6 ms·

> 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 v

> 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
    TFW when you start justifying a billionaire's unethical (and possibly criminal!) behaviour by saying 'well, no one was *physically* hurt!'
    - wartijn_ 4y ago
      Their point is that no one was financially hurt. Nobody in this thread mentioned anything about people getting physically hurt, unless I’m missing something.
      - ethanbond 4y ago
        You don’t think anyone was hurt by the absolutely enormous amount of stress he chose to create? Or the army of lawyers that Twitter shareholders had to pay for?
        wartijn_ 4y ago
        I think you meant to reply to my other comment[0], since that's where I did make that argument? But as to your questions: > You don’t think anyone was hurt by the absolutely enormous amount of stress he chose to create? Fair point, I imagine the last couple of months have not been great for many Twitter-employees. > Or the army of lawyers that Twitter shareholders had to pay for? As far as I know the shareholders don't directly pay for the lawyers, that money comes from some financial reserve Twitter has. In normal circumstances massive legal costs can reduce the value of a company, but in this case the shareholders will be able to sell each share for the same $54.20 as before the lawsuit. If the company becomes less valuable because of this, that's the problem of the next owner of the company. Since Musk will end up owning Twitter, he'll end up paying for the lawyers on both sides of this suit. Or am I missing something? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33092570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33092570
nocoiner 4y ago
You don’t purport to terminate a merger agreement (three times, no less!) if you are merely trying to re-cut the price. Even if this had been a negotiating ploy, Musk (through his extreme bad faith, including apparent destruction of evidence) put Twitter’s board in a box where they couldn’t possibly accept a lower price without exposing themselves to substantial personal legal exposure. He already agreed to buy the company at $44 billion, after all. There was no reason for them to return to the table, and many, many reasons for them not to.

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
  TFW when you start justifying a billionaire's unethical (and possibly criminal!) behaviour by saying 'well, no one was *physically* hurt!'
  - wartijn_ 4y ago
    Their point is that no one was financially hurt. Nobody in this thread mentioned anything about people getting physically hurt, unless I’m missing something.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      You don’t think anyone was hurt by the absolutely enormous amount of stress he chose to create? Or the army of lawyers that Twitter shareholders had to pay for?
      - wartijn_ 4y ago
        I think you meant to reply to my other comment[0], since that's where I did make that argument? But as to your questions: > You don’t think anyone was hurt by the absolutely enormous amount of stress he chose to create? Fair point, I imagine the last couple of months have not been great for many Twitter-employees. > Or the army of lawyers that Twitter shareholders had to pay for? As far as I know the shareholders don't directly pay for the lawyers, that money comes from some financial reserve Twitter has. In normal circumstances massive legal costs can reduce the value of a company, but in this case the shareholders will be able to sell each share for the same $54.20 as before the lawsuit. If the company becomes less valuable because of this, that's the problem of the next owner of the company. Since Musk will end up owning Twitter, he'll end up paying for the lawyers on both sides of this suit. Or am I missing something? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33092570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33092570

nocoiner 4y ago

You don’t purport to terminate a merger agreement (three times, no less!) if you are merely trying to re-cut the price. Even if this had been a negotiating ploy, Musk (through his extreme bad faith, including apparent destruction of evidence) put Twitter’s board in a box where they couldn’t possibly accept a lower price without exposing themselves to substantial personal legal exposure. He already agreed to buy the company at $44 billion, after all. There was no reason for them to return to the table, and many, many reasons for them not to.