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Comment by groffee | Hacker News Reader

He HAS to be doing it on purpose, no-one is this retarded, especially when he just paid 44 BILLION for it.

It's like the Emperors new clothes, we're all trying to see some kind of genius that just isn't there.

> no-one is this retarded

He decided to buy Twitter after his girlfriend left him and one of his children sued to never have anything to do with him again. He has blamed both of these things on "wokeness" rather than his history of broken relationships and his child's assertion of him being a shitty parent. This was apparently enough for him to pledge $44 billion to "own the libs".

He is absolutely this stupid.

But he paid that because a Delaware court was going to reveal a lot of shit. And many of those billions are from banks who had faith in him. Good luck trying to get funding next time, Mr. It's Just 8 Dollars.

Watching a jackass fuck up this bad is entertaining...

Another funny part of the saga.

https://twitter.com/SixTwoPoo/status/1592202267977191425?s=2...

No he doesn't. He hasn't worked in software like this since paypal and back then how complicated did things really get?

I'm starting to believe he decided it made more sense to mark down the investment to 0 and use the losses against his income for the next few years instead to pay the fine for pulling out of the deal.

There was no "fine for pulling out of the deal".

Where have you been? I think you may be uninformed on this.

Here's some details: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/26/technology/twitter-musk-b.... Later when Elon sought to pull out of the deal, Twitter threatened to go to court to enforce that $1B fee, which led to the buyout proceeding.

As per your own link, the situations where that deal could be broken and the fee would be applicable were very limited (Musk not getting financing, Twitter finding a higher bidder). Musk changing his mind was not one of those situations, it was a binding deal.

Twitter did not sue for the $1b, but for specific perfomance, i.e. closing the deal.

Fair enough, I'm not versed on the legal in's and out's and it appears you're correct.

I knew Twitter sought to close the deal, but most of the analysis I read claimed they could have chosen the $1B instead, as if both were viable legal paths. It appears that is incorrect.

The $1b fine was not available to just use to back out of the deal. You are misinformed on this.

I agree, I was misinformed. Too many articles state both acquisition or $1B fine were viable routes for Twitter, but other sources with more solid analysis look to contradict that.

> Where have you been? I think you may be uninformed on this.

I think you are victim to reading headlines and not understanding what Twitter went to court over. Elon paying the $1B wouldn’t have gotten him out of having to complete the deal.

Here’s some details: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/13/elon-musk-cant-just-walk-awa...

I was aware that Twitter went to court to complete the deal, but I admit to being misinformed as much of the analysis I read stated both avenues ($1B fee or force the acquisition) were viable.

For example, Dan Ives, who is often quoted in articles about this deal, had this to tweet: https://twitter.com/DivesTech/status/1545527442491822089?s=2...

It appears that is incorrect.

> I admit to being misinformed

Thank you for replying earnestly and humbly. I wish more did that!

Why would this ever be a smart move? Afaik he couldnt realistically dodge more taxes than he lit on fire at Twitter.

He created a new holding company (X Holdings) for this acquisition that will also be a parent company to Tesla and Space X (see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-21/musk-form...). So he'll be able to carry forward all of the losses against his income from other businesses.

> He created a new holding company (X Holdings) for this acquisition that will also be a parent company to Tesla and Space X

AFAICT, it was very nebulous at the time that it ever would be a common holding company for those (and Musk’s other companies), and very good reasons were cited for being skeptical that that would be workable. And, to my knowledge, none of the other companies has been put under X Holdings.

> He HAS to be doing it on purpose, no-one is this retarded, especially when he just paid 44 BILLION for it.

The idea that having lots of money on the line prevents bad decision making, when in fact it can just as easily be evidence of bad decision making, is silly.

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