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Elon's Giant Package

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37 pointsbceskavich40 comments

> He’s concurrently framed the entire purchase of Twitter under some nebulous vision of free speech.

On the contrary, it is the most concrete vision of free speech I can imagine. Elon said explicitly that he wants Twitter to support any legal speech. The United States has by far the most caselaw in the world detailing the use and restriction of speech.

I think to test this, to make sure it doesn't become Truth Social (where all speech is free, but speech against the owner is bannable), that someone needs to tweet critical and/or trolling things about Musk all the time, as a sort of canary. For example, this photo of him and Ghislaine Maxwell.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/03/20/30363780-8488279-...

I don't doubt his vision of free speech but I highly doubt his ability to prevent his ego from getting in the way of executing it. This is the same person that cancelled someone's Telsa order out of spite when they were overly critical of a launch event.

Agreed completely.

> photo of him and Ghislaine Maxwell

I’m with you as far as testing Elon’s limits but I don’t think photos of celebrities with unsavory people generally should be considered damning.

Celebrities get asked to take photos next to random people all the time. I don’t think that should be seen as any kind of endorsement of them.

Is this the full extent of it. Indeed I mean … people take random party pics with other people all the time.

That's fair, and lots of wealthy people have photos with her or Epstein even if they didn't participate in his pedophilia ring, though many of them took their money. It's just a starting point, though Musk's pettiness and egotism can't be underestimated.

Other options:

- Implying Musk did participate in the pedophilia ring (not true that we know of, but Musk does have experience with accusing innocent people of being pedophiles)

- Tesla being an absurdly racist place to work: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/judge-finds-tesla-liable-to-...

- Rampant sexism at SpaceX: https://www.lioness.co/post/at-spacex-we-re-told-we-can-chan...

- Reminding people how bad the AI is in Tesla vehicles and how many people it's killed and almost killed, and how it gets worse with every software update

- Animal cruelty at Neuralink: https://www.the-sun.com/news/4662578/elon-musk-neuralink-tes...

- Credible reports of emotional abuse against partners: https://medium.com/@webwifi/open-letter-to-grimes-682c2d9cee...

- Reminders that Musk didn't invent or build anything at Tesla, but rather bought the company from the two founders that did all the actual work, and that he's a spoiled brat in general

Anything to put oligarchs in their place is always a good thing, since Musk is far beyond the point of absolute power corrupting absolutely.

> Credible reports of emotional abuse against partners

I'm not an Elon Musk fan (seriously: grep through any comments I've posted about the guy), but the article linked here is an incredibly weak substantiation of that libellous claim. I'm rather impressed by the writer's balls in posting it. The content of the article is just a desultory ramble through a few things Musk has said or done which make him look like a kinda-shitty person, but nothing remotely rising to the level of abuse.

"He didn't let his kids have stuffed animals" or "he 'put his wife's flaws under the microscope' when they argued" or "he pressured a reporter not to publish an article by insinuating that he'd go to jail" or "I didn't realise he had a dead son, he must not talk about it much" ... none of these make him look like an affable, sweet-natured guy - I'm not sure what anyone expects from a tech billionaire - but to call it 'abuse' devalues the word, imo.

Weak writing aside, it's still credible since it's coming from a primary source. If his ex-wife felt abused and manipulated, who are we to question her? I would say at the very least it's something that deserves more scrutiny, since there might be a pattern there.

Just because you are an oligarch doesn't give you a pass from being a bad partner or parent, and I would defer to their lived experiences on how he measures up on those fronts. IMO, you cease being a good partner and parent when you start putting the pursuit of money and power above your family's emotional needs. Being an asshole to the people close to you is not a prerequisite for success.

Even if you don't agree with any of that, it does still serve its purpose of being a Twitter troll canary against him.

> If his ex-wife felt abused and manipulated, who are we to question her?

Well, the question would be whether she was abused and manipulated. The stuff in this article makes him out to be a shitty person, at least in those moments, and perhaps I wouldn't be too surprised if he were guilty of abuse, but it's strange that no one described anything worse than those anecdotes. His ex-wife certainly seems willing to spill any beans she has.

> I would say at the very least it's something that deserves more scrutiny.

