Musk Proposes to Proceed with Twitter Deal at $54.20 a Share | Hacker News Reader

Musk Proposes to Proceed with Twitter Deal at $54.20 a Share

bloomberg.com

139 pointsmfiguiere139 comments

Chancery Daily on Twitter has been doing a fantastic job providing commentary of discovery in this case so far: https://mobile.twitter.com/chancery_daily

Notably this news comes just a couple of days before Musk’s deposition. Recently released documents show that Musk’s own data scientists found that 5.3 or 10% of mDAUs on the platform are bots, which is completely in line with what Twitter has disclosed. Twitter has asked for relief over Musk’s use of Signal when messages to Marc Andreessen about the deal on the platform were released, leading to speculation Musk was intentionally withholding information.

Do you have a source tweet for the 10% discovery?

11% technically

https://twitter.com/chancery_daily/status/157555026796932710...

I don't know that up to 10% is _completely_ in line with what Twitter said, but it was probably not nearly enough to meet the legal threshold for sufficient to walk away from the deal.

Fair, but it was only with 80% confidence and Twitter’s numbers are so heavily caveated I don’t see any way to claim that 11% is “wildly higher” than the SEC disclosure.

Did he get some sort of wake-up call from his bizarre Ukraine-foreign-policy poll yesterday?

I don't understand his motivations, but if you see him as a super-depressed billionaire with ADHD it makes a _bit_ of sense.

I was thinking more of a manic depressive thing.

He's not bipolar, he's just a child.

Or, his realization of the likely outcome of the Twitter trial had the paradigm of "what if we just surrender already" primed in his subconscious, hence his Ukraine tweet.

the impending court case is probably a bigger motivator. better to do a 180 now and control the narrative than lose in court, I guess.

Misdirection is the name of the game....

Tesla shares dip more than 8% after third-quarter deliveries report" - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/03/tesla-stock-down-after-third...

He bottom ticked ticked the market with much more to lose on Tesla Stock and publicly disclosed twitter's dirt prior to purchase.

> Tesla shares dip more than 8% after third-quarter deliveries report

That's a rather roundabout way of saying "the entire market was very significantly down yesterday". S&P500 was down, tech companies were down, almost everything was. You could write that story about any company using the premise, just swap the company ticker and the event at the end of the sentence.

... Are you writing this from an alternate universe?

The S&P opened at about 3618 yesterday (after closing Friday at a little under that), and closed at 3677. Today it opened at 3749, and remains at that level or a little higher.

Tesla closed Friday at 265, opened Monday at 243, closed Monday at 242, and opened at 252 today, before falling back to the low 240s.

No, I am writing it from the universe where I looked at the closing price on friday and then checked the open price on monday, and I was consistent with it.

All while you posted friday close for TSLA and compared it to monday open, but didn't do the friday close for SPY. If you are looking just at monday-open to monday-close (which is what you did for SPY), TSLA moved from 243 to 242. As of today, TSLA is over $246.

As I said,

> The S&P opened at about 3618 yesterday (after closing Friday at a little under that)

I didn't think it was worth mentioning the numbers, because the change wasn't hugely significant for the S&P, but Friday close was 3589, Monday open was 3616; that is a rise of 0.7%.

this. and the fact that his funding for twitter (which he will be forced to close on settlement or not) is mostly margin funding against his tesla/spacex shares the house of cards is on a shaky table. Variations in value on either side can trigger automatic calls/sells. Even in the best of times and without his self sabotage of twitter value the full on profit from twitter does not cover his funding interest per year. This whole thing was a bone headed move from the start -- it puts his entire wealth and controlling interest in jeopardy.

Why is seeking peace and reducing nuclear risk considered bizarre??

Because his version of "seeking peace" suspiciously lines up with exactly what Russia is asking for.

Seeking peace also lines up with what every sane person should want

Giving aggressors what they stole is not going to achieve peace, it's going achieve more aggression.

