3 ms·

Elon Musk moves to kill the upcoming Twitter trial

6 points by mikece 4y ago

jcranmer 4y ago
The motion basically boils down to "the court should stop the trial to force me to close the deal because I've agreed to close the deal, but if the court doesn't stop the trial, then maybe I won't close the deal." (Paragraph 4 basically insinuates that Musk will appeal the decision if he loses the trial. If he really does want to do what the trial would force him to do, why would he object to being forced to do it?) This is likely to be another example of why it's a bad idea to torpedo your credibility with a judge, something Musk has very thoroughly done. Saying "on my honor, I will do what I promise to do" is only going to work if the judge believes your honor is worth something to you. Also, he's saying that he has no choice but to propose stipulation of his loss... and isn't actually doing that at the same time? Why not make other efforts to show good faith, like withdrawing counterclaims with prejudice? It seems to me that this is less about actually committing to the deal for reals this time and more about avoiding things like, I don't know, sitting for a deposition.
- nocoiner 4y ago
  Well stated. I was a little — OK, very — surprised to read the tone of this filing. You don’t get to pretend to terminate a binding acquisition on a pretext, destroy evidence and skip depositions and then act like you’re the aggrieved party. While I continue to think that the most likely outcome (by far) is that Musk complies with a he obligations that he agreed to in the merger agreement, and is thus unlikely to be further damaged by continuing to act like an asshole (as he has in this filing), I have to think that this is a mis-step, or at least doesn’t do him any favors. Also, it’s going to take three weeks for the banks to fund the committed financing? That’s absurd. They should have been prepared for this as soon as the Twitter shareholders voted to approve the deal. Yet another indication that Musk really thought he could get out of closing this transaction, and his behavior since signing the agreement wasn’t ackshually fifth-dimensional business acumen to win a reduction in purchase price.
__warlord__ 4y ago
How probable is that Elon is willing to pay 44B to not go trial _becuase_ they might find something he doesn’t want to be found?

6 points by mikece 4y ago

The motion basically boils down to "the court should stop the trial to force me to close the deal because I've agreed to close the deal, but if the court doesn't stop the trial, then maybe I won't close the deal." (Paragraph 4 basically insinuates that Musk will appeal the decision if he loses the trial. If he really does want to do what the trial would force him to do, why would he object to being forced to do it?) This is likely to be another example of why it's a bad idea to torpedo your credibility with a judge, something Musk has very thoroughly done. Saying "on my honor, I will do what I promise to do" is only going to work if the judge believes your honor is worth something to you. Also, he's saying that he has no choice but to propose stipulation of his loss... and isn't actually doing that at the same time? Why not make other efforts to show good faith, like withdrawing counterclaims with prejudice? It seems to me that this is less about actually committing to the deal for reals this time and more about avoiding things like, I don't know, sitting for a deposition.

nocoiner 4y ago
Well stated. I was a little — OK, very — surprised to read the tone of this filing. You don’t get to pretend to terminate a binding acquisition on a pretext, destroy evidence and skip depositions and then act like you’re the aggrieved party. While I continue to think that the most likely outcome (by far) is that Musk complies with a he obligations that he agreed to in the merger agreement, and is thus unlikely to be further damaged by continuing to act like an asshole (as he has in this filing), I have to think that this is a mis-step, or at least doesn’t do him any favors. Also, it’s going to take three weeks for the banks to fund the committed financing? That’s absurd. They should have been prepared for this as soon as the Twitter shareholders voted to approve the deal. Yet another indication that Musk really thought he could get out of closing this transaction, and his behavior since signing the agreement wasn’t ackshually fifth-dimensional business acumen to win a reduction in purchase price.

__warlord__ 4y ago

How probable is that Elon is willing to pay 44B to not go trial _becuase_ they might find something he doesn’t want to be found?