4 ms·

A lark is fleeting feeling. This was far from it. This wasnt an overnight whim…it was weeks in the making. If it was a lark, Musk would have backed down befo

A lark is fleeting feeling. This was far from it. This wasnt an overnight whim…it was weeks in the making. If it was a lark, Musk would have backed down before anything was signed or made the offer terms completely unpalatable to Twitters board but instead he made them an offer they wanted to refuse, but couldn’t. Musk definitely wanted to buy it and was more than willing at that price. Your opinion relies on a couple things that are pretty unlikely. One, that someone as successful as Musk wouldn’t engage counsel that he completely trusts with 20% of his net worth. Two, that he went down this road without a real commitment to buy it, despite spending a ton of money in the effort to buy it. The market turned, the valuation changed, and Musk tried a tactic to renegotiate his position. In the end, he is going to ultimately get what he really wanted, but the value of what he wanted will take a little more time to recover.

ethanbond 4y ago
A lark is not a fleeting feeling. It’s “a quest for amusement.” This is pretty much the only thing that explains all of the behavior. He was doing it for fun and no one stopped him in time. Partly because, as has been reported, so many in his inner circle thought he wasn’t serious about it. He entered into an entirely reckless contract because he was riding the high of his Big Joke. Not sure what’s hard to believe about an egomaniacal self-described troll getting himself into a tricky situation. Schoolchildren do it all the time. Who knows what the deal is with his relationship with counsel but go ahead and read some of their filings to see what a clown show it is. Some of them seem to have been written by Musk himself and making claims that don’t even resemble legal arguments.
- kcplate 4y ago
  > go ahead and read some of their filings to see what a clown show it is I have, but I am not a lawyer. Perhaps you are and can speak intelligently to their validity. What I will say is that there is a better than average chance that exceptionally good and well paid lawyers drew them up and a better than average chance that many of the armchair legal analysts commenting here and elsewhere are not good and well paid lawyers. Wealthy business people I know are not adverse to risk, but they are methodical and are generally careful when large amounts of their own capital is at risk. This smells more to me like a calculated negotiation tactic to try grab a lower buy price that didn’t pay off for Musk more than anything else. In then end, he got what he originally wanted and at the price he was originally willing to pay.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago
    You can be the best lawyer of all time but if the police have a 4k close up of your guy pulling the trigger from five different angles there may be no sequence of words you can write that are gonna get him out of jail, and it's also possible anything you do write will sound absurd. That's more or less the situation here with Musk, although in contract form, not criminal. I'm curious if there will be any attempt to recover damages from his legal representation. Maybe there was deficiency? Although I doubt any legal form is sufficiently capitalized or insured to make more than a tiny dent in the harm done to his fortune by this whole debacle. To be clear I assume he's been adequately represented but I mean he did make this offer so further buffoonery would not surprise.
    - kcplate 4y ago
      Sure, but that doesn’t mean your lawyer doesn’t still try and make a case in your defense if you want one. That’s what lawyers do… Think about it, no one really got hurt here. Musk ultimately buys Twitter for the agreed price, no shareholder loses. Musk assumes the cost for Twitter’s lawyers for the lawsuit to preserve the deal by buying Twitter and Musk paid his lawyers to defend it. It was chump change to a billionaire to take a long shot bet to maybe make the deal a little sweeter and it didn’t work. Oh well, Musk has not lost any more than he was originally willing to risk.
      - pvg 4y ago
        Think about it, no one really got hurt here. That's not what twitter thinks and it's right in their original lawsuit: 155. Twitter has suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result of defendants’ breaches.
        wartijn_ 4y ago
        But if that harm manifested itself in a lower value of Twitter it will be repaired, when Musk buys the company for the price they agreed on. If that harm is reflected in something else (the reputation of Twitter maybe?) that is damage Musk did to his own company. So maybe whoever co-invested with Musk got hurt a bit, but they’ll still get whatever part of Twitter they wanted, for the price they agreed on.
9935c101ab17a66 4y ago
Your previous comment literally argues it is too early for anyone to make informed judgements about the motivation of the parties involved. And yet, here you are: > The market turned, the valuation changed, and Musk tried a tactic to renegotiate his position. In the end, he is going to ultimately get what he really wanted, but the value of what he wanted will take a little more time to recover. Is this not someone making an informed judgement about Musk's motivations?
- kcplate 4y ago
  >Is this not someone making an informed judgement about Musk’s motivations? Not really, I’d call it more an uninformed opinion since I and pretty much everyone else on here was not privy to the inner working of Musk’s brain.