If you're going to give up something just because someone else has a nuke, then you'll end up giving them everything you have, because they're not going to give up their nukes. They will always have power over you.

Safety and self-determination is what everyone should want.

Peace between nations is only part of the picture. Peace between people and their government is another part.

We could all have world peace between nations tomorrow if every nation capitulated to Russia. But you’d have endless tension between the people and their new Russian authorities.

If someone punches you in the face then says they simply want peace right after, does that make them a criminal or should you just let bygones be bygones?

Chamberlain had a similar goal at Munich. "Peace for our time," he declared.

There are two outcomes for the war: Russia loses or Ukraine loses. We know Russia isn't going to "lose". So work out from there what needs to be done.

We knew Russia would take Kyiv in a weekend. Then we knew they would do it within a week. Then we knew that despite their initial setbacks they would achieve their goals in a month. Then we knew that their goal wasn't to topple the Ukrainian government at all, and they would achieve everything else in a few months. Then we knew that they would take full control of the eastern regions in under six months.

Now eight months later they are down to barely holding on to some fringe regions despite mobilizing the entire country, and Ukraine is taking back control of major cities daily. So I question what we all "know".

At this point, Russia can't win, they can only choose how badly they want to lose.

There is precedent for nuclear powers losing wars in the sense of them having to withdrawal from quagmires without accomplishing their initial objectives.

It's really strange how a certain contrarian viewpoint about Russia's invasion has developed which just totally ignores everything from the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and America in Vietnam all the way up to America in Afghanistan.

There's a lot of precedent.

It's not. It's calling the bluff on NATO's narrative.

Which is what, in your opinion?

The narrative that it's interested in an end to the conflict. It's still entertaining Ukraine's application to NATO which would mean World War 3. Everything I see is NATO escalating, rather than de-escalating.

Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs said the same on Bloomberg yesterday.

If there is nuclear risk from Russia, losing a war of conquest that Russia started, Russia ought to take a step back and reassess their options rather than reaching for the canned sunshine.

Cowering to threats emboldens those making the threats.

There's a simpler explanation than depression or ADHD. Elon wants his wealth to translate into national and international political power, as has been the case historically with figures like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Gates, Waltons, Kochs. He is finding out the hard way that a number in his bank account will not automatically get him that standing. He simply doesn't have the skills to work his way up in those circles.

I agree with this. Still think that the ADHD, depression and narcissism are clearly detectable, in addition to substance abuse.

Giving more and more power to individuals who clearly struggle with mental health may not be in the best interest of society.

It's an Elon thread so HN users turn into doctors diagnosing depression, ADHD, etc.

Throw "narcissism" in there too for good measure, oh wait you did, bingo!

It couldn't be that he just thinks differently than you do, no he must have a mental illness!

- edit -

Someone flagged my reply to the person below concerning the pedo diver so I'll just drop this link here too:

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/idyllic-thai-provi...

If you are a public figure and call a rescuer a pedophile on twitter I question your mental stability. What other comments does he make in private I wonder?

The pedo diver picked the fight first after Elon offered help and the pedo diver expat Brit lives in a known location for child exploitation:

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/idyllic-thai-provi...

In the end Elon did apologize to the guy for calling him a pedo, he probably just likes diving over there after all!

But I see... if you call people a name you must be unstable, makes sense with all the people spouting out racist this and that.

I wonder what comments you make in private that we can all use judge your mental soundness.

> The pedo diver picked the fight first after Elon offered help and the pedo diver expat Brit lives in a known location for child exploitation

After reading this paragraph I cannot take anything written by you seriously. You use “pedo driver” instead of a name of the person. A person who obviously has zero connection to child exploitation and a documented record of saving lives - at the risk of his own.

Here’s another take on the story:

A mentally unstable narcissistic billionaire attempted to latch on the publicity of a tragic event by publicly suggesting a solution showing his complete misunderstanding and incompetence.

