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What if this whole thing was to shift the narrative from the sky is falling Musk should not be allowed to buy Twitter to let's force Musk to buy Twitter. Cost h

by qaq 4y ago

What if this whole thing was to shift the narrative from the sky is falling Musk should not be allowed to buy Twitter to let's force Musk to buy Twitter. Cost him +/- nothing.

Ajedi32 4y ago
I doubt it was intentional, but nonetheless I do find it pretty funny how fast the pendulum swung on that one.
- amusedcyclist 4y ago
  There are lots of obsessive Elon fans which has also created a set of obsessive Elon haters. I don't like him but I don't see how he'd do a much worse job of running twitter than the guys running it now
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    Elon Musk is very good at hiring motivated people who can figure out how to make things work. It's hard to imagine that skill going to waste at Twitter, whose management didn't seem to really know or care much about the platform or the business they were in.
    - adventured 4y ago
      There is an important caveat to that positive take: if Musk has the time to properly keep his eye on Twitter, so as to know which good people to hire. He's already dividing his time into a lot of pursuits.
    - lttlrck 4y ago
      This very topic is a vivid counter example to that claim
      - pclmulqdq 4y ago
        Twitter hired good lawyers and listened to them - it's a very different skill than managing a company. The way he handled Twitter, I wouldn't put Parag Agrawal in charge of a supermarket.
        encryptluks2 4y ago
        I wouldn't let pedo-projector Muskrat around children
- addicted 4y ago
  The pendulum hasn’t swung at all on that. The people who were unhappy with Musk buying Twitter are still unhappy and have the same concerns. The only thing that changed is instead of him getting Twitter for the same price (but probably higher value, since he has spent months damaging it) months ago, he had to wait. In the meanwhile he made a bunch of humiliating statements, has suffered a humiliating defeat, and with the intervening damage sustained by the likes of Meta Twitter appears far less powerful today than it did then.
pavlov 4y ago
When you overpay by tens of billions it’s actually 4D chess mind games, apparently.
- qaq 4y ago
  Overpay is relative there is no meaning-full difference between your net worth being 250 or 230 Billion. Now having control of a key political discourse platform of the world while being the richest dude that def comes with benefits.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Well he clearly didn’t think it was worth it, given the attempts to backtrack out of the deal.
  - the_gipsy 4y ago
    Then why actively damage the credibility of said platform? Stop with the 4d-chess apologism.
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      Because Twitter's failures are all semi-public anyways. He's scapegoating. Attacking them for these things firmly attaches blame to the previous management and becomes his first success as a manager. It's what always happens, but he did it proactively. It won't hurt Twitter's value because it never really had credibility, but also doesn't need it. Nobody is going to get up tomorrow and say "I was going to tweet this, but I'll rumble it instead because Twitter has lied to the FTC since 2011!"
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    Yes, 230 vs 250bn isn't much of a difference. However the question is liquidity. If he has to sell 20bn of Tesla stocks that may lower the value of Tesla, thus pull his net worth down. In addition some of his sponsors might pull out of the deal after seeing his erratic handling of the case, thus he has to provide even more liquidity. Which means selling off more Tesla, which reduces his control.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
malshe 4y ago
I am not a Musk fan and I really don't want him to buy Twitter. However, neither do I want him to get away with his shenanigans. I want to see, for a change, a billionaire held accountable.
- dontblink 4y ago
  I feel the same. Now Twitter will potentially be manipulated by him. He will have a lot more sway over public opinion.
babypuncher 4y ago
Well, he's overpaying for Twitter by $20b compared to when he originally made the offer. On top of that, he's partially funding it by selling Tesla stock that is also worth less than it was when he originally made the offer. This is an incredibly expensive game of 4D checkers.
- qaq 4y ago
  He is paying the same amount as he offered originally but now with 0 push back. You can get huge political dividends by controlling twitter.
  - mmastrac 4y ago
    He's too volatile to take advantage of what Twitter gives him. Musk is great with vision, but his day-to-day execution just isn't great. He can't keep a straight opinion from one day to the next, so half of Twitter is just ignoring him at this point. Twitter would need some cool-headed, smart leadership for him to get the political gains out of it.
  - digianarchist 4y ago
    There's no evidence that Twitter has huge political sway. It was barely mentioned during the 2016 presidential election.
  - paxys 4y ago
    The agreement was fully approved by Twitter's board and shareholders, so not sure what push back you are referring to. If you mean there were some people unhappy with him buying Twitter, they are still around today, and are overall irrelevant to the deal.
bawolff 4y ago
Who benefits from the pendulum swing? I can't imagine musk cares that much what the anti-musk crowd thinks.
coffeeblack 4y ago
That seems likely. Had he bought Twitter months ago, users might have left in protest. Also, he may have needed the time to find his “2000 investors”.
SilverBirch 4y ago
I honestly don't know why people try and find weird and convoluted answers for a very simple events. The narrative that Musk shouldn't be allowed to buy twitter doesn't matter, it's as simple as that, there was no mechanism anyone had to stop him, and he showed no sign of bowing to that pressure when he was originally offering the deal. He only tried to pull out when he saw the stock market collapse. It's very simple. And what have his shenanigans achieved? We now have all his text messages which prove all the worst fears of the people who don't want him to own it.
- qaq 4y ago
  Cause sometimes there are weird and convoluted answers for a very simple events.
  - SilverBirch 4y ago
    That would work if the convoluted answer made any sense. I can see looking at simple events, seeing a simple answer doesn't explain it well, and looking for a more complicated answer. This is a simple event with an obvious, simple answer. Then people go looking for complicated answers... and come up with answers that make less sense.
puffoflogic 4y ago
It has been especially ridiculous to watch The Narrative shift on this one. Insert reprogramming meme.

by qaq 4y ago

What if this whole thing was to shift the narrative from the sky is falling Musk should not be allowed to buy Twitter to let's force Musk to buy Twitter. Cost him +/- nothing.

