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As Musk stated on Twitter, Twitter didn’t hand over the bot data and will have to do so in court to prove its point. I see Musk walking paying nothing, or else

As Musk stated on Twitter, Twitter didn’t hand over the bot data and will have to do so in court to prove its point. I see Musk walking paying nothing, or else a settlement with twitter at a lower price.

twoslide 4y ago
Most views I've heard are that it is quite impossible to force someone to buy a company, but rather there will be settlement to exit the deal.
- thomassmith65 4y ago
  Musk already bought the company. The issue is whether Twitter can force him to pay.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Musk already bought the company. No, he didn't. If he did, the company wouldn't be suing him, since he would control it.
    - aidanlister 4y ago
      I think you’d correctly say he bought the company but has not settled, so he does not yet own the company.
      - rchaud 4y ago
        a distinction without a difference, he doesn't own anything beyond the board seat that his equity holdings afford him.
      - rchaud 4y ago
        a distinction without a difference, he doesn't own anything beyond the board seat that his equity holdings afford him. Vanguard owns more of Twitter than he does.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Most views I've heard are that it is quite impossible to force someone to buy a company Those views are simply ignorant; there are plenty of cases of the Delaware Court of Chancery ordering specific performance on merger deals. It is nothing even loosely similar to “quite impossible”.
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    Indeed, Matt Levine covered one just yesterday[1] that seems to follow pretty much the same path the Twitter one is going... [1] https://newsletterhunt.com/emails/21761 https://newsletterhunt.com/emails/21761
gassit 4y ago
Musk has been saying that on Twitter, but in Twitter's court filing they exhaustively outline that a) it isn't true and b) it isn't even a valid request from Musk under the contract. Considering how misleading and full of shit Musk has been about this whole thing at this stage I am well inclined to believe Twitter.
- ckastner 4y ago
  > Musk has been saying that on Twitter, but in Twitter's court filing they exhaustively outline that a) it isn't true and b) it isn't even a valid request from Musk under the contract. I've read the entire complaint, and this is my take as well. Twitter bent over backwards to comply with these requests even if they were invalid. Twitter played this brilliantly. They kept complying and playing along even with the most obvious nonsense, letting Musk run his impulsive and overconfident mouth. The number of times he legally shot himself in the foot is just staggering. There's documentation of everything, because he happily provided it. Musk's lawyers and bankers must have been dying a thousand deaths reading his tweets and other public remarks.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
    Musk's lawyers and bankers probably appreciate the increased fees though.
    - MrMan 4y ago
      Bankers are quite exposed on tje debt financing and possibly underwater despite the fees on the deal work
  - mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
    If twitter was a house he was buying, I think the analogy is he waived his right to a house inspection being a cause of breaking the contract. He can still have the house inspected though.
    - lesuorac 4y ago
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Twitter didn’t hand over the bot data and will have to do so in court to prove its point. Even if that was true (and none of Twitter’s legal claims require the bot data to prove), so what?
- boffinAudio 4y ago
  It demonstrates that Twitter is inflating their value and lying to their shareholders. Whats so hard to understand about that?
  - CogitoCogito 4y ago
    > It demonstrates that Twitter is inflating their value and lying to their shareholders. Whats so hard to understand about that? No it doesn't. Twitter not handing over its bot data demonstrates...that Twitter is not handing over its bot data. Does Musk have actual _evidence_ that Twitter is inflating its value and lying to its shareholders? You do understand that "Twitter not handing over its bot data" isn't evidence. Anyway if the question of handing over "the bot data" data is irrelevant to Twitter's claims, then it doesn't matter if it's handed over. The legitimacy of those claims would then be unaffected by the bot data itself.
    - boffinAudio 4y ago
      Lets put it this way - say I have a company that makes cars, and I tell you - a potential investor of more than a billion dollars - that I have shipped a million cars this year and you should give me money on the basis of that revenue, are you an idiot if you don't ask to see the actual receipts that show that I have actually, indeed, shipped a million cars this year? Yes, I think you would be, and anyone who has given you money to spend on this act, should think so too .. Trust, but verify: This is a pretty basic business rule. Twitter has a responsibility to demonstrate that the trust they expect in their own estimations of their own market value, is actually verifiable - and with an issue of humans/bots ratio, they should surely be willing to be as open and honest as possible about this issue. Twitters core value, the basis of their own estimation of the value of their stock, is entirely derived from the actual # of human eyeballs they have attached to their systems. If those eyeballs are really just blind sockets on the outside of a software-based bot, then Twitter is factually lying about how many humans it has in its system. This would be essential for any buyer to know beforehand, and I really am astonished at the efforts you are going to justify this omission on Twitters' part. The bot to human ratio is a KEY factor to understand in correctly evaluating Twitters real value - how anyone can argue that Twitter don't have the responsibility to demonstrate the accuracy of their estimation of market value, especially in the HN environment, is beyond me. Perhaps the Musk-hate rage is blinding you to the rationality of Musks' request. "Hey, you say you are worth this much because <blah>, please show me that <blah> is actually a truthful and accurate estimation .." - this is not at all an unreasonable request. Twitter board executives DO have the responsibility of answering the claim that their user group is a certain percentage human. The fact that they haven't done this easily and openly is telling, in and of itself - and I would wager that most making the claim that they don't have a responsibility of being honest about the number of users in their system, are in fact engaged themselves in deceit and dishonesty on the issue of "actual users" versus "pretend users". How else can you justify the non-response? Twitter should be able to easily answer the question: bot to human ratio? It is fundamental to their core purpose as a business to know the answer to this question. The fact that they can't, and are instead engaging in an anti-Musk agitprop campaign, is very, very telling ...
blitzar 4y ago
Musk stated that twitter has lots of bots and that is why he was buying twitter to clean up the bots. Musk stated that twitter has lots of bots and that is why he was not buying twitter.
beefbudd69 4y ago
martin1b 4y ago
Why is this comment flagged???