After being exposed in an interview by Vernon Unsworth, one of the people risking their lives to come up with a real solution, the malignant narcissist launched a public attack toward the rescuer, hitting as low as to accuse the rescuer in pedophilia.

When sued by the rescuer for defamation, “ Mr Musk told the court this week the phrase "pedo guy" was common in South Africa, where he grew up.”

The billionaire himself can be seen in a photo with Ghislaine Maxwell who is now in jail for child exploitation and specifically arranging forced sex with minors for the ultra rich.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/18/17576302/elon-musk-thai-cave-r...

On the topic of this rescue mission - please watch Jimmy Chin’s documentary The Rescue.

Elon’s contribution in this situation was beyond narcissistic and pure idiocy.

The documentary provides a lot of context - anaestesia was the last resort crazy idea - applied after a few other survivors almost drowned because of panic attacks - being moved at the fraction of the distance.

The rescue that these people pulled off is beyond anything I’ve seen. An incredible testimony of humanity’s kindness, commitment, and potential.

What is that link supposed to prove?

One can be both exceptional and have deep seated emotional and mental health issues. The former does not excuse the latter, nor that observations made of the latter are any less relevant.

Also, it’s not one’s fault for having emotional and mental health issues but, crucially, it is their responsibility for addressing them.

I was commenting mostly on the mass confusion in our culture surrounding these issues. Our collective enthusiasm to further trust and empower such people is a symptom of our collective condition.

We have been hypnotized to measure only one or two things and blinded to the rest.

Money can be made much faster in the absence of empathy and care for others.

Musk is great at underpaying engineers, pushing his workers, manipulating stocks.

I couldn’t - not because of merit but because of internal discomfort and turmoil.

“Leaders” without such internal regulatory mechanisms can get further, faster, partially because as a collaborative species we don’t have strong built-in protective mechanisms against exploitation.

Your analysis seems to fit the old saying that the rich can only be eccentric. More accurately, I would say few other than the rich can be worthy of the wasted time on analysis (beyond the simple categories).

Since I believe that even the "eccentric" are unconscious rational actors, to a point, I would still like to know why people don't believe his goal is to diversify away from his holdings without ruining their value. If he sold a lot of stock his companies would be doomed, unless he can justify it with a complex expenditure with unexpected problems. Then he can ditch the unwanted investment and fail to put the money back in his one basket.

Then why did he try and back out of the deal?

Maybe it was a bluff to try to get a lower price?

It was always a bluff and a gamble. He clearly always wanted to own Twitter. Then the stock market came down.

The fact his risky gamble at getting the price reduced didn't work is not surprising. Whether or not he's the actual loser here is not clear, a lot of wealthy people own expensive sports teams that lose money but do it anyway because they like it.

> He simply doesn't have the skills to work his way up in those circles.

It looks like he’s more interested in the Trump route: making his own circle.

People forget that Trump has been very actively involved in politics since at least the 80s. He has been taking out newspaper ads for or against candidates for decades. He has been a regular speaker at political conventions. He ran a presidential campaign in 2000 and was #3 in polls behind Bush and Gore (on a third party ticket). There was a lot of speculation that he would run in 2012. His 2016 run didn't happen out of nowhere, as people seem to think.

No, I didn’t forget.

I was referring to the fact that Trump (and Musk) were not accepted into the “Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Gates, Waltons, Kochs” circle OP mentioned.

So they blazed their own way, happy to ruffle feathers and make enemies along the way.

> There was a lot of speculation that he would run in 2012.

I'm not sure why people keep on forgetting it: He ran in 2012 and lost very, very badly. To the point almost no one cared and remember that.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_career_of_Donald_Tru...

So, he "unofficially" campaigned and did not get much interest

His text messages from discovery make clear that reducing head count was his priority. Everything he's done since the deal has been about that, including his tweets yesterday, that where studiedly adversarial to most tweeps.

