5 ms·
Most of the time when I see someone who ostensibly not cripplingly stupid do or say something that by all accounts is, in point of fact stupid, and then later o
by Quequau 4y ago
Most of the time when I see someone who ostensibly not cripplingly stupid do or say something that by all accounts is, in point of fact stupid, and then later on I come to learn of a fuller picture of the whole ordeal it turns out that the stated goals and motivations were not actually the true goals and motivations. I see this in politicians pretty often.
Anyway, I figure we should all suspect that the actual goal of this charade is not simply "to acquire Twitter" and motivation is not "to protect free speech" or "solve Twitter's bot problem" or whatever.
- nisegami 4y agoI'm not convinced there was a goal behind all this. It smells to me most strongly of manic behavior on Musk's part.
- rchaud 4y agoHe sold a giant chunk of Tesla shares weeks before the price cratered. It was ostensibly to raise cash to acquire Twitter. But now that he's trying to claim shenanigans and walk away, it's beginning to look more a way to evade insider trading charges.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- popcorncowboy 4y agoYup. Above a certain height, you start drinking your own kool-aid, the people in even your closest circles turn into yes-men, and the world increasingly appears to revolve around you. It's impossible to avoid the hubris that comes from this. And this effect resists even the best efforts to "stay grounded". Eventually your answer to the "why" becomes simply: because you can.
- sanderjd 4y agoSeems to me that he did / does want to buy Twitter (not because of free speech or whatever, but as a rich guy vanity project), but then the stock market crashed and now the price he agreed to is way too high so he's trying to weasel out of it or weasel the price down. Either way he's just being a weasel.
- supah 4y agoit’s been on its way down since November, he was well aware before making the offer.
- sanderjd 4y agoYes, but there was a step change in the market between when he signed the deal and now. The price looked generous when he signed (which is not irrelevant; it was an offer the board essentially couldn't refuse, once his financing came in), but it looks absurdly high now. He likely expected it to be flat-ish or down a bit as the deal progressed toward closure, but not nearly this far down.
- bradneuberg 4y agoMy theory is that he wanted to threaten to buy Twitter (or actually buy it) to create political pressure on the Biden administration to stop stonewalling the Starship FAA license. There’s murmurings that the FAA is stonewalling Starship due to political reasons. The “threat” of allowing Trump back on Twitter could create leverage to force the FAA political impasse to be dealt with. I heard this idea from a colleague in the space industry. Going to Mars is one of Musks main goals, and as crazy as it sounds I could see him doing all this Twitter craziness just to move that ball forward.
- eps 4y agoThis one? https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_starship https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_star... The results of the review were pushed back by 2 weeks from the original date and it now appears to be on track for the June 13 release. It doesn't mean it's going to be positive, but your version of it is pretty damn far-fetched. Like really super contrived.
- 4khilles 4y ago> The results of the review were pushed back by 2 weeks from the original date This is just the most recent of a series of delays. The report was originally due by the end of 2021.