Hacker News Reader

Comment by elgenie | Hacker News Reader

No, he signed a contract to buy something with no contingencies at what everyone quickly came to realize was 2x to 3x what it was worth.

Twitter’s management, acting in the best interest of their shareholders, used the court to force him to hold to the contract when he tried to walk. Musk decided to buy the company for the agreed on price rather than have that imposed on him by court order after (more) embarrassing discovery.

Seeing Musk as a business genius in this deal requires ignoring nearly every event in the saga.

View on HN

There is an opt out of 1bn. That is the only thing he would pay if he wanted to walk...

Nope.

There was a provision that Musk would be on the hook for $1B if a third party (e.g. regulators) blew up the deal in a couple enumerated ways. No such option was available to Musk himself.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/05/13/elon-musk-cant-just-walk...

Read the actual SEC link. No one will pay 43bn is he can even pay 2bn and out!

It is embedded on this link https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/8/23201004/twitter-to-sue-el...

Right, the limited circumstances for termination were outlined in section 8.1 of the offer agreement:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522...

“Pay $2B and out” was not a choice available to him.

It wasn’t an “opt out”, the termination fee was only available under several specific circumstances, neither of which applied to the facts at hand. He was never permitted to walk for $1 billion.

No, there wasn't. If he could have paid $1b to be out of this deal, he would have.

He did not even offer to pay it, that was the reason for the law suit.

anyone who actually think he was forced to pay 43bn when he could have paid 1bn. (even 2bn) are just not thinking correctly.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/8/23201004/twitter-to-sue-el...

You are reading the terms of the deal incorrectly. He had the option to pay 1b only under the specific case that his financing fell through. That never happened, quite the opposite the banks backing this deal have been adamant that they were ready to go but Musk was dragging his feet.

Meanwhile, Musk was getting absolutely savaged in the Delaware chancery court and they were just in discovery. He was going to lose and that would be more embarrassing (somehow) than this outcome.

All because he went off half cocked and didn’t write bog standard contingencies into his offer.

He’s come off looking like an absolute simpleton in this and that’s the better outcome for him than if the court case had proceeded.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com