He doesn't want to fight employees to re-instate "the boss". But he was only "permanently suspended", after all.

I can't believe Elon Musk will actually get to own twitter. That's pretty messed up.

> I can't believe Elon Musk will actually get to own twitter. That's pretty messed up.

Either way, I don't care what happens and it is best to watch the two fraudsters fight over a sinking ship and watch the whole chaos from a distance.

Maybe. I really just wish he would go away.

It's weird to me how he tries to shoehorn himself in to every single global news story. We did not need Elon's hot take on Free Britney. Don't you have three companies to run?

He needs/wants you to be thinking about those companies (or their stock) as often as possible. It's an attention economy, and he is a master at getting as much of it as possible. Some percent of the people reminded of The Elon will also thus be reminded to buy some stock (esp. in an era when buying stock is just a smartphone app away). I'm not saying it makes sense, I'm just saying it probably works.

The simple explanation is he knows he is going to lose (as everyone has been saying since he tried to back out), and either be forced to buy the company or pay a break up fee. With most thinking the fee would be in the 10B+ range, there's an argument to just go through with the sale and at least end up with an asset. In some ways at 10B+, he's pot committed.

This makes the most sense to me, esp considering it lets him avoid potentially messy depositions of himself and his billionaire friends.

musk's lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank.

first they assure him that they can make him walk out of the deal.

he pays them.

then they assure him that their angry letters to twitter will suffice.

he pays them.

then they assure him that he has good chances of winning the lawsuit.

he pays them.

this racket probably ended this morning when Zuckerberg texted musk saying "yo bro forget it my cousin jim got sued and lost so yeah just bite the bullet bro"

After 3 seconds of reflection, musk decided to follow Zuckerberg's rigorous and sophisticated legal advice, because that's how he makes important decisions worth $40 billion

A fool and his money are soon parted, lawyers know this very well.

You are assuming he is consulting with and listening to his lawyers before all his antics. It's obvious that their role is more damage control after the fact.

With Elon Musk, I always think of that comic with Spock saying "don't do the thing" and Kirk saying "I'm gonna do the thing!"

Elon Musk increased his wealth by $121 billion in 2021. Let's say he spent $5 million on lawyers. That's like someone on $121k spending $5 on a lawyer.

It's basically nothing to him.

I don't think lawyer fees come close to making a dent for someone worth $200b+...

Now Musk will take the inevitable next step of destroying Twitter.

He just can't help himself. It's going to be a $44 billion bonfire.

If his Ukraine peace proposal is any indication, he’s a little over his head when it comes to non-tech problems.

Same with many tech problems TBH. People are still waiting for their robotaxis.

They are also the problems (e.g. robotaxis, ukraine-russia conflict) that nobody on earth can solve.

Most are wise enough to know that.

Have you seen the content of the text messages between him and his brother (and Twitter's CEO) that have surfaced recently? [1]

He claimed he had been coding for 20 years but it was painfully obvious he was clueless and was just dropping buzzwords. Ridiculous.

He knows nothing about tech.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/chancery_daily/status/15755861217...

He coded and released a game when he was a kid.

John Carmack: "Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so."

Sure, and he probably had a real time database stored all in memory in his game.

Based on his texts to Parag, he’s a self declared “heavy duty programmer” that works best with other “hardcore programmers”, so maybe his codebase is all caps, who knows.

Musk never expressed any interest in running a social media company. At least he talked about electric cars and space travel since he was a teen.

In addition - zero understanding of free speech vs. moderation. Anyone who runs a discussion open to the public knows that moderation is the first thing you do, unless you want to be dealing with racist vile, threats, and a flood of porn.

Buy it already and be done with all drama. Let us see how Elon turn Twitter into a good or bad product ;) I am unsure if it is some master stroke or just, you know, another pump and dump schema. Maybe lawyers finally told Elon there is no exit strategy, and it is best to stick with teh original deal. Perhaps he finally figured out what to do with Twitter or got rid of cold feet. Who knows?

