEC investigation for it. 2) I'm not sure who was predicting a hostile takeover. His suggested price was high enough that most commentators said it would be fiscally irresponsible of the board to turn down the offer. Which is why the board accepted the offer the moment Musk showed any signs of raising funds. 3) No one believed that he wouldn't be able to raise funds. It was pretty obvious he could. The question was whether he was interested in, considering he had taken no steps to raise the funds and it was fairly obvious that it would require him to sell/pledge Tesla shares hurting the TSLA stock price, and it wasn't clear he would want to do that.