twoslide 4y ago

Most views I've heard are that it is quite impossible to force someone to buy a company, but rather there will be settlement to exit the deal.

thomassmith65 4y ago
Musk already bought the company. The issue is whether Twitter can force him to pay.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Musk already bought the company. No, he didn't. If he did, the company wouldn't be suing him, since he would control it.
  - aidanlister 4y ago
    I think you’d correctly say he bought the company but has not settled, so he does not yet own the company.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      a distinction without a difference, he doesn't own anything beyond the board seat that his equity holdings afford him.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      a distinction without a difference, he doesn't own anything beyond the board seat that his equity holdings afford him. Vanguard owns more of Twitter than he does.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Most views I've heard are that it is quite impossible to force someone to buy a company Those views are simply ignorant; there are plenty of cases of the Delaware Court of Chancery ordering specific performance on merger deals. It is nothing even loosely similar to “quite impossible”.
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  Indeed, Matt Levine covered one just yesterday[1] that seems to follow pretty much the same path the Twitter one is going... [1] https://newsletterhunt.com/emails/21761 https://newsletterhunt.com/emails/21761

gassit 4y ago

Musk has been saying that on Twitter, but in Twitter's court filing they exhaustively outline that a) it isn't true and b) it isn't even a valid request from Musk under the contract. Considering how misleading and full of shit Musk has been about this whole thing at this stage I am well inclined to believe Twitter.

ckastner 4y ago
> Musk has been saying that on Twitter, but in Twitter's court filing they exhaustively outline that a) it isn't true and b) it isn't even a valid request from Musk under the contract. I've read the entire complaint, and this is my take as well. Twitter bent over backwards to comply with these requests even if they were invalid. Twitter played this brilliantly. They kept complying and playing along even with the most obvious nonsense, letting Musk run his impulsive and overconfident mouth. The number of times he legally shot himself in the foot is just staggering. There's documentation of everything, because he happily provided it. Musk's lawyers and bankers must have been dying a thousand deaths reading his tweets and other public remarks.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
  Musk's lawyers and bankers probably appreciate the increased fees though.
  - MrMan 4y ago
    Bankers are quite exposed on tje debt financing and possibly underwater despite the fees on the deal work
- mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
  If twitter was a house he was buying, I think the analogy is he waived his right to a house inspection being a cause of breaking the contract. He can still have the house inspected though.
  - lesuorac 4y ago

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Twitter didn’t hand over the bot data and will have to do so in court to prove its point. Even if that was true (and none of Twitter’s legal claims require the bot data to prove), so what?

boffinAudio 4y ago
It demonstrates that Twitter is inflating their value and lying to their shareholders. Whats so hard to understand about that?
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  > It demonstrates that Twitter is inflating their value and lying to their shareholders. Whats so hard to understand about that? No it doesn't. Twitter not handing over its bot data demonstrates...that Twitter is not handing over its bot data. Does Musk have actual _evidence_ that Twitter is inflating its value and lying to its shareholders? You do understand that "Twitter not handing over its bot data" isn't evidence. Anyway if the question of handing over "the bot data" data is irrelevant to Twitter's claims, then it doesn't matter if it's handed over. The legitimacy of those claims would then be unaffected by the bot data itself.
  - boffinAudio 4y ago
    Lets put it this way - say I have a company that makes cars, and I tell you - a potential investor of more than a billion dollars - that I have shipped a million cars this year and you should give me money on the basis of that revenue, are you an idiot if you don't ask to see the actual receipts that show that I have actually, indeed, shipped a million cars this year? Yes, I think you would be, and anyone who has given you money to spend on this act, should think so too .. Trust, but verify: This is a pretty basic business rule. Twitter has a responsibility to demonstrate that the trust they expect in their own estimations of their own market value, is actually verifiable - and with an issue of humans/bots ratio, they should surely be willing to be as open and honest as possible about this issue. Twitters core value, the basis of their own estimation of the value of their stock, is entirely derived from the actual # of human eyeballs they have attached to their systems. If those eyeballs are really just blind sockets on the outside of a software-based bot, then Twitter is factually lying about how many humans it has in its system. This would be essential for any buyer to know beforehand, and I really am astonished at the efforts you are going to justify this omission on Twitters' part. The bot to human ratio is a KEY factor to understand in correctly evaluating Twitters real value - how anyone can argue that Twitter don't have the responsibility to demonstrate the accuracy of their estimation of market value, especially in the HN environment, is beyond me. Perhaps the Musk-hate rage is blinding you to the rationality of Musks' request. "Hey, you say you are worth this much because <blah>, please show me that <blah> is actually a truthful and accurate estimation .." - this is not at all an unreasonable request. Twitter board executives DO have the responsibility of answering the claim that their user group is a certain percentage human. The fact that they haven't done this easily and openly is telling, in and of itself - and I would wager that most making the claim that they don't have a responsibility of being honest about the number of users in their system, are in fact engaged themselves in deceit and dishonesty on the issue of "actual users" versus "pretend users". How else can you justify the non-response? Twitter should be able to easily answer the question: bot to human ratio? It is fundamental to their core purpose as a business to know the answer to this question. The fact that they can't, and are instead engaging in an anti-Musk agitprop campaign, is very, very telling ...

blitzar 4y ago

Musk stated that twitter has lots of bots and that is why he was buying twitter to clean up the bots. Musk stated that twitter has lots of bots and that is why he was not buying twitter.

beefbudd69 4y ago

martin1b 4y ago

Why is this comment flagged???