>>Let us see how Elon turn Twitter into a good or bad product

He doesn't need to do anything to turn it into a bad product - its already cesspool.

Real question is will he be able to make it better?

Based on the conversations between him and Dorsey, how fucked Twitter is which gives him little to build on, and how distracted Elon is by various other things I doubt it very much.

This is a very expensive hobby project for a billionaire that’s going to fail.

Just my view and I would love to be proven wrong

Honest question: what are some ways Twitter could be better?

I am having a hard time imagining a clear direction.

"Better" for who?

I can't see almost anything Twitter has done in the last decade as being "better". Off the top of my head:

* Killing off tons of client by their changes to the API

* Switching to algorithmic timeline instead of chronological

* Infesting my timeline with "X like this post", "You might also like", and a ton of ads

* Horrible UI for viewing threads even though it's now better supported (ability to tweet a whole thread from the official UI)

* Podcasts‽‽‽‽‽‽‽‽

* Twitter Blue, I still have no clue who uses this or why

* Moments or Topics (or whatever that one tab in the official app is)

* Their clone of that "podcasts but worse" service that I've already forgotten about. (Spaces! I had to go look it up)

Other than increasing the character limit (ok, there was 1 thing) there isn't a single thing they've done recently (or over the last decade) that I can point to and say "That made Twitter better!". It to the point that you have to be sadist to use their official clients, every time I open the website or the official client I get frustrated.

Now if you just care about stockholders then sure, shoving a ton of ads in your feed and filling your feed with people you don't follow or care about probably makes sense, in the short term, because that's all stockholders care about.

I pay for twitter blue just to get rid of the spaces icon in the nav bar. I don’t want to listen to what people have to say and it doesn’t need to constantly be in my face.

I too think these changes weren’t better. Wouldn’t going back on most of these constitute a “better” twitter?

Only mentioned can reply was a good feature add

It could be better in some of the ways HN is better. By encouraging intellectual curiosity, discouraging low effort put-downs that call everybody Hitler, etc.

And by hiring @Dang or a clone of him to make the most visible judgement calls, like what to do in the Hunter Biden scenario or whether to ban a sitting president for lying, for instance.

> like what to do in the Hunter Biden scenario or whether to ban a sitting president for lying, for instance.

Why go back so far? As of four days ago all you need to get ban hammered on Twitter is win an election: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33038614

Twitter will be better minus the special operation bots a technically sophisticated person like Elon Musk won't let Wallstreet wolf reporting pull the wool over peoples's eyes. Elon Musk speaks of the economy in the limit, is that a clear enough direction?

What does better mean?

I think Twitter has the most unrealized potential of any of the big tech companies. The present team was completely unable to get there, and seemingly unable to even see there was wasted potential.

Musk does at least see it could be better. I'm not convinced he can get it right, but it's better than the stagnant place the company has been in for years.

Have you seen his ideas from the texts during discovery?

He plans to fix Twitter by having people pay with Doge for each tweet.

> He plans to fix Twitter by having people pay with Doge for each tweet.

I haven't seen the texts but it seems very likely that this language is too strong. "He has proposed ..." is probably a more reasonable way to put it. I would say that it would be batshit but it's probably not a batshit plan, and I do not think the distinction is trivial.

So all of the bots, mDAU, Zatko talk in court - all of that was bluff, huh?

disclosure.

Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed this might not be making the Chaucery court. It would have been fast, precedent setting, and perhaps a bit fun to follow.

I don't believe The Delaware Court of Chancery sets precedent, for matters of equity only the Delaware Supreme Court does.

I read an interesting theory on twitter from @johnrobb. What if he wanted to purchase Twitter at the original price all this time and this whole fiasco was just a misdirection to bury criticism of the deal and throw the opposition off. The establishment was gearing up for a fight. He successfully got them off his tail.

