Aggregates

Evidence: High: 0 Medium: 2 Low: 2 No Data: 27

Theme Radar

zegl 2022-04-14 10:39 UTC link

> The takeover is unlikely to be a drawn out process. “If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” said Musk.

Is he holding his own existing shares as hostage?

lvl102 2022-04-14 10:51 UTC link

He actually dismissed Twitter’s management so I am guessing they’re slated to be demoted or fired if he takes over. Should they sell? I mean it’s such a bizarrely undervalued company. It’s like buying a plot of land on fifth avenue that’s owned by a convenience store and the store owner wants to charge for a skyscraper market rate.

paganel 2022-04-14 11:24 UTC link

I personally think this is excellent, in the great scheme of things, maybe this will open a real discussion about the real oligarchic nature of the US political and societal life at the top.

I mean, with tech titan (and second wealthiest man on the planet) Bezos owning the WaPo, the moment the tech titan (and the wealthiest man on the planet) Musk will put his hands on Twitter hopefully will also be the moment of some "enlightenment" for the educated masses. Or maybe I'm just day-dreaming.

exikyut 2022-04-14 11:25 UTC link

Ooooh, maybe this is what the

> "There will be distractions ahead ... let's tune out the noise and stay focused on the work and what we're building"

from the other day (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984215) meant...

prepend 2022-04-14 11:37 UTC link

I think social media is a real negative force in the world and welcome this as potentially a way to make it better, or at least destroy Twitter and remove one outlet.

I don’t think public companies can reform social media because it’s too profitable. As a private company it may be possible to reform it to still be profitable, but not in a way that harms people.

molticrystal 2022-04-14 13:13 UTC link

Just to verify that I understood the concept I looked up the definition of "hostile takeover" from various places, its common theme is taking over a company without approval of the board.

The actual offer states [0]:

>As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.

Which means he is asking for approval, which seems to contradict the headline and the quote from Mirabaud Equity Research which was used to make the headline more sensational as they were quoted saying “This becomes a hostile takeover offer which is going to cost a serious amount of cash”.

If the board disapproves of the offer and he acquires a larger stake of ownership, that would be more inline with what a hostile takeover is.

[0] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...

thepasswordis 2022-04-14 13:17 UTC link

Can anybody make a good argument as to why Twitter (in its current form) isn’t a major detriment to society?

If Twitter poofed out of existence today, it would be a major win for this planet. People talk about a frightening future with a human hostile AI that wants to destroy humanity. That exists, it’s twitter.

Elon buying it, even if he runs it into the ground is a good thing. Getting rid of some of the hostile AI is a good thing.

cgtyoder 2022-04-14 13:49 UTC link

This is exactly why individuals should not be allowed to have tens (let alone hundreds!) of billions of dollars in wealth - they become all-powerful and too easily subvert the will of the people. They become their own ruling class, which is unacceptable in a functioning democracy.

dolekemp96 2022-04-14 14:07 UTC link

I believe this is not a hostile takeover. It's an unsolicited bid to purchase the company directly to the board. A hostile takeover would involve a tender or purchases directly to shareholders to purchase stocks ignoring the board or likely against the wishes of the board.

tbirdny 2022-04-14 14:11 UTC link

For $1B he could make an exact twitter clone, and he could probably do it for much less than that. You might say, yes, but he's paying for the brand, and no one would use his clone. He could pay for a flood of advertising and other promotions to get people to switch. He could pay 42,000,000 people $1000 each to switch to his twitter clone.

yabatopia 2022-04-14 14:20 UTC link

Let's ignore personality and societal issues for a moment and look at the value proposition. The 'best and final offer' of $54.20 per share is just too low to be acceptable for major investors.

Just over year ago, Twitter shares traded at about $70 per share. Musk's offer is about 25% lower than last years peak. There's no reason to assume Twitter shares can't reach the same levels ever again, nothing much has changed fundamentally over a year.

Musk's offer is a cash only offer. $43 billion is a lot of cash. That's a lot of Tesla shares to sell, or massive loan. If Musk thinks Twitter is that valuable to take such risks, current major investors will probably want to unlock that value themselves.

I think the takeover offer is just as believable as last week's announcement that Musk was joining the Twitter board.

dang 2022-04-14 15:03 UTC link

All: speech here isn't very free when the server can't stay up, and it's smoking right now, for obvious reasons.

I'm going to prune some of the top-heavy subthreads and possibly restrict the page size a bit. There are over 2500 comments in this thread, and if you want to read them all you're going to have to click "More" at the bottom of each page, or go like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=2

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=3

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=4

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31025061&p=5

...and so on. Sorry everyone! (Yes, fixes are coming, yes it's all very slow.)

Edit: also, if some of you would log out for the day, that would ease the load considerably. (I hate to ask that, but it's true. Make sure you haven't lost your password!)

RustyConsul 2022-04-14 15:42 UTC link

> "if my offer is rejected i will reconsider my ownership in twitter."

