• News

Elon Musk tweets at SEC in Twitter (TWTR) lawsuit thread about bots

This is truly the dumbest timeline. Musk continues to bully Twitter and its shareholders in a stream of late night tweets, including a Chuck Norris meme.

Asif Khan

July 10, 2022 11:45 PM

Elon Musk's Twitter Page

1

Elon Musk has been thumbing his nose at Twitter and the Securities Exchange Commission for months now, and he appears to have saved his dankest meme just for the SEC. In a thread about the impending Twitter lawsuit, Musk replied to a user calling for the regulator to investigate Twitter's bot disclosure and made sure to tag @SECGov. He also tweeted a picture of Chuck Norris playing chess because this is indeed the dumbest timeline.

Chuckmate

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022

Musk has been punished by the SEC in the past over tweets and has recently appealed the ruling, but he has somehow skirted those issues in recent months with the timing of his tweets about the $44 billion Twitter (TWTR) acquisition.

The market has been skeptical of Elon Musk's $44 billion valuation of Twitter for months, with shares of TWTR currently trading at a 35% discount to Musk's $54.20/share offering price. You know, the guy who put 420 in his Twitter offering price, that guy, he may have skipped some due diligence, because this is a complaint that any remotely competent acquirer could have brought up before making an offer. That's if you really wanted to do it in the first place.

Hello??? @SECGov

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022

Musk has replied to several of his fans who are "dunking" on the SEC. After sending shockwaves through Twitter's stock last week with his announcement that he was pulling out of the deal, it might not have been a smart move to tweet at the SEC in the middle of the night, but what do I know.

💯

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 11, 2022

It would be pretty cool if Twitter banned Elon. Morale at the social media company is very low after a number of people quit and then a round of layoffs saw more people leave. New CEO Parag Agrawal has walked into a tough situation, but Twitter seems confident that its framework for disclosure of active user data is more accurate and useful for investors than what may qualify as a user on a rival social media platform like Facebook, which has nearly 3 billion monthly active users.

Our estimate is based on multiple human reviews (in replicate) of thousands of accounts, that are sampled at random, consistently over time, from *accounts we count as mDAUs*. We do this every quarter, and we have been doing this for many years.

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 16, 2022

Twitter did announce as part of its Q1 2022 earnings results press release that the company had misstated the number of monetizable daily active users (mDAUs). Despite that mishap, Agrawal has tried to explain why Twitter's mDAU metric is a better way to value the company, and the $44 billion deal to buy the company will now head to court, with Elon Musk memes probably being submitted as evidence.

Will it be Chuckmate for Musk? Probably not, but it's hard not to feel bad for Twitter employees stuck in this situation. 

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

Asif Khan

CEO/EIC/EIEIO

Asif Khan is the CEO, EIC, and majority shareholder of Shacknews. He began his career in video game journalism as a freelancer in 2001 for Tendobox.com. Asif is a CPA and was formerly an investment adviser representative. After much success in his own personal investments, he retired from his day job in financial services and is currently focused on new private investments. His favorite PC game of all time is Duke Nukem 3D, and he is an unapologetic fan of most things Nintendo. Asif first frequented the Shack when it was sCary's Shugashack to find all things Quake. When he is not immersed in investments or gaming he is a purveyor of fine electronic music. Asif also has an irrational love of Cleveland sports.