I don't think any of us know whats really going on. We are all just speculating. I'm shocked at how prejudice some of the comments in here are.

That fits.

First they were pissed he wanted to buy Twitter and did everything they could to stop it, including taking the poison pill.

Then they were pissed he didn't want to buy Twitter and tried forcing him to buy it.

Now both sides are aligned. He wants to buy it and now they want him to buy it too.

Both sides were aligned when both sides signed a legally binding agreement that he would buy the company.

How on earth does it fit, Twitter weren't trying to get out of the deal, he was. Yet actually it's a great conspiracy of his because really he's the one who wanted the deal??

the board agreed with the sale which is what the poison pill was meant to do (prevent the sale without board approval). This makes no sense

I don't think you know what the poison pill actually entailed or why it mattered.

Doesn't really make sense to me. Since when has he ever cared about criticism? He had a binding merger agreement. He didn't have to do any 4-d chess to buy twitter. What establishment? What makes you think they were gearing up for a fight? They agreed to sell him Twitter

Initially the Twitter board didn't want him to buy twitter, but he made a big offer and they were forced to take it. He had already "won" by then. If anything all this stuff since has damaged the value of twitter, which he now owns.

If there's one thing I think Elon Musk values is how people think of Elon Musk. This whole "brash decision then cold feet" fiasco has not put him in a good light and not made him seem like the edgy and cool guy he seems to try so hard to be.

Is he trying to save face by avoiding to be compelled by court to proceed with buying Twitter as part of his original offer? Or is he seeking attention again?

So does that end it? Twitter's share holders overwhelmingly voted for the deal (98%...) three weeks ago[1]. Now Elon is back on board. What's left?

1. https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/13/tech/twitter-elon-musk-deal-s...

I believe what’s left is regulatory approval and the money changing hands.

Apparently the Twitter board has something to say as well; the news is they're withholding any statement until they determine whether this latest move by Musk is a "legal ploy." Prudent, I suppose.

Also, you wonder if all of Musk's backers, debt holders, whatever are really still 100% on board. It's been months and people lose patience when so much money is in limbo.

Back in April the NYT wrote that regulators were unlikely to hold it up. That opinion seems naïve to me given the politics.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but buying Twitter stock at the beginning of the lawsuit was one of the easiest stock bets I've ever made.

Indeed. The only mistake I made was not waiting until the inevitable "I'm pulling out" tweet from Musk to buy.

This is once again proof of what we all know - when Elon says he's going to pull out, don't believe him.

https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1577336889048068096

>> "In a true only-at-Twitter moment, the Musk news dropped as employees were 45 minutes into a three-hour meeting to plan their 2023 strategy"

Not before making thousands of employees rage quit, voluntarily. His tweets yesterday just cemented his adversarial position.

Looking through the texts (https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1577459524583428096), losing thousands of employees is part of the plan anyway.

Well, if he wants to settle it should be for the contracted price + the billion contract clause + legal fees. Twitter has like a 99% chance to win in court and get all of this + additional breach judgement -- with what Musk has done in the public arena (including this last public Just kidding I will pay" ploy to drive the stock price up so he has a chance to get funding secured (vs trying to get the same funding under a judgment and against a much lower share market price) he should get no quick exits from his own pain machine.

This is a weird take. If Twitter wins then Elon Musk owns Twitter. Who exactly do you think Elon would be paying the billion dollar clause and legal fees to? It’s Twitter, it’s (effectively) his, it’s himself. Shareholders get $54.20. Elon gets double fucked on legal fees either way if he loses because he now owns Twitter and Twitter’s liabilities.

Twitter and the shareholders exist as an entity until the sale is complete. The billion + legal fees would go to that entity (and the shareholders) before musk takes ownership of the entity. There is an order of events in a merger/sale.