Ajedi32 4y ago

I doubt it was intentional, but nonetheless I do find it pretty funny how fast the pendulum swung on that one.

amusedcyclist 4y ago
There are lots of obsessive Elon fans which has also created a set of obsessive Elon haters. I don't like him but I don't see how he'd do a much worse job of running twitter than the guys running it now
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  Elon Musk is very good at hiring motivated people who can figure out how to make things work. It's hard to imagine that skill going to waste at Twitter, whose management didn't seem to really know or care much about the platform or the business they were in.
  - adventured 4y ago
    There is an important caveat to that positive take: if Musk has the time to properly keep his eye on Twitter, so as to know which good people to hire. He's already dividing his time into a lot of pursuits.
  - lttlrck 4y ago
    This very topic is a vivid counter example to that claim
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      Twitter hired good lawyers and listened to them - it's a very different skill than managing a company. The way he handled Twitter, I wouldn't put Parag Agrawal in charge of a supermarket.
      - encryptluks2 4y ago
        I wouldn't let pedo-projector Muskrat around children
addicted 4y ago
The pendulum hasn’t swung at all on that. The people who were unhappy with Musk buying Twitter are still unhappy and have the same concerns. The only thing that changed is instead of him getting Twitter for the same price (but probably higher value, since he has spent months damaging it) months ago, he had to wait. In the meanwhile he made a bunch of humiliating statements, has suffered a humiliating defeat, and with the intervening damage sustained by the likes of Meta Twitter appears far less powerful today than it did then.

pavlov 4y ago

When you overpay by tens of billions it’s actually 4D chess mind games, apparently.

qaq 4y ago
Overpay is relative there is no meaning-full difference between your net worth being 250 or 230 Billion. Now having control of a key political discourse platform of the world while being the richest dude that def comes with benefits.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  Well he clearly didn’t think it was worth it, given the attempts to backtrack out of the deal.
- the_gipsy 4y ago
  Then why actively damage the credibility of said platform? Stop with the 4d-chess apologism.
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    Because Twitter's failures are all semi-public anyways. He's scapegoating. Attacking them for these things firmly attaches blame to the previous management and becomes his first success as a manager. It's what always happens, but he did it proactively. It won't hurt Twitter's value because it never really had credibility, but also doesn't need it. Nobody is going to get up tomorrow and say "I was going to tweet this, but I'll rumble it instead because Twitter has lied to the FTC since 2011!"
- johannes1234321 4y ago
  Yes, 230 vs 250bn isn't much of a difference. However the question is liquidity. If he has to sell 20bn of Tesla stocks that may lower the value of Tesla, thus pull his net worth down. In addition some of his sponsors might pull out of the deal after seeing his erratic handling of the case, thus he has to provide even more liquidity. Which means selling off more Tesla, which reduces his control.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

malshe 4y ago

I am not a Musk fan and I really don't want him to buy Twitter. However, neither do I want him to get away with his shenanigans. I want to see, for a change, a billionaire held accountable.

dontblink 4y ago
I feel the same. Now Twitter will potentially be manipulated by him. He will have a lot more sway over public opinion.

babypuncher 4y ago

Well, he's overpaying for Twitter by $20b compared to when he originally made the offer. On top of that, he's partially funding it by selling Tesla stock that is also worth less than it was when he originally made the offer. This is an incredibly expensive game of 4D checkers.

qaq 4y ago
He is paying the same amount as he offered originally but now with 0 push back. You can get huge political dividends by controlling twitter.
- mmastrac 4y ago
  He's too volatile to take advantage of what Twitter gives him. Musk is great with vision, but his day-to-day execution just isn't great. He can't keep a straight opinion from one day to the next, so half of Twitter is just ignoring him at this point. Twitter would need some cool-headed, smart leadership for him to get the political gains out of it.
- digianarchist 4y ago
  There's no evidence that Twitter has huge political sway. It was barely mentioned during the 2016 presidential election.
- paxys 4y ago
  The agreement was fully approved by Twitter's board and shareholders, so not sure what push back you are referring to. If you mean there were some people unhappy with him buying Twitter, they are still around today, and are overall irrelevant to the deal.

bawolff 4y ago

Who benefits from the pendulum swing? I can't imagine musk cares that much what the anti-musk crowd thinks.

coffeeblack 4y ago

That seems likely. Had he bought Twitter months ago, users might have left in protest. Also, he may have needed the time to find his “2000 investors”.

SilverBirch 4y ago

I honestly don't know why people try and find weird and convoluted answers for a very simple events. The narrative that Musk shouldn't be allowed to buy twitter doesn't matter, it's as simple as that, there was no mechanism anyone had to stop him, and he showed no sign of bowing to that pressure when he was originally offering the deal. He only tried to pull out when he saw the stock market collapse. It's very simple. And what have his shenanigans achieved? We now have all his text messages which prove all the worst fears of the people who don't want him to own it.

qaq 4y ago
Cause sometimes there are weird and convoluted answers for a very simple events.
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  That would work if the convoluted answer made any sense. I can see looking at simple events, seeing a simple answer doesn't explain it well, and looking for a more complicated answer. This is a simple event with an obvious, simple answer. Then people go looking for complicated answers... and come up with answers that make less sense.

puffoflogic 4y ago

It has been especially ridiculous to watch The Narrative shift on this one. Insert reprogramming meme.