It's only a bad deal if the stock market does not recover by the time he has to complete the transaction. At his scale, he can afford to drag out the deal for another few months and save money. If the tech bubble reinflates, then this deal is bad for Twitter.

If that's what Musk is betting on, he might as well just complete the sale now. I don't think there's anything reasonable to judge the deal by except the _current_ worth, unless there's some good reason to expect it to move one way or the other.

Only really if Twitter would trend to go over the offered price. Which I doubt.

Not necessarily, if the market bounces back the funding becomes cheap.

A few months? with a recession coming?

Tell that to the Twitter employees who have to put up with this bullshit.

Elon Musk doesn't know you exist and doesn't care what you think about him. Pretending that being sued is the same thing as losing isn't honest. Musk alleges twitter didn't keep to the terms of their agreement and it will come out in court how true this all is. It's not worth having a personal opinion of what people you dont know deserve when their crime is "involved in a business deal you don't approve of".

As a participator in Tesla IPO Musk's actions are very concerning to me. His prior incident tweeting that he had lined up financing to take Tesla private (which was a 100% complete lie) should have been enough of a wake up call that he needed to stop "getting high on his own supply". From what we can see on the outside it appears he didn't learn anything from it.

In fact it appears his offer to buy Twitter was not a well-researched and planned operation, it seems to have been something of a whim initially.

None of us can really know what he was thinking but for my part I think it is simple buyer's remorse. He didn't really consider the consequences of tying up his personal wealth in the deal, the potential to lose control of his other companies, nor how he would ever make his money back on Twitter itself. Perhaps he thought the bull market would erase all sins eventually anyway only to slam directly into a bear market wall.

Whatever the case his behavior seems erratic and unconsidered at times. As a shareholder I find that deeply disturbing. I would much rather he focus on running Tesla and SpaceX instead of trying to buy Twitter.

I humbly suggest, get over such vitriol in a opinion & knowledge sharing platform like HN, maybe get some professional help. Just a sincere advice from fellow user It isn't a directed sarcasm. Writing like this isn't okay

Quoting guidelines: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work [...]"

>I humbly suggest, get over such vitriol

you're reading vitriol where I have none. It was a statement of fact followed by a statement of opinion. There was no vitriol involved except what you're projecting into it.

>maybe get some professional help.

Maybe now is a time to take a moment of deep self reflection and think how humbly you might suggest something, and who has vitriol

>Quoting guidelines

applies directly to your attempt to say that anyone who disagrees needs mental health. This should raise some deep questions of self reflection in you, rather than thinking that everyone else is shallow while your post is not.

There was nothing shallow about my post that your post is not equally if not more shallow.

If this wasn't vitriol, it definitely lacks much common courtesy afforded to other users here. I did not start this. And I am not sure how you can consider your initial post 'just fine'.

As I said elsewhere, I am here to respectfully engage and learn something. Engaging with this post with you doesn't give me any new insight - neither on Twitter nor on common etiquettes.

hi, totally different person here, I also read vitriol in your post, which is not mutually exclusive with sharing facts or opinions

given the multiple confirmations of this, it's possible that you don't realize the vitriol in your post, or mischaracterize it as not vitriol, or just are unwilling to admit to it to others or yourself

before you respond to this post, please ask yourself if you've internalized the critical feedback you've recieved from multiple users, and are not going to simply act defensive again

To me, this sounds like an attempt to stop the person from sharing their opinion. Not much better than the original comment.

> Elon Musk doesn't know you exist and doesn't care what you think about him

If that doesn't come across unprovoked offensive, what else is. What have I written in OP to deserve such a scathing response. Why can't we keep discussion polite?

when the truth hurts it sounds scathing.

For the record, you have not spoken anything that was any way informative to the current legal dispute of Twitter vs. Musk. Why are you trying to be unnecessarily confrontational?

Your response is worse than his. You couch it with passive aggressive language but you're just saying he's mentally ill because you don't like his tone.

> Elon Musk doesn't know you exist and doesn't care what you think about him

Sorry. I am trying to engage with everyone here respectfully. I generally feel people who write like this have anger issues or purely dismissive. The later seems true if I read the answer carefully enough. I don't think I have made a personal affront to him to receive one. And the opinion is honest - writing like this unprovoked, is not okay & outside of HN guidelines anyway

What he said is at least true even if it's not nice sounding. For someone so concerned with HN guidelines you didn't seem to mind launching a personal attack against him. Maybe just downvote someone instead of trying to give them a psychiatric evaluation.

> For someone so concerned with HN guidelines you didn't seem to mind launching a personal attack against him.

I didn't. I never said 'f--koff' or 'you're a idiotic fanboy' or the likes. Commentor sides Musk strongly enough to dismiss a neutral & not-loaded opinion sufficiently with strongly worded tirade