Twitter (TWTR) begins deal talks with Elon Musk, caving to shareholder pressure
Twitter has changed its mind again about Elon Musk acquiring the company, to the delight of some shareholders.
Twitter's board of directors are rumored to be caving to shareholder pressure to take Elon Musk's deal. It appears that Elon Musk may be willing to negotiate a price higher than the original $43 billion offer. It is now more likely than ever that Elon Musk will strike a deal with the social media company as soon as this week.
This is a somewhat strange about-face for the Twitter board of directors, but Musk even pointed out in in a reply to Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey that the board had a very low level of ownership relative to a lot of companies. This appears to have angered shareholders to the point that the board had to go back on their decision to enact a poison pill to prevent a hostile takeover from Elon Musk.
Board salary will be $0 if my bid succeeds, so that’s ~$3M/year saved right there
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2022
Musk was rumored to be working with several large institutions on a partially debt-financed deal that would top the previous $43 billion attempt. Rumored to be $46.5 billion, that would be a nice gain for TWTR shareholders from Friday's close of $48.92/share.
This Thursday, Twitter's earnings results will be reported, and many analysts believe the company will take some time during the conference call to address the talks with Elon. There is also a chance that Musk and Twitter will have come to an agreement before the results are even posted.
And authenticate all real humans
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
Some things about a Post-Elon Twitter sound horrifying to users, but Musk has pitched an edit tweet button, and seems hell-bent on getting rid of all the verified crypto bots that spam his replies. With 81 million followers on Twitter, you really have to wonder what percent of them are bots.
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
We will be sure to keep everyone updated as this ridiculous story continues to unfold.
This article is only meant for educational purposes, and should not be taken as investment advice. Please consider your own investment time horizon, risk tolerance, and consult with a financial advisor before acting on this information.
Full Disclosure:
At the time of this article, Shacknews primary shareholder Asif A. Khan, his family members, or his company Virtue LLC had the following positions:
Long Twitter via TWTR shares
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replyAsif Khan posted a new article, Twitter (TWTR) begins deal talks with Elon Musk, caving to shareholder pressure
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Reuters reporting that from inside sources, Twitter's board looking like it will take Musk's "best and final" offer
https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-twitter-set-accept-musks-best-final-offer-sources-2022-04-25/-
Twitter is no actively discussing possibly negotiations with Elon Musk. For everyone who thought Facebook was a breeding ground for mobs, if one heavily opinionated person who sometimes borderlines on unhinged actions is allowed to have full control over mass communications, we may be fucked way sooner than realized.
This is actually kind of scares me to think about.-
I'm way out of the know when it comes to stuff like this, but can't they just .... not sell? Is there something having to do with stock ownership or something like that that compels Twitter to put their platform on the market? I don't know how this stuff works.
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Yeah, but before it got to this stage, it seemed like there was something compelling Twitter to sell when they seemingly didn't want to. They had to initiate that "poison pill" thing for some reason, right?
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They are agents serving the collective will of the shareholders, they are not supposed to act on their own interests.
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I hate the stock market yet realize that I'm part of the problem because of course I have money invested in it because it's one of the best ways to build money for retirement, but I have a strong feeling that the world would be better of if it had never existed.
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In that scenario wealth would be concentrated with the few who own massive companies (far more so than now) with no way for anyone else to get in on reaping any financial benefits of those companies successes.
You are correct that investing is one of the best ways to grow your money for retirement, now imagine if that was taken away and your only options were government bonds or other super low interest bearing products where you barely beat inflation (if you do at all in the first place).
People in the middle class would be far, far worse off.-
Fair points all, I just know that the things companies do in the interest of shareholders often seem really fucking shitty.
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Companies are controlled by their owners. If a company is open to public ownership, then anyone can be a part owner (shareholder) and said part owners jointly control the company. Do you believe that companies acting in the interests of public owners is somehow more nefarious than companies acting in the interests of private owners?
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Don't other countries do it differently?
I know a lot of European countries more heavily fund things like social security. Or we could require companies to offer pensions. I know in some European countries, company funded pensions are way more common.
There are a lot of tools we could use to lessen our reliance on a 401k. But they're all pretty fundamental changes with how a society operates.
