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Elon Musk’s Proposal to Buy 100% of Twitter
Now that Musk is bidding for a full takeover of Twitter, the left and the likes of Max Boot are crying about the effect unfettered (or less fettered) speech has on democracy.
These same clowns didn’t care when social media blocked a true story about the Biden family’s global influence-peddling scheme during the 2020 election cycle.
I suspect Biden’s SEC will hold this up, or maybe it’s a ploy by Musk to drive up the price and sell the 9 percent he currently has.
One thing about Twitter and the last four years: it showed the media for who they really are, especially the GOPe (e.g., Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard gang).
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If he succeeds, the first thing he ought to do is shut down the bot farms Twitter uses to amplify the official narrative.
How about these alternatives:
1. Musk successfully buys it and is successful in transforming it into a free speech platform. Highly unlikely, but perhaps not so bad.
2. Musk successfully buys it but it collapses as it becomes anathema to left and right alike. Again, not so bad, unless you’re Elon’s banker.
3. Musk fails to buy as the price is bid up and quickly dumps his stock for a nice profit. Status quo retained – Elon’s banker happiest.
4. Musk fails to buy, but the process drags out, leaving first the wokeist, then the smartest, then anyone who can, of Twitter’s employees to leave. The stock drops, the platform fizzles. Elon loses money but the world is improved. ‘Journalists’ hardest hit.
Twitter is a failed company. They have first-mover advantage, but have failed to monitize that. They are barely profitable and revenue growth is flat/declining. People under age 30 don’t really care about Twitter. TikTok has users spending hour-after-hour staring at screen and Twitter doesn’t have that. They have strong brand for age 30+ folks, but they need to change their product to avoid become MySpace. There is an opportunity, but the window is closing. The best chance is to replicate TikTok, then get TikTok banned from the USA. There is no business model for a “free speech” platform. Gab is free. Any thoughts about politics are irrelevant as this is a business transaction.
[edit note: updated graphs for more recent data]
Twitter is a platform that has evolved to a certain purpose. That purpose it to promote Left Wing ideology and agenda. If Musk changes it from that purpose it will either die or be killed.
The absolute fury that greets this move is revealing (although predictable). See my post The Rage of the Prince-Electors.
I just posted this in the PIT. I’m glad that I scrolled down and found that Glenn has covered it.
Twitter has been banning important people which drives business elsewhere. If Musk wins and allows these people back, he could significantly improve profitability.
Whatever his actual goals are, I am 100% sure it has nothing to do with making money. Money has never been a thing that motivates him
Musk started both Tesla and SpaceX for philanthropic reasons. He had a smattering of billions after the sale of Pay Pal and invested in electric car prototypes, fully expecting to lose money, but with the idea of destroying the prevailing idea that EV’s had to be clunky, unsexy golf carts. He started SpaceX hoping to inspire NASA to go to Mars and beyond.
When both companies were on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008, he put the rest of his nest-egg into both companies, against financial advice telling him that he could put all his money into one with some chance of success but splitting his fortune between them would likely cause both to fail.
He knuckled down and as we all know both companies are a spectacular success.
Secondly, when you are already worth 250 billion, you don’t have to screw around trying to manipulate a stock price to get a few more billion while pissing off a lot of very influential people.
Looks like the deal is dead. Saudi’s that own 5.2% have nixed the offer.
No one loves free speech more than the Saudi’s – can’t wait for Max Boot to praise them
Sounds like a financial adrenaline junkie. Risk is rewarding to him.
But what percentage constitutes enough controlling interest to decide virtually everything? 51%?
I don’t know enough about this subject myself.
No. Not at all. There are many interviews and documentaries out there. They are very interesting and I encourage you to check them out. There’s a new one on Netflix running now about SpaceX. Dozens of interviews on You Tube and elsewhere. I’ve seen most of them. His story and the stories of his companies are amazing. Well worth your time.
He’s quite extraordinary, and his results against all odds are amazing and inspiring.
He really doesn’t care about money. It’s quite ironic that the guy who doesn’t care about money becomes the richest man in the world. Says something to me anyway.
He really wants humans to become and interplanetary species.
He will gladly risk money for his vision and results, but not for wealth.
If you own it all, you can take it private; then you can run it as you wish.
Okay, but having controlling number of shares (whatever that would be) should do the trick. Surely Musk isn’t expecting everyone to sell, right? That’s unrealistic.
It seems like the offer is a high stakes bid for all or nothing.
Here is the letter Musk sent to Twitter’s chairman disclosed in the 13D filing.
Interesting.
There is a world of difference between owning a company outright and owning a majority share in a public company.
Here is a good concise description of how taking a company private can be useful:
The value of those shares could very well collapse should the offer fail with Musk then liquidating his holdings.
Which might be his goal, it’s amusing to speculate but everyone is truly just guessing at what his plan is here.
What happens if people decide just not to sell their stock? Can they be forced to sell their stock? Also why can’t the government just step in and say no and stop the deal?
From the link provided by Headedwest:
So, once a majority accepts, the company goes private – even those who didn’t want to sell must take the offer. That would mean that buying all shares isn’t necessary.
From what I understand, the board must act in service to the shareholders, so if they don’t want to sell for political reasons, they are in a real dilemma. Right?
I don’t know how this kind of thing works, and I get the impression most people here don’t know either, given the amount of speculation.
I do think that a Saudi holdout needn’t be a deal killer, if the board approves the takeover anyway.
I also think that were Mr. Musk to own more than half the outstanding shares, he could probably have an enormous influence on corporate policy regarding censorship and free speech. And my impression is that that really is his motivation.
Regardless of its profitability, Twitter is a big deal from a political standpoint. A Twitter that respected free speech would be a game changer in 2024. I was telling people years before the 2020 election that there was a real danger of a last-minute clampdown on social media, perhaps combined with a disinformation campaign, to favor the Democrats leading up to the election. That was an obvious move: get the desired outcome, and then let the critics complain as they may about whatever rules might have been violated. And I think that’s exactly what happened.
With a Twitter that allowed unfettered communication, that would not be possible in 2024.
Government can always nix a stock transaction. Most of the shares are owned by institutions. They are easy to please, since they just care about making money. There are no sentimental holdings at Vanguard and BlackRock. These top-10 hold about 40% of the shares.
Imagine if Twitter *enforced* a free speech standard and promoted “narrative” and “anti-narrative” content equally!
I would be happy if they — and all social media — simply allowed all non-criminal speech.
The Biden Administration is already weaponizing the DOJ to try to take down Elon Musk. They cannot allow him to take control of their main avenue of messaging.
I think we can be sure that Musk wouldn’t be given any leeway against lawsuits etc, Section 230 or otherwise.
IF I was Musk I would beef up my security quite a bit. It is not out of the the realm of possibility for a little bit of radiation poisoning to happen. He is around all that high tech battery / space stuff after all and accidents do happen.
Here’s a handy Guide to Acquiring a US Public Company.
Saudis and their 5.2% cannot nix the deal, if there are enough other shares voted in favor.
A lot of institutional owners would probably like to vote against, for reasons of political correctness, but if the offer is sufficiently high and they do vote against, they will likely be opening themselves up to fiduciary-responsibility lawsuits.