Thats an immense amount of selling pressure on the stock... This is a threat. He's negotiating with a gun to their head.

gunapologist99 2022-04-14 15:48 UTC link

So Twitter was at $70 per share a year ago. So what? Jack Dorsey was CEO a year ago, too. The share price was $33 less than a month ago.

But, despite an absolutely incredible roller-coaster news cycle, things have been definitely trending down at Twitter ($33/share last month), which was reflected in its share price. The current executive team (and Dorsey) had wasted time focusing on things that didn't matter instead of things that did matter.

Boards have several fiduciary duties to the shareholders. As an all-cash offer, this generates for the shareholders a substantial return with NO RISK, and so the board has a serious legal obligation to carefully review this offer and make a decision.

If the board elects to reject this offer, then their reasons for doing so need to be very clearly elucidated, because, as Twitter is a public company, they would have to see something in their crystal ball that the rest of the market does not.

no-dr-onboard 2022-04-14 15:59 UTC link

> As an all-cash offer, this generates for the shareholders a substantial return with NO RISK, and so the board has a serious legal obligation to carefully review this offer and make a decision.

What a gut check. I'm sure this is an obvious comment by now, but seeing the board's response to turning down something like this is going to be an olympic level display of mental gymnastics. Exciting times.

dgudkov 2022-04-14 16:46 UTC link

I bet some of those who advocated "it's a private company, it can deplatform whoever it wants" are probably re-thinking their stance on deplatforming from a major social media.

thebackstall17 2022-04-14 17:47 UTC link

What he did today is thousand times better than shelling money behind the charity that many billionaires doing. Under Elon twitter can enable true "freedom of expression." Parag's one sided stand to enable woke culture, and board's support to that clearly showing how extreme right mindset they have when running this company. Today we can't hear the voice of other side on this platform, they are either shutdown or suspended even if you are former prez https://twitter.com/jack/status/651003891153108997

voldacar 2022-04-14 19:02 UTC link

Journalists and bluechecks seem to be particularly mad about this. I guess they don't like the prospect of having to follow rules that are transparently enforced rather than the current system of favoritism and opacity

krick 2022-04-14 23:53 UTC link

It's hard to navigate comments, but I cannot find the important stuff being discussed. I mean: how the hell can he even remotely viably secure $43B in cash?! All this "$200B net worth" is pretty much bullshit — it's multiplying current stock price by the amount he holds. (Hugely overpriced stock, in his case.) Sure, he can borrow insane amounts of money using this stock as a leverage, but no way it can be even close to $40B! Right?

memish 2022-04-15 02:25 UTC link

Chris Anderson of TED asked Elon a lot of the questions and concerns being discussed here. Check it out if you want to understand his perspective and goals with twitter.

“Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization”

To that end, he committed to transparency. For example, changes to tweets or users would be made visible and apparent so there's no more behind the scenes manipulation. The algorithm itself would be open sourced. Anyone could view it on Github and suggest changes or point out issues.

https://youtu.be/cdZZpaB2kDM?t=666

kmlx 2022-04-14 10:43 UTC link

1. selling that much stock will dent investor confidence in twitter.

2. Musk exiting twitter will again dent investor confidence.

tldr there will be a huge sell-off if Musk's offer is rejected and he follows-up with dumping the stock.

objclxt 2022-04-14 10:59 UTC link

> I mean it’s such a bizarrely undervalued company.

Is it, though? Snap's market cap is $56 billion right now, and they have more MAU than Twitter (~320 million vs ~220 million).

gigglesupstairs 2022-04-14 12:00 UTC link

Haha good catch

kyle_martin1 2022-04-14 13:20 UTC link

Agreed. The title should be neutralized to something like “Elon Musk offers to purchase Twitter for $43B”

fullshark 2022-04-14 13:35 UTC link

Twitter is where you can see journalists craft narratives and talking points about news stories in real time. It’s been incredibly revealing imo.

caymanjim 2022-04-14 13:50 UTC link

Twitter's management has no say in whether or not they sell, except insofar as they get to vote with their shares like any other investor.

BeKindAndLearn 2022-04-14 14:02 UTC link

Oligarchs controlling every form of my mass communication can only make things worse, though.

bombcar 2022-04-14 14:10 UTC link

Any hostile takeover becomes non-hostile if the board/shareholders acquiesce.

moralestapia 2022-04-14 14:18 UTC link

>He could pay 42,000,000 people $1000 each to switch to his twitter clone

So that he could have a shitty twitter clone with a fraction of its users? For the same cost of real twitter? Whoa what a great deal ...

the_doctah 2022-04-14 14:46 UTC link

Because Twitter is great for pushing narratives while silencing "wrongthink".

misiti3780 2022-04-14 15:09 UTC link

If you were our supreme leader, how would you prevent private individuals like Musk, Bezos, etc from acquiring their wealth, given it is tied up in the value of very useful companies they created ?

Infinitesimus 2022-04-14 15:21 UTC link

"Best and final offer" is certainly a weak claim but it doesn't seem your argument about Twitter's value is much stronger.