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It’s more likely if he runs it into the ground and there is a mass exodus.
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I'm okay with Twitter falling apart and less people using it.
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I'd hate that, personally; it's become one of the best resources I've found for keeping up with new developments and research in my field.
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I know you’re probably joking but :(
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Funny you mention that, I'm actually having dinner at a former British circuit house right now. Oh, and the field is mental health counseling with a focus on using VR as a treatment methodology.
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Request to merge the 3 threads on this topic already on the Chatty
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If I'm being honest with myself, I probably won't delete it the first day, the moment Trump is unbanned, I'm gone though. No Regerts!
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pretty much.
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Here’s a metralgia prediction for you. Elon buys twitter, lets trump back on and in Nov we all thank Elon because dems win supermajorities because trump goes crazy and sparks a minor riot that is like a Jan 6th all over again and the Republican Party is toast for a decade.
You heard it hear first shacknews.-
The fact January 6th wasn't the death knell of Trump and Republicans should tell you something. In fact they are poised to quite possibly take back both the House and Senate. A second riot might make them even more powerful.
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Yeah January 6 got Trump finally banged on social media but other than that it’s lack of bringing positive change is super depressing
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^^^This. Has anyone ever heard of a coup attempt taking place and then the country continuing on as normal even though the coup plotters and participants are still active?
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It’s usually not the first coup that works; often they are seen as amateurish or a joke that went to far abs then they learn from mistakes and “git gud” at coups
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Elon buys twitter, ruins the brand and drives millions away. Elon ends up broke, force to sell everything he owns to cover the debt. He spends his final days selling RC toys on the home shopping network. A decade later, Asif Khan buys twitter for pocket change and merges it with Myspace which he also buys in the upcoming decade. Meanwhile Weichai-Space-X begins to mine asteroids and explore the outer solar system.
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Prediction: Trump rejoins Twitter but still loses in 2024 because the real reason he won the general election in 2016 is because Democrats didn’t bother to show up. They thought Hillary was gross but she had it in the bag so why bother. The record turnout in 2020 is a reflection of this.
Also probably a large percentage of the number of people who died of COVID post-vaccine in 2021 would have been potential Trump voters and he didn’t win by that many in 2016 to begin with.
The best case scenario is Trump dies or is incapacitated by 2024 because having him on the ticket is playing with fire but it would be a good motivator.
I think the only thing Trump could do to hurt the GOP in 2022 is sabotage it because his primary party picks didn’t win their primaries.
Also the only way 1/6 part 2 would actually make a difference is if they actually succeed in killing Congress members. Since “no one was hurt” in 1/6 (in congress anyway) it’s been easier to sweep under the rug.-
Does it matter if Trump himself is there or not though? He’s already accomplished the goal of turning the party into an overtly fascist entity that acts on that ideology completely independent of him.
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I'm kinda wanting Trump to die of natural causes right after the Republican Party anoints him as the candidate to run against Biden (or whomever is the Democrats' candidate for 2024)
And Elon is his running mate.
Can you imagine the shit storm that would create?
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I hope more/many/most folks will do that, but I have zero faith in common sense & decency these days.
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fuckin a.
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Sigh. I really hope Twitter doesn't become a libertarian social experiment in the limits of "free speech."
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Dude, not only will it be anything goes a lot of people will just get harassed off the platform.
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Man, this really sucks. It was the best place to get breaking cyber sec news and lots of great journalists to follow. No way journalists will be safe on the platform now. I guess I'll have sign up for an RSS feed service and curate some stuff.
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Twitter is by far the best social platform for my interests. Its nice to connect to pro players in a particular scene and get breaking news in other areas at the same time. This is such a bummer if he indeed makes the changes he wanted. Good luck moderating this shit though.
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Certainly far from perfect. But it seems like it is better than it was. That said, if Musk owns it you know he'll crack down on any journalism he doesn't like. He'll push freedom of speech on the platform, but what he means is speech that aligns with his viewpoints and amplifies policies that improve his bottom line, but are in no way critical of him.
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I don't see journalists dropping off the platform entirely but plenty of infosec community personalities and researchers will leave. I guess I'd better dust off that mastodon account.