OK, and? The check doesn’t get cut to Shareholder X, it gets cut to Twitter. Then Twitter gets given to Musk. The order of operations is irrelevant to this discussion because none of this extra money over $54.20 will ever be returned to the shareholders. It will be paid to Twitter (and their law firms) and Twitter will then be taken over by (majority) Musk. Elon would be paying himself (and both his lawyers and Twitter’s which is exactly what will happen regardless of how this shakes out if Elon buys Twitter).

Im not a lawyer but I’m pretty confident that such a settlement or penalty would end up getting paid out to the current shareholders, or else it would be added on top of the $54.20 per share.

Why are you confident?

Reverse the positions and imagine Twitter is the loser here and has to pay a billion dollars and legal fees to Elon. Do the shareholders each have to send in a check for the amount? Of course not; Twitter would pay it out of their corporate assets. Their stock price might go down because of the event, but the core idea for corporations is that shareholders are not liable for the corporation’s debts/liabilities and, conversely, shareholders have no general claim to the company’s assets (or rather they have the lowest priority claim after all other stakeholders).

ffs the difference is the entity exists for the shares, the penalty for the breach impacted the shareholders -- what makes you think that when a merger judgment is filed that a penalty for the misacting buyer would simply be left on the balance sheet for that buyer to reabsorb? It would be split among shareholders and payable along with the judgment's merger price.

Do shareholders generally have liability or claims to the entity (beyond things like duty and other shareholder legal protections), no. Are their mechanisms to disperse to shareholders? ffs yes.

And if twitter was the loser here, and had to pay 1 billion (which I actually believe is not in the contract from what I read the 1 billion was a directed clause for a misacting buyer) then no the shareholders would not have to pay out of pocket. However, the 1 billion dollar loss would impact the books and probably hit the shareholders with stock pricing outcomes.

Exactly. The "win" for shareholders here is that Musk has damaged their asset over the last few months (in terms of reputation and taking cash off the balance sheet in legal fees) but he will still purchase it at the originally agreed upon price.

One must wonder if he's really joining the ranks of investors betting on Fed pivot or is it but another extension of his Zaphod Beeblebrox like character arc...

Oh man, I was looking forward to the weeks of entertainment when the trial started.

I hope they at least make him put the money into escrow this time before he changes his mind again.

He got dragged on Twitter for his robot and his Russian flavored views of the war. Then he finally decides to buy it. Does he plan to censor views about himself?

He claims that he doesn't want to censor anyone, including those criticizing him. Whether it pans out is yet to be seen.

I believe there was a teenage kid with an account posting all the flights of Musk's airplane. He was asked several times, and even offered money in exchange of closing his account. That would be a good canary on the mine.

Business genius agrees to his original offer.

Sounds like he was going to lose the case and the only thing he’s managed to do is get Jason Calacanis in trouble for fraudulently representing he could offer shares of TWTR under musk.

Sure, buy it and spruce it up and then sell it on, because that's cheaper and more profitable than heading into ten years of litigation a la Google and Oracle.

I think he made the offer on a whim, which I guess is easy when you are that rich. Twitter is not worth anywhere near that price.

It didn't have a huge effect on the stock value.... a lot of stocks went up 12% today

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33082482

Pity he isn't offering $54.40.

Cf. "Fifty-four forty or fight!", a slogan demanding that England give up a bunch of Pacific Northwest territory to the US that it in any case had never owned, the land having been already occupied for thousands of years.

The US response to locals' assertions of sovereignty was to move in and burn down their houses and literally all of the food they had saved for winter.

He'd rather make a 420 or 69 joke.

Make or be? Hard to tell lately.

>>> England give up a bunch of Pacific Northwest territory to the US that it in any case had never owned

That's a very shallow interpretation, as England had laid claim to the land in 1818.

Oh, really? "Laid claim" is is all it takes to own land people have held, lived on, and worked for at least ten millennia?

I love you Elon but you’re really making it very hard.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com