Yes Twitter was $70 a share in the past but it was also sub $30 in the past and it's not clear which is the "right" price.

riffraff 2022-04-14 15:33 UTC link

> There's no reason to assume Twitter shares can't reach the same levels ever again

but it depends on how far that "again" is.

If you bought at $33 a month ago, you'll be now getting a 60% return. You can put that in another less risky investment and still have a very healthy return over the next 5 years, say 5% , less than the historical sp500 rate, you'd get to ~$69.

So if Twitter gets back to $70 in five years Musk's offer is still an ok investment, but its growth has been almost zero for the last 8 years, it's not trivial that it would become a powerhouse in the next 5.

zwily 2022-04-14 15:45 UTC link

That's correct - his offer is not hostile. If they reject it, he could attempt a hostile takeover by buying up enough stock to install his own board.

colordrops 2022-04-14 15:47 UTC link

What is "the will of the people" with regards to Twitter?

randomsearch 2022-04-14 15:53 UTC link

Complete speculation, but after seeing that and then the offer, i immediately thought “ok, they had some negotiation, Elon made demands, the board refused, he threatened to buy the company and fire them, the board refused… and now he is following through.”

I don’t think he’s an idiot though, so there must also be some other upside here. Certainly there’s value to unlock in Twitter. Does he need the cash?

ttul 2022-04-14 15:53 UTC link

Frankly, Musk could pull this off and it might be his plan anyway. Twitter has a lot of tech and very talented people.. not to mention the existing user base. But Musk has the star appeal to draw in famous users and make it at least somewhat appealing to the masses who want to follow along.

The social media space is stagnant and looking for change, but as yet nobody can match Meta’s $55/user in ARPU. Maybe Musk can get there.

hintymad 2022-04-14 15:53 UTC link

As much as I don’t like WaPo’s Opinion columns and Twitter’s double standards in content moderation, I don’t think the two companies are puppets of their owners. The staff there have their mostly left-leaning political view point and their own moral standard. I don’t necessarily agree with their view, but it’s their view and their voice nonetheless.

memish 2022-04-14 15:57 UTC link

This is a good point. Everyone that thought it was great twitter was centralized and saying "it's a private company, they can censor what they want" and "go make your own platform" will have to contend with their once convenient unprincipled position.

ryanSrich 2022-04-14 15:59 UTC link

Seems like an amazing move by Elon. Buy a sizable portion of the business to hold hostage, and then make the company an offer that they essentially can’t refuse because of fiduciary responsibility. If they reject Elon’s offer the stock price will sink like a rock. They pretty much have to take it.

dageshi 2022-04-14 16:00 UTC link

> There's no reason to assume Twitter shares can't reach the same levels ever again, nothing much has changed fundamentally over a year.

The Fed's covid policies in terms of interest rates and money printing had a very high impact on the stock market and stocks. Why else would the market have increased to the degree it did during covid?

That is a fundamental reason why it may not see $70 again any time soon.

thaumasiotes 2022-04-14 16:00 UTC link

> He could pay 42,000,000 people $1000 each to switch to his twitter clone.

He could try, but there's no way to stop them from switching back.

thebradbain 2022-04-14 16:01 UTC link

I read it as a threat too... is it not against the SEC's rules for market manipulation?

s17n 2022-04-14 16:01 UTC link

Unsolicited offers almost always get rejected, that's why it's called a "hostile takeover"

ajaimk 2022-04-14 16:01 UTC link

Microsoft + Yahoo comes to mind

Veedrac 2022-04-14 16:08 UTC link

This is not oligarchy. Using that term here makes no sense.

anonu 2022-04-14 16:09 UTC link

On the other hand - the stock was flat over the time that he bought... So not in total agreement with you on the stock impact of his selling. It seems like the only impact is the headline risk - and not so much actual selling pressure.

m3kw9 2022-04-14 16:10 UTC link

It will hit back at 40$ is as if the Elon pump never happened, is that so bad? However, it does create pressure from “activitists” to sell to Elon. The main thing is: Is Elon a good leader for Twitter. There is a lot of positives because Elon has already proven himself in multiple companies, plus he understands Twitter as much as anyone from his use of it

FormerBandmate 2022-04-14 16:10 UTC link

They are probably going to desperately try to find a white knight, and fail because Twitter lost the mass market years ago and at this point is a platform for rich people to post incredibly vapid, narcissistic takes about politics and society that say nothing.

They could actually make a phenomenal amount off of subscription revenue tho off of that model, doesn't really make sense for any of the FAANG's strategies but I could see it making a lot of money with competent management. Twitter Blue is one of their best ideas in a long time, but should be more expensive and have more features.

tick_tock_tick 2022-04-14 16:10 UTC link

I mean by and large the success of first generation billions and the power they manage to control kinda show with enough money it doesn't matter that he is explicit not part of the "real oligarchic nature of the US political and societal life".

Epistemic Quality

Propaganda Flags

0 techniques detected

Solution Orientation

Emotional Tone

Stakeholder Voice

Temporal Framing

Geographic Scope

Complexity

Transparency