I think he's dumb wasting so much money on this, but why on earth wouldn't shareholders want to sell out to him? If I held Twitter shares I'd be quite keen to get rid of them.
Musk has proven himself to be a very savvy investor. And his operational track record is nearly unmatched. Particularly because it straddles so many different industries: internet 1.0 (Zip2), banking and payments (PayPal), manufacturing and transportation (Tesla), aerospace engineering and spaceflight (SpaceX). If there is anyone in the world who could pull this off, my money would be on him.
... if you're not failing some of the time, you're not trying things ambitious enough ...
Also, reminder, he didn't found Tesla. He was one of its initial investors.
We can split hairs and refine definitions until we exclude him from the category of successful investors, but, at a certain point, it's a little hard to believe.
In any event, it is quite clear that Musk has no intention of being a silent investor. Rather, he's going to be an operator. And in that regard, he is nearly unparalleled.
And since he's got so many projects on-going, you think he has all of the time in the world to pull this one off? Explain that ONE to me?
His track record speaks for itself. I would certainly have far more confidence in Musk than the current leadership team.
Musk is at least competent in software engineering, aerospace engineering, and finance. It is hard not to see that as a strong indicator of an intelligence well above average. People bend over backwards to look past the glaring facts about Musk that contradict their biases.
Musk is hyper intelligent. Musk is one the most successful business people of all time.
I’m not saying he’s dumb, he’s clearly a smart guy, but I don’t think he’s anything special
Why I think he upended the auto industry:
- He bought Tesla within the first two years (IIRC) of it being founded; before there was even a working prototype
- He laid out the groundwork for the three-stage plan, and followed through
- Stage 1: Prototype -> Roadster
- Stage 2: Model S/X
- Stage 3: Model 3/Y
And, the most important piece:
- He led and developed the Supercharger network initiative, partially solving the problem of EVs as true ICE replacements
Each of those decisions could have, and likely would have, been handled differently by Random CEO. It was only through each of those decisions, and a lot of luck, that Tesla is a viable car company today.
I’m quick to criticize Musk, but what he did with Tesla is truly incredible and deserving of praise.
That just is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. When Musk took over Tesla, it was a very small startup with 6 employees or so. All the subsequent growth into the behemoth that it is today has happened under his management.
If someone adopted a newborn and raised him to adulthood, would you dismiss them as not-a-real-parent of that kid?
Musk's role in Tesla is similar to Ray Kroc's in McDonald's. Not a founder either, but the person that took over a totally irrelevant small business and developed it into a world class superpower in its field.
To be dismissive of such an accomplishment is unwise at best.
PayPal: Musk founded X.com. X merged with PayPal. Through that merger, Musk became PayPal's largest shareholder. He was ousted as the company's CEO. He did attempt to move the company's tech onto Windows. None of this invalidates his accomplishment's at PayPal. To wit, he walked away with $100M.
Tesla: Musk did not buy Tesla. 8 months after Tesla was founded, he funded the majority of Tesla's series A at which time he became the chairman of its board. He then stepped into the CEO role and has maintained that role ever since.
SpaceX: Musk trained himself in rocket engineering and pioneered private spaceflight while pushing rocket tech far into the future. Self landing rockets. <- I don't even need a full sentence. Self. Landing. ROCKETS!!!!
Its very important to get the facts right before moving on to interpretation.
Of course, Musk didn't do all of this himself. He has again and again hired top notch engineers and scientists. But even in the most biased publications, his critics begrudgingly acknowledge his technical prowess and commercial acumen.
Again, just look at the list of accomplishments. He is a man, not a god. But in these domains, he is absolutely something special. Many sigma special.
Jay Z
I guess for cashing out though it doesn't matter, since the shareholders won't need to care about what Twitter's stock does in the future. So, maybe you're right.
Easy to verify, we'll just have to wait and see if he succeeds.
Those promises are predicated on him owning it though.
I'm doubtful of Twitter's LTV whether he owns it or not, but then again I've never had an account and now that you pretty much can't read it without one, I basically don't use it at all. So I may not be a qualified observer, but to me Twitter seems to only get worse for years now.
If that price isn't reasonable for Twitter long-term then you must have someone other than the current management in mind to realise that value...
I think if I were an investor, my thought might be that Musk might not be necessary to realize that growth (again, speaking in the long term, not that the current price is wrong). But I'm not an investor, I don't really know Twitter's numbers.
I guess the caveat I should give is that if I were an investor and I thought Twitter was falling and that Musk couldn't save it, this would be a particularly good opportunity to jump ship. So that could also be an angle I'm not thinking of.
He or anyone else
Twitter is a natural monopoly - evidenced by it's not having any real competition. Will it be a regulated monopoly? In that case, it should be valued like a water company. Is it an unregulated monopoly? In that case the market will decide if it can turn that monopoly into profits. There are a lot of commercial Twitter users. Charge them all ten cents a tweet. That adds up to about $10m per day.
I guess it depends on that, do you think Twitter stock will just keep going down, or could it relatively quickly outperform that offer?