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Shacknews Reader for RSS, Subreddits, podcasts, and YouTube feeds just sitting there.
https://www.shacknews.com/cortex/my-reader-
What you need is a famous shit lord running the show.
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So I just need to be famous. Got it.
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You could take out a super bowl ad but you would find out that nobody is watching football partly because of the pandemic but also because of Donald Trump made a shit post about the NFL.
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Fuck, this is really bad.
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Honestly doubt much will change for most people. It's not like Twitter's current or past leadership were any better just less visibly annoying. We'll see.
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Can't wait for the even freer speech
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Here is an example of how Musk's companies treat descent https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/1518569530217226241?s=20&t=eewLgqOn40Af_J2FR81vhw
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Kinda a bummer, but I get why they took it. Twitter as an investment has been stagnant. There doesn’t seem to be anything coming out of there either. Seems like lot of employees for what they do.
They can use a shake up, just not sure I really wanted Elon at the helm. I guess at least he uses the product 🤷♂️ -
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Curated Twitter is great for breaking news (if you follow respectable journalists) and links to longer-form content and essays, but you have to manage your feed.
If he goes hard for "free speech whatever the cost" and "wild west" it's definitely going to be a mess.
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exactly fuckin' this. the billionaires are so bored they are going to space or buying out entire media franchises.
they wield immense power, because the poker tables of life aren't designed for someone to come in and go "nice pot and bets you have, person on the high stack you look pretty fortunate. I'm jumping in and my stack is several billion times larger than yours. here we go"
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"Great to be back, and thank you to a tremendous, frankly a tremendous business man and truly rich person, Elon Musk, or as I call him, Elon. Looking forward to working closely with him during my next administration on free speech and Big tech censorship of Conservative Voices!!"
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No need, he already has tru....truth cential - https://twitter.com/TomJChicago/status/1518234999220277251
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Fuckin nightmare fuel
Oh shit it’s probably happening -
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“I barely know him.”
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The pump & dump scheme? It has served its purpose.
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"What do you mean you dropped all the tables? I just said I don't want any unions!"
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I hope they completely delete Trump’s account and all backups before he takes over. Just nuke the tweets, the followers, everything. Make him work for a following again if he’s reactivated
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That actually would be a fair way to handle a shitlord like Trump.
Especially if they could keep bots from registering an account.
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Gonna be bought by a guy that used Twitter to bully a diver about being a pedophile during the cave rescue
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I can’t stand Elon but don’t really get the meltdowns over this tbh.
If he wants to spend $50bn on Twitter then who cares? Why is this so much worse than it being run by whoever is doing it at the moment?
It’s already a cesspit and he’s quickly going to discover that running a social network is miserable and thankless.-
Because he has weird motives and is spiteful. You don’t want a guy like that running a media company which was shown to have major influence over elections worldwide.
Why IS he throwing so many billions at Twitter? What does he want out of it?-
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So he must be concerned with anti-CRT and anti-LGBTQ legislation popping up in states? And voter suppression? And book banning?
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Why'd he launch a car into space? He's a weird guy indulging his weird gen X hangups and his vision of the internet circa 2003.
If he fucks with it too much people will stop using it. If he doesn't it will just continue to be the exact cesspit it already is.
Like if he was buying out NPR or something I'd get the fuss, but it's Twitter.-
Twitter is surely more impactful to the world than like all of NPR. You are underestimating its influence I think. It's obviously a huge deal that a megalomaniac is trying to buy it for megalomaniacal reasons (also to manipulate stock).
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You can be almost certain he will give trump his twitter platform back. According to elon, twitters problem is censorship, not abuse.https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-contends-censorship-not-abuse-is-twitters-problem-11650015000
How many times did you hear "Trumps tweets" the last 5 years? Going back to 2009 he twetted 57,000 times https://news.sky.com/story/trumps-tweets-infamous-offensive-and-bizarre-posts-by-atrealdonaldtrump-12182992 If you wanted to relaunch a trump campaign for president this has to be one step along the way. Anyway, I loathed the trump presidency so that's why I care -
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You forget:
Free speech now means: right to be a selfish asshole
Freedom of speech now means: not having consequences of being a selfish asshole
That’s what he wants. Be a dick without consequences.