ethanbond 4y ago

A lark is not a fleeting feeling. It’s “a quest for amusement.” This is pretty much the only thing that explains all of the behavior. He was doing it for fun and no one stopped him in time. Partly because, as has been reported, so many in his inner circle thought he wasn’t serious about it. He entered into an entirely reckless contract because he was riding the high of his Big Joke. Not sure what’s hard to believe about an egomaniacal self-described troll getting himself into a tricky situation. Schoolchildren do it all the time. Who knows what the deal is with his relationship with counsel but go ahead and read some of their filings to see what a clown show it is. Some of them seem to have been written by Musk himself and making claims that don’t even resemble legal arguments.

kcplate 4y ago
> go ahead and read some of their filings to see what a clown show it is I have, but I am not a lawyer. Perhaps you are and can speak intelligently to their validity. What I will say is that there is a better than average chance that exceptionally good and well paid lawyers drew them up and a better than average chance that many of the armchair legal analysts commenting here and elsewhere are not good and well paid lawyers. Wealthy business people I know are not adverse to risk, but they are methodical and are generally careful when large amounts of their own capital is at risk. This smells more to me like a calculated negotiation tactic to try grab a lower buy price that didn’t pay off for Musk more than anything else. In then end, he got what he originally wanted and at the price he was originally willing to pay.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 4y ago
  You can be the best lawyer of all time but if the police have a 4k close up of your guy pulling the trigger from five different angles there may be no sequence of words you can write that are gonna get him out of jail, and it's also possible anything you do write will sound absurd. That's more or less the situation here with Musk, although in contract form, not criminal. I'm curious if there will be any attempt to recover damages from his legal representation. Maybe there was deficiency? Although I doubt any legal form is sufficiently capitalized or insured to make more than a tiny dent in the harm done to his fortune by this whole debacle. To be clear I assume he's been adequately represented but I mean he did make this offer so further buffoonery would not surprise.
  - kcplate 4y ago
    Sure, but that doesn’t mean your lawyer doesn’t still try and make a case in your defense if you want one. That’s what lawyers do… Think about it, no one really got hurt here. Musk ultimately buys Twitter for the agreed price, no shareholder loses. Musk assumes the cost for Twitter’s lawyers for the lawsuit to preserve the deal by buying Twitter and Musk paid his lawyers to defend it. It was chump change to a billionaire to take a long shot bet to maybe make the deal a little sweeter and it didn’t work. Oh well, Musk has not lost any more than he was originally willing to risk.
    - pvg 4y ago
      Think about it, no one really got hurt here. That's not what twitter thinks and it's right in their original lawsuit: 155. Twitter has suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result of defendants’ breaches.
      - wartijn_ 4y ago
        But if that harm manifested itself in a lower value of Twitter it will be repaired, when Musk buys the company for the price they agreed on. If that harm is reflected in something else (the reputation of Twitter maybe?) that is damage Musk did to his own company. So maybe whoever co-invested with Musk got hurt a bit, but they’ll still get whatever part of Twitter they wanted, for the price they agreed on.

9935c101ab17a66 4y ago

Your previous comment literally argues it is too early for anyone to make informed judgements about the motivation of the parties involved. And yet, here you are: > The market turned, the valuation changed, and Musk tried a tactic to renegotiate his position. In the end, he is going to ultimately get what he really wanted, but the value of what he wanted will take a little more time to recover. Is this not someone making an informed judgement about Musk's motivations?

kcplate 4y ago
>Is this not someone making an informed judgement about Musk’s motivations? Not really, I’d call it more an uninformed opinion since I and pretty much everyone else on here was not privy to the inner working of Musk’s brain.