More scrutiny, sure. An article saying "This guy is an abuser, because, well, he might be, who knows??" ... well, like I say, I admire the author's audacity.

Much simpler, does Elon's jet's Twitter bot stay around? That's the litmus test haha.

That's a good one, I forgot about that.

What Elon wants and what Elon delivers are two different things. We should know this by now.

If Musk were actually buying Twitter instead of screwing the stock around for a few months, it would be a change, not a widening, in 'free speech'.

Likely more free if you want to robo-spam Dogecoin pump-and-dump schemes, convince suckers to 'hodl' tsla, or falsely accuse an enemy of being a 'pedo guy.'

Likely less free if you try to tweet the whereabouts of Musk's private jet, promote a union for Tesla factory workers, or be a politician with an ant-monopoly platform.

Personally I will avoid reading more posts about the Twitter sale for five or six months. If it's still on then, I'll accept it is real. Until, I assume it's just stock manipulation.

is this for real and should I be angry?

Cathie Wood and ARK are selling too. While putting out a report with a price target of $4,600 for TSLA, they’ve been taking profits and trimming their TSLA position in their flagship ARKK fund from almost 4 million shares to less than 1 million. One of the biggest cheerleaders for Tesla is publicly saying the stock will quadruple, while cutting their holdings by 75%.

TSLA's gone up a lot in the last few years, perhaps 20% of Ark's market cap being in a single stock might be bad business? But I wonder if it's more likely to do with them losing 50% of their assets in less than a year:

> As of February 2021, the company had $50 billion in assets under management. By January 2022, assets had dropped to $23.9 billion, after a period of poor performance.

where "poor performance" is clearly an understatement

No, you shouldn't be angry you should be objective.

The fund can have its own investment time horizon that has nothing to do with the time horizon and accuracy of the report.

Cathie is a bit of a case and I'd stay away from the ARK fund myself (it's basically a bad way to own TSLA which was great when TSLA jumped) but that fund is limited to holding no more than some percentage as TSLA, maybe it was 10%?

Disclosure: I held TSLA in the past, not at this time, though I hold index funds that hold it.

> putting out a report with a price target of $4,600 for TSLA

That is the PR department.

> they’ve been taking profits and trimming their TSLA position

That is their fund mangement arm.

Are you for real and should I be angry? Were you really unaware that the words these people say on the tv, while helpfull for their current position, dont always reflect their actions or even actual beliefs?

Price targets and investment research reports have nothing to do with the PR department.

ARK wants even needs investors. Going on CNBC and telling everyone that the core asset of your fund is going to the moon, dont miss out!!!!!!!! is how you get investors to pay you a fat fee. Going on CNBC and announcing that your research department think your investors are going to lose 50% isnt good for business.

The price targets and investment research is entirely PR - designed to get investors to invest with the fund.

> After the past few weeks, can you imagine the public outcry if regulators tried imposing any limits at all?

Au contraire this makes it much harder for him to use it to manipulate the market. It would be like Bloomberg manipulating his other company stock.

Maybe he just wants to use the userbase to turn it to a payments platform

More likely, use it as a political platform.

$46 Billion dollars worth? Does not seem likely.

US gov't has already fronted him more than 10% of that. There's plenty more where that came from. And, not even just the US!

The whole takeover would have been much more fun if he had announced that his offer would drop by 1% for each day they took to accept it.

What do you mean by the US gov't has fronted him more than $4 billion?

It appears they believe that SpaceX is Musk's personal slush fund.

Prove it's not.

Demonstrate its use as such. Extraordinary claims, etc.

The level of scrutiny on SpaceX is incredible, and rightly so. Any unethical conduct or illegal money shuffling would be caught out quickly.

SpaceX is not a public company. All public information indicates Musk has retained majority control. "Unethical conduct" and "illegal money shuffling" are undefined terms: it is his company, and he can spend its money however he chooses, subject only to whatever private terms he has arranged with private shareholders.

Jeff Bezos enters the chat

Can someone explain this:

Now just imagine he does end up owning Twitter and taking it private. Musk can break every securities law related to public communication ever invented, and at worst, he’ll be fined relative pennies. If the GOP wins back Congress, could you imagine any regulator going after Elon if he reinstates Trump?