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Because he's a libertarian nutball, doing this for nebulous reasons involving "free speech."
Because likely one of his first acts will be to restore Donald Trump's account.
Because he's literally used his companies to go after his perceived enemies in the past. -
Because of how petty he is, remember when he hired an investigator and made up fake pedophile claims against one of the divers rescuing those kids in thailand, just because he wanted to step in to "save them" and got laughed off? Putting the douchenozzle responsible for that in charge of one of twitter is really bad for everyone
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I agree it's stupid and petty and hardly worth mentioning, which is why I provided it as a supporting statement to him being... petty. I think it's also a window into how he defines "freedom" in the context of the platform. He has also shut down the PR department at Tesla. People might start to believe his idea of "freedom of information" is anything that he agrees with, and those who have access are those who agree with him. Again, who cares right? Except when he owns the whole platform. But then again those who are saying twitter was garbage already are right IMO. But if you care about twitter, then I think you should be concerned about him buying the whole thing.
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i think people are rightfully concerned with the health of the platform right now. And Elon in live interviews has shown that he really has no idea what goes into trying to govern these platforms, really leaning into his belief that no governance is needed. Combined with the direction that laws are going ( https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2022/04/22/european-union-law-meta-facebook-google/7419892001/ ) I think people have a right to question whether he can successfully lead efforts in these areas. Combine that with the fact that he'd now be the CEO of 4 companies, and the shareholders or those who have interests in his other efforts should be justifiably concerned.
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For me? This is an astronomical amount of money that, if he realty cared about humanity, could be put to better use.
I’m not naive, I get investors aren’t going to band together and drop $50B on “solving world hunger” but c’mon. This is some fucking grade a greedy gross fucking horseshit.
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Facebook has been run worse than Twitter and has a much larger negative impact. It has like 10x as many active users.
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Yeah they are both shit.
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“Thanks Elin for fighting against the do nothing liberal left and restoring my free speec which was stolen from me. Donate here.”
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Guys twitter was already terrible
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…and it’ll get worse
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I thought the same thing for over a decade until I started curating my feed, it's been a great tool for me ever since.
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Yeah, Twitter's overall user experience is a function of who you follow. Admittedly other stupid shit in the algorithm will still lead to me seeing shit I don't want to, but unfollowing, muting, and blocking helps on that front.
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Yup. It's so much better if you put some work into it (and still leverage your critical thinking).
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The amount of right wing shit heels already cheering this is positively nauseating.
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Trump attempted overthrow the government via Twitter.
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Saying literally anything you want in any forum is not what "free speech" is.
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Right, and banning shit posters isn't "censorship."
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Yelling “fire!” deceptively in a crowded theater isn’t allowed.
this is yelling a more deadly thing in a crowded country instead of theater. -
the fire in a crowded theater issue tries to cover bad faith in light of horrible repercussions from said free speech. people get trampled and die. that's the deliverable.
trumpers saying masks are fake, take horse dewormer, drink bleach... same thing. people die. free speech combined with bad faith and other sabotage means it needs to be corrected.
free speech used to be the path, but in the era of malevolent and deliberately hostile "free speech" we have no recourse but to shore it up.
TLDR: because of trump mentality, we cannot have nice things. abuse needs to be corrected.-
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I don't have a problem with there not being a law against specifically yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. Connecting incitement to the destructive acts of others is very difficult. It's only really possible when a specific victim and premeditation is involved. Charles Manson comes to mind immediately, because I consider Trumpers to basically be cultists.
This one also comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy I have serious doubts that a jury would have convicted her.
I'm of the opinion that words matter but it is understandable that drawing straight lines from a legal point of view is very messy. Would the author of Catcher in the Rye be held in some way responsible for the death of John Lennon on the basis that the murderer found inspiration in the book to commit the act? The specificity that the law requires is at odds with how specific we can get for the methods at work both at an individual and societal level.
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right. florida quite literally is deploying it.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring
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Same shack voices crying out about censorship in relationship to twitter have been oddly silent about what's going on in Florida despite nearly daily posts about it.
