Elon Musk now owns 9.2% of twitter...update.. will soon be the sole owner as Board of Directors accepts his purchase offer

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Pens1566

Lifer
Oct 11, 2005
12,321
9,175
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So, on the hook for ~$13B in debt financing the deal, over $1B/yr in payments, and your first move is to tack on $100M (so far) in golden parachutes ... yeah sound business sense.

His only play is to GUT staff and other costs, reap tax write offs, and bail down the road.
 

JEDI

Lifer
Sep 25, 2001
29,391
2,736
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I think just changing the shingle over the door would leave him at the former. He has to actually make a profit in order to change that. Anything else and it slides toward the latter.
He overpaid by about double by all accounts, already in a deep hole, and I don't foresee any gov subsidies propping up this venture either.
if he wasnt already a 5% shareholder, would him tweeting he's going to buy Twitter for $54/share binding?
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,246
37,676
136
So, on the hook for ~$13B in debt financing the deal, over $1B/yr in payments, and your first move is to tack on $100M (so far) in golden parachutes ... yeah sound business sense.

His only play is to GUT staff and other costs, reap tax write offs, and bail down the road.

Those guys are totally going to have to sue to get their payouts.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
11,902
2,848
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Those guys are totally going to have to sue to get their payouts.
Really? Isn't it in their contracts?

Also Monday is a deadline for staff bonuses. As part of the acquisition contract, Elon committed to paying out all the bonuses. But it's as of yet unclear if he's willing to immediately (I mean NOW) lay off staffers in order to preempt some of the bonuses. I can't remember if Monday or Tuesday is the actual deadline. Some of us would be surprised if he doesn't lay off people tomorrow just to save money LOL.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,246
37,676
136
Really? Isn't it in their contracts?

Also Monday is a deadline for staff bonuses. As part of the acquisition contract, Elon committed to paying out all the bonuses. But it's as of yet unclear if he's willing to immediately (I mean NOW) lay off staffers in order to preempt some of the bonuses. I can't remember if Monday or Tuesday is the actual deadline. Some of us would be surprised if he doesn't lay off people tomorrow just to save money LOL.

I'm sure it's right there in black and white in their employment contracts. The question is if Musk is petty enough to not pay tens of millions legally owed to the guys who made him complete a titanic deal that he thought he could get out of without a court fight? I suspect the answer to that is "absolutely".
 

Heartbreaker

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2006
4,340
5,464
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I'm sure it's right there in black and white in their employment contracts. The question is if Musk is petty enough to not pay tens of millions legally owed to the guys who made him complete a titanic deal that he thought he could get out of without a court fight? I suspect the answer to that is "absolutely".

Not honoring employment contracts doesn't bode well for attracting future talent.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
23,156
21,282
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It's already been discovered through text messages with other billionaires. Especially one. As per that text thread Elon will instigate a stricter in the office policy for all remote workers and thus pressure them to resign avoiding having to pay severance. Especially those who have moved farther from the office.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
70,268
29,013
136
"To save the company, I must burn the company."

$44 billion is a lot to spend on spite.
 

gothuevos

Platinum Member
Jul 28, 2010
2,350
1,880
136

akugami

Diamond Member
Feb 14, 2005
6,009
2,344
136
He just gave Kanye West is Twitter account back. Trump in 3...2...1..

If Musk wants any hope - even a snowball’s chance - of turning a profit on this deal, he’s going to have to continue to implement content controls. Otherwise he’s going to hemorrhage advertisers who start pulling out when their feeds are flooded with hate speech, conspiracy nutjobbery and pornography. How long are the content creators going to stay on the platform when they start getting death threats with no recourse from twitter?

I'm hoping he continues with his threat of opening up the platform to everyone, and remove all censorship. I really hope he does it. My next hope is advertisers follow through and abandon this shit platform.

Sadly, I think his accountant got to him, because it seems he's going to be implementing some form of gatekeeping and censureship with a moderation council to keep it from going all to hell.
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,286
10,884
136
how would they enforce it when those are illegal in that state?
Because all companies transfer jurisdiction to Delware or New Hampshire in those agreements. I had to sign one at work "under the laws of New Hampshire" even though they are illegal in Oklahoma. New Hampshire has thrown them out, though, when signed in states where they are illegal.
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,286
10,884
136
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,675
8,580
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Twitter’s head of safety and integrity said those running the site had not changed content policies but had been subject to “an organised effort to make people think we have”.

In a Twitter thread posted on Sunday, Yoel Roth said the company had seen a “ton” of tweets posted by a small number of accounts featuring slurs and other derogatory terms. To illustrate the scale of the attack, he said more than 50,000 tweets that repeatedly used one unspecified slur came from just 300 accounts.

Seems kind of weird, to me. Who are these people? Are they organised? Making some sort of statement, that Musk has now let them off the leash?

And there's also this:

 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,246
37,676
136
I'm hoping he continues with his threat of opening up the platform to everyone, and remove all censorship. I really hope he does it. My next hope is advertisers follow through and abandon this shit platform.

Sadly, I think his accountant got to him, because it seems he's going to be implementing some form of gatekeeping and censureship with a moderation council to keep it from going all to hell.

Musk's pleading to the advertisers has another audience: Apple and Google. If he loosens things too much they could pull Twitter from their app stores.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,246
37,676
136
Not honoring employment contracts doesn't bode well for attracting future talent.

He doesn't give a fuck and will lie trying to escape the payouts. Ultimately it likely won't work but these guys will have to sue to get paid. This will probably work for them since they're rich and can spend a lot of money on good lawyers to get their money.


Screen Shot 2022-10-30 at 7.48.15 AM.png
 
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Thump553

Lifer
Jun 2, 2000
12,768
2,544
126
Musk's pleading to the advertisers has another audience: Apple and Google. If he loosens things too much they could pull Twitter from their app stores.

This I don't understand-why should Apple and/or Google care about Twitter losing advertisers? If they have any competing products with Twitter it would seem to me that such an action would expose them to antitrust liability (weak as antitrust law is these days, at least in the USA, maybe not the EU).
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,286
10,884
136
He doesn't give a fuck and will lie trying to escape the payouts. Ultimately it likely won't work but these guys will have to sue to get paid. This will probably work for them since they're rich and can spend a lot of money on good lawyers to get their money.


View attachment 70081
Normally I'd say fuck them. In this case I'm going for a class action with large punitive payouts.
 

sactoking

Diamond Member
Sep 24, 2007
7,584
2,819
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It's not that Apple and Google care about advertisers, they care about content moderation. And if advertisers are abandoning Twitter due to lack of content moderation then that's evidence that can be used to remove it from their app stores.
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,286
10,884
136
This I don't understand-why should Apple and/or Google care about Twitter losing advertisers? If they have any competing products with Twitter it would seem to me that such an action would expose them to antitrust liability (weak as antitrust law is these days, at least in the USA, maybe not the EU).
They require a minimum level of moderation for apps in their stores. See Parlor.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
27,739
26,903
136
He doesn't give a fuck and will lie trying to escape the payouts. Ultimately it likely won't work but these guys will have to sue to get paid. This will probably work for them since they're rich and can spend a lot of money on good lawyers to get their money.


View attachment 70081
The cause being “They made me live up to my signed agreement to pay a vastly inflated price for the company”


LOL
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
48,246
37,676
136
It's not that Apple and Google care about advertisers, they care about content moderation. And if advertisers are abandoning Twitter due to lack of content moderation then that's evidence that can be used to remove it from their app stores.

Yep, Musk (and his 44B investment) is ultimately at their mercy if they think he’s going too far.