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To be fair, twitter ended up useful for him when he used it to buy his way into the US government and close down all the departments that were investigating his
by exe34 5mo ago
To be fair, twitter ended up useful for him when he used it to buy his way into the US government and close down all the departments that were investigating his companies for breaking all sorts of laws.
- bonesss 5mo agoAs a business transaction: Twitters acquisition is among the worst deals in human history. As means to buy an election an Presidency: highly efficient use of capital with an undeniable short and long-term ROI.
- BeetleB 5mo ago> Twitters acquisition is among the worst deals in human history. That he won't have to pay for. Shareholders will, as part of the SpaceX IPO.
- aniviacat 5mo agoIf shareholders have to pay the debt, then the shares will be less valuable, and Musk (whose wealth is measured in shares) will be less wealthy, no?
- BeetleB 5mo agoBy a tad. SpaceX's worth is an order of magnitude more than Twitter's debt. I doubt any serious person considering buying shares in SpaceX will spend even a moment worrying about Twitter.
- ben_w 5mo agoThey probably should. I've seen people concerned a subsidiary's GDPR fine would be calculated on the basis of the parent company's global revenue, and in Musk's case something similar has happened in Brazil where Starlink's assets were frozen and justified in part because of how Musk fails to properly delineate between his businesses.
- generj 5mo agoThe EU also lacks incentivizes to not harm SpaceX. The US government as a whole, and DoD in particular wants SpaceX around to deliver cheap mass to orbit. Europe on the other hand would love any judgements which give their rockets a chance to catchup. So they won’t temper an investigation or fines accordingly.
- saalweachter 5mo agoMusk only owns 42% of SpaceX; he only takes 42% of the loss as if he continued to own Twitter outright.
- nkozyra 5mo agoWell Twitter has other investors, too. But he'll also likely be shaving equity here and there along the way to hedge this bet.
- MBCook 5mo agoThat assumes market rationality.
- nebula8804 5mo agoToo early to write closing arguments on this. A vengeful future administration might make us realize that the entire transaction was a huge mistake.
- MBCook 5mo agoTrue. There is a “so far” on that.
- SwellJoe 5mo agoI don't know where a vengeful future administration would come from. We only have Democrats or Republicans to choose from, and Democrats have made turning the other cheek their entire purpose and political mission. They slow-rolled the investigation of Trump so long he got elected again in the meantime. The idea that any major Democrat would go after a billionaire and not just any billionaire but the biggest billionaire of them all? Absurd thought.
- ngruhn 5mo agoOn the other hand, buying twitter was the turning point for his public image. Before that, he was Tony Stark. Now he's Lex Luthor.
- nebula8804 5mo agoKey word being public. People from the industries he operates in were screaming from the rooftops about him for years. Tech people chose to actively ignore their colleagues in automotive and space. I remember the circumstances that led to the creation of /r/realtesla.
- mschuster91 5mo ago> People from the industries he operates in were screaming from the rooftops about him for years. Tech people chose to actively ignore their colleagues in automotive and space. The thing is... SpaceX and Tesla actually delivered something, in the case of Tesla at least until that damn rust bucket. They were (and, with the exception of the rust bucket, still are) miles ahead of the competition. Back when Musk proposed buying Twitter, the site already was in the gutters, there's a reason that place was up for sale. Bugs littered everywhere, reliability issues, the disaster that was the universally hated 2019 redesign, sex spam bots, trolls and propaganda farms running the show, the "legitimate" bluecheck verification program being all but dead for new applicants. People actually hoped that Musk would turn the sinking ship around. What even those critical of Musk didn't expect was that he'd open all the floodgates.
- dylan604 5mo ago> The thing is... SpaceX and Tesla actually delivered something, in the case of Tesla at least until that damn rust bucket. They were (and, with the exception of the rust bucket, still are) miles ahead of the competition The fact that the quote of "it's all computer" is not wrong with all of the other negatives about it are automotive reasons why I'll never own one. I also choose not to do business with companies with that kind of leadership. A noble idea like by an ignoble person does not bode well for that noble idea.
- dylan604 5mo agoDid the total of fines the US gov't was looking to levy on Musk total up to more than the $44Billion he spent on Twitter?
- exe34 5mo agoWhen you are the richest man in the world, you can afford to do things out of spite. But we won't know - he got rid of the people who could have fined him.
- robofanatic 5mo ago$44B is peanuts for a soon to be trillionaire