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Twitter is an independent organization and is in no way required to allow any and all speech. Seriously, "freedom of speech" does not mean you can go anywhere, anytime, use and service, and say anything you want. It means the government can't arrest you for said speech.
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Freedom of speech is an ideal for Americans. There are legal requirements on the government that aren't there for private companies, but the ideal is there for all and ought to be implemented as much as possible in society. That ideal is the town square debate and it came as a result of church history, when you weren't allowed to question the status quo or the clergy would shut you down / get the town against you. People said the same things back then that they do now - you can't just let anybody share their terrible view of things. Like before, you've got a technology advancement as the engine of change (printing press and internet). Like before, people are demonizing others and are afraid of allowing people to choose for themselves what is good and what is bad.
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I think it's really valuable for folks in communities where they don't know anyone locally.
Like, think of a gay or trans person in a rural area. Tools like Twitter may be one of the major ways they connect with folks who have some similar experiences.
I know platforms like Twitter are hugely important to the queer community, since it simply isn't safe enough in some areas to gather in visible in person groups. It helps folks connect to other people like them and share experiences.
Without resources like Twitter, there are a lot of people that would be more isolated than they are.
It sucks, but I can see why these platforms are important.
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I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
What's the point of tweeting if you can't troll people?
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518623997054918657-
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unless it’s by a bot account, that’s illegal free speech
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It looks like it's officially happening:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/25/23028323/elon-musk-twitter-offer-buyout-hostile-takeover-ownership-
BUT THE POISON PILL
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I've seen a few rumors that the Saudi's have stacked him and that's how he pulled together the financing. They already had a substantial stack in the company. Second largest to Musk, himself.
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he filed where he got the money for the buyout, basically loans using his tesla stock as collateral.
Musk’s documents say that $13 billion in financing came from Morgan Stanley and the other banks. As much as $12.5 billion would be loans secured by Musk’s Tesla stock, and he also committed $21 billion in direct or indirect equity, although he didn’t disclose the source of those funds. The filing says that the equity commitment could be reduced by contributions from others or additional debt taken on.
https://apnews.com/article/business-media-social-elon-musk-1aa6c720f5a8ba834985eaa965fa4b84-
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here's a good break down of his financing:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-21/elon-got-his-money-
Thanks for sharing this link.
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So Musk will be paying his banks, personally, about $1 billion a year for the privilege of owning Twitter. It is possible that Twitter will be paying him $1 billion a year of dividends, after its own debt servicing costs, but it is, uh, unlikely in the near future. It is more likely that running Twitter will be a continuing expense for him. But, again, he has said that he’s not in it for the money. Spending $33 billion to buy Twitter, and then another $1 billion a year to own it, is I suppose in a way a kind of philanthropy for Musk? -
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$54.20 a share. Of course
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Or it will reignite the collective trauma of all rational Americans and be the push that the left needs to show up at the polls.
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He had some weak criticism about how they had unmet obligations or something and then yup, just disappeared
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Thanks for reminding me that Elon offered them money to stop doing it!
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He wanted to open the Twitter office to the homeless, so I’m not exactly hopeful that he has any good ideas.
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I think the motivation is different. His earlier acquisitions were more for growing a business and furthering some grand idea, like an electric car or space travel.
This feels it’s more about total control and to allow him and his friends to be a dick. He’s essentially buying Twitter god mode.
I don’t see his ownership being good for the company or the world with such motivation.
Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see. -
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Those are pure technical problems. The biggest problems Twitter faces are societal and cultural. Elon has a unique ability to solve engineering problems but the evidence so far is his understanding of social issues is largely the same as a 14 year old boy who just read Atlas Shrugged
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Like just look at his suggestions:
- “open source the algorithm to increase trust” is not going to do anything. It’s a child’s understanding of ML based systems and it misunderstands where trust comes from.
- “Authenticate all humans”. So an anonymous political dissident in Russia using Twitter must authenticate their identity with Twitter? And then what happens when the Russian government issues Twitter a legal requirement for information on certain Twitter users who have violated local laws? This stuff isn’t thought through at all despite a high volume of academic research on content moderation challenges. -
it's not nearly the funniest part of the list of things he intends on doing but "making the algorithms open source" and "defeating the spam bots" are goals that work against each other
https://twitter.com/sarahjeong/status/1518666694125703168?s=20&t=THVbpG63DW-0lH-7BDbxYA
Just on and on.
