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The deal includes a "specific performance" clause, which allows Twitter to force Musk to carry out the deal. He can't simply pay $1 billion and walk away, he's
by avalys 4y ago
The deal includes a "specific performance" clause, which allows Twitter to force Musk to carry out the deal. He can't simply pay $1 billion and walk away, he's in for a very messy legal fight. This pretext about bots is incredibly weak and he's in no way guaranteed to win.
If this really were part of some grand master plan, I think he would have left himself an easier out.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- at-fates-hands 4y agoHis legal team maintains Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of the Agreement and appears to have made false and misleading representations. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922078413/tm2220599d1_ex99-p.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922...
- eropple 4y agoHis legal team can maintain that the sky is a vibrant chartreuse, but that doesn't mean it's true.
- no_butterscotch 4y agoSo what though? Is Twitter going to spend the next few years litigating this just to force someone to buy the company that doesn't want to? Elon's team can drag this on and on. What will happen to the value of Twitter's stock in the meantime? What will happen to the value of working at Twitter? It'll become a zombie company.
- lightsandaounds 4y agoWhat will happen to the price of the stock is that it will be inflated over the "true price" by risk adjusted premium of the buyout. Stock price = "stock price without Elon owning it" + "Elons premium" * "likelihood of Elon losing the lawsuit and being forced to buy the company" That likelihood should never be less than 0, so I think this legal fight would only help the twitter stock price. I guess I am assuming that the "true price" is actually lower than what Elon offered for it.
- tsimionescu 4y agoYes, that's exactly what will happen. If Twitter were to say now "OK, let's forget this whole thing happened" the stock would drop massively: not only are they losing any chance at the $44B buyout, they are also admitting they (1) lied in their current contract, and (2) likely have huge bot issues that they would rather not litigate. The only option for Twitter to continue existing is to sue Musk for the amount he promised.
- nmfisher 4y agoIt's worth north of $20B to Twitter shareholders and they have an (almost) rock-solid case. You can bet your ass they're going to spend the next few years to fight for it.
- ceejayoz 4y agoSure, but that’s bullshit. Twitter carefully couched each of this sort of statement in “we might be wrong” disclaimers. It’s not like he came up with the “they’re all bots” theory after committing.
- politician 4y agoThe downvotes on this comment are the clearest evidence that people will downvote verifiable facts presented neutrally if they don’t like the facts, the people or companies involved in the fact. The karma hit at-fates-hands takes because people are irrational is collateral damage. Have an upvote.
- myko 4y agoThe downvotes are most likely because it's a specious claim that Elon's legal team is making, not supported by fact. He waived the due diligence phase. Twitter provided his team with information. He's just trying to get out of the deal because he made an impulsive and stupid decision. Parroting the statements of his legal team without adding the context around those statements is going to garner downvotes.
- openthc 4y agoIsn't the context the link to the EDGAR documents?
- politician 4y agoNeutral TLDR summaries are viewed as a good thing on HN. Given the rest of these comments, the theme here is pure hate for the man.
- kelnos 4y agoIt also depends on what the Twitter board and shareholders want. Will they want to get bought out and owned by someone who clearly doesn't want to own the company, and may run it into the ground out of spite? Certainly some shareholders will just want to take the money and run (the agreed-upon buyout price is quite a premium over the current stock price), but others will be more interested in protecting the future of Twitter as a company and platform. Agree that there will be a massive legal fight, but my guess is that it will be over how much extra Musk has to pay to get out of the deal (beyond the $1B breakup fee), than over making him perform. But who knows; only time will tell.
- themitigating 4y agoHe's constantly dragged the company and founders through the mud and the stock dropped 7% once he called the deal off. I'd sued and settle for a few billion instead of taking the one billion backout He uses his wealth as a weapon against companies he doesn't like, just the mere threat he may get involved causes massive changes in the stock price and in turn causes investors to suffer financial lose.
- behnamoh 4y ago> He uses his wealth as a weapon against companies he doesn't like, just the mere threat he may get involved causes massive changes in the stock price and in turn causes investors to suffer financial lose. Reminds me of Bitcoin "whales". It's a shame that this guy is the figure that will take humanity to Mars.
- runarberg 4y agoNever underestimate the incompetence of the average human. Doubly so if they are rich and powerful. In fact if a master plan has several fatal flaws on closer inspection, then that’s just evidence that the perpetrator just didn’t think it all through before executing. If you watch an amateur chess game you’ll find that most players actually have some master plan, but don’t have the skills to see the flaws, or even if the plan is perfect, they don’t have the skills to play it through either. My sniff test for any conspiracy theory actually involves incompetence. The more competent the plan and execution need to be, the less likely it is to be a conspiracy.
- aetherson 4y agoWhat is a theory you have dismissed because it seems too competent?
- runarberg 4y agoThe fake moon landing conspiracy is a good example. Then number of people involved would be pretty big, and the science is complicated. The logistics behind such a big secret operation requires such skill that it is hard to believe anyone would be able to pull it off. If the moon landing was truly fake surely they would have messed up somewhere. On the other hand many things went wrong in the actual moon landing. There were liftoffs that failed, experiments that went nowhere, targets that were missed, and even people that died. The actual moon landing was a hard task they succeeded at while making a ton of mistakes in the process, just like humans do in the real world when we are at our best.