> Can someone explain this

Its made up bullshit.

> Musk can break every securities law

Owning twitter does not make someone immune to the law.

> could you imagine any regulator going after Elon if he reinstates Trump

Yes, even when Trump was President his friends were prosecuted and jailed, friends of Presidents regularly go to jail. Giving Donald Trump, a regualar citizen, a twitter account does not a provide you with a get out of jail free card.

I dont think it makes it immune, but it shifts the balance of action. If you're rich being "Immune from the law" is not a binary thing (and we've already seen Elon treat the law in this way), and owning Twitter could make Elon immune from the law for longer.

If the SEC got an injuction against Elon tweeting, how it would manifest and play out would be very different depending on whether Elon owns twitter or not.

Currently, twitter have no interest in defending Elon and would fully comply with any injuction, ban Elon, and let him fight it out with the SEC and jsut go along with it. Whether Elon wins or not, he'd be banned from twitter for weeks/months until it was settled.

If Elon owns Twitter then they are not going to remove him until every legal avenue has been exhausted. Both Twitter and Elon personally would be fighting the injunction. They would fight every point and, even if they knew they'd lose, throw up any delaying action they could just to keep Elon on Twitter for longer.

Basically: Independant Twitter: Elon is silenced for months while the courts thrash it out Elon Twitter: Elon is very vocal for months while the courts thrash it out

And that is ignoring the possibilty of Elon manipulating the world and using twitter to manipulate the court case (which we've already seen him try to do). Imagine if he threatened to let Trump back on twitter and whip up anti-biden sentiment in the run up to an election? The SEC/Courts are meant to be politically independant, but in reality he might even get the SEC to back down completely. Something that would never be possible if he didn't own twitter and wasn't allowed to tweet.

> If the SEC got an injuction against Elon tweeting

This is not what the SEC do, thus the whole thing is a non existent hypothetical. But lets game it out anyway.

As 100% owner of Twitter, any remediation for failure to comply with the injuction would fall on Elons shoulders. Be it monetary sanctions or even imprisonment.

Independant Twitter: Elon is silenced for months while the courts thrash it out -- Elon Twitter: Elon sits in county lockup for months while the courts thrash it out.

> Imagine if he threatened to let Trump back on twitter and whip up anti-biden sentiment in the run up to an election?

Threatened? Have you not been paying attention? Its basically nailed on Trump is back day 1. I see 0 correlation with Trump having a platform on twitter and anti-biden sentiment. If anything the greatest gift Trump recieved was his Twitter ban. Contrary to what you might hear, twitter is awash with anti-biden sentiment, pro-biden sentiment, anti-trump sentiment, pro-trump sentiment etc.

There is a claim in this article that says Elon Musk his Twitter account can't be banned by the SEC if he owns Twitter. The problem with that claim is that the law > Elon.

I don't think that's it. The article is speculating. I do believe, maybe a bit naively, that Elon is actually doing this because he believes in free speech to protect democracy.

He has said, on numerous occasions, that he wants to advance society and make humans multi-planetary. And if that's due to his ego and how he wishes to be remembered then God bless his ego. He has made an amazing amount of interesting things happen!

Remember, he was part of Trump's advisory board, even for a short while. Whatever he learned might influence his decision. And I bet they are going to reverse a lot of bans...

Since Twitter doesn't make money and he's paying a lot of money for it, I wonder how he will turn such a large machine profitable specially when I believe Twitter have a large number of employees that oppose Elon's agenda. This is the most perplexing part to me.

Making Twitter a better place is a good thing though and it is a place where I've spent considerable time. I've been temporarily banned for using the wrong word combination in Tweets and I find that disgusting. I hope Elon can take the user base and improve on it. I do think that this overly suppressive direction Twitter has taken over the past time is the wrong choice. I am cautiously optimistic.

> The idea that the company would 11x its market cap was called ‘laughable’:

> Revenue ~5x’ed from~ $12 billion to $54 billion.

For every dollar I make for you, you pay me $2. What a deal.

Is the "giant package" double-entendre something already played out? I haven't paid enough attention to know one way or the other.

It's his rockets and his testicles^WTeslas on the roads. Pretty phallic, no?

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