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You don't spend that kind of money to "do the right thing". He has a plan for it, and it's going to involve making him more money and power. For me, as much as I love SpaceX and Tesla, I'm off the Elon train from here on out. He has too much potential to do too much damage, can't support it anymore.
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Orange man isn’t coming back to twitter
https://twitter.com/mattbinder/status/1518701483277131776-
I trust orange man. He’s never lied to us before
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I was sarcastic—wasn’t directed at you
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he has to say that so his venture isn't immediately called a failure, which we all know it is, but he has to keep up appearances "yeah I am all in on my social media! it's gonna be huge!" - says the guy who couldn't even run a successful CASINO
he's literally quoted twitter as some sort of evidence, he is THRILLED to go back. he just has to find the right time and verbiage. his followers will all be reactivated on twitter and that's where he wants to be
everything in the trump sphere is a lie, a spin, a grift, a misdirection. nothing trump ever says should be relied on, ever-
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Bullshit.
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Great!
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Still amazing Elon managed to find $43bn to spend for fun when he in fact doesn’t actually have that much wealth from stocks and couldn’t afford to pay more taxes on unrealized gains. Alas.
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Sure, pick your poison. The simple reality is the critique against wealth taxes, taxing unrealized gains, etc because these guys have all their wealth tied up in illiquid stock/etc was obvious bullshit and this Twitter sale should put a final mail in the coffin of that idea.
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No one is making a wealth tax to target people whose startup is valued at $5m on paper. Don’t be ridiculous.
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I’m not leaving twitter… leave and miss this?
https://i.imgur.com/5lFb7r3.jpg -
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There will be no board, no accountability.
Musk has said he was against the bans following Jan 6.
He doesn’t care about ads, so ad buyers dropping doesn’t phase him.
He wants this to be an uncontrolled “free speech” platform.
I don’t see how this can be good news for anyone other those who think dick pics replies to school children are free speech
He’ll probably make Twitter devs remote only and move the HQ to Texas too.
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A barely used the platform but went and deleted all my tweets and removed all my info..
I gave up Facebook, Insta, etc a few years ago I don't miss it, I won't miss Twitter either.
It's a shame this could have staggering affects on the world depending on Elon's actions.-
We’ve been at the whims of a dumb, eccentric billionaire’s decisions for basically Twitter’s entire existence. It’s not like jack was some progressive beacon.
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I guess I'm just aware of how badly people are manipulated on these platforms and I just can't be a part of it.. cess pools.
That's outside of the profiling and advertising shit on the backend. -
Twitter isn’t amazing, but if banned a lot of shit you don’t see. You don’t know how bad it’ll be once it’s purely unfiltered.
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Twitter only fairly recently began banning stuff in response to election disinformation and pandemic antivax mania (as opposed to all the antivax content they always used to allow). We spent a whole lot of years with Twitter being lead by a billionaire libertarian who fashioned himself the free speech party. This is not as much of a change as some people are imagining.
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Dorsey banned Trump, which is more than Elon would do.
Plus Twitter is motivated by ads, while Elon is not. Plus Twitter has a board of directors and now won’t.
This is essentially Twitter with zero oversight or external pressure, which IS new.-
Dorsey banned Trump only after a literal insurrection and in concert with other tech CEOs giving him cover to do so.
If you think Elon’s plan is to ignore Twitter’s financials and just pay billions per year to finance his pet ideas then ok but I doubt it.
Twitter’s board of directors was useless and inept. How else do we explain letting jack come back and fail at managing it a second time after their previous new CEO hire also failed to manage the company? To whatever degree there was shareholder oversight it was largely irrelevant since they continued to invest in this terribly run business that consistently posted terrible results with the same terrible management.
Elon may very well fuck up Twitter even more and it’s bad that he can just buy something this big on a whim. But some of you are ignoring how bad Twitter has already been run by an idiot libertarian CEO who fashions himself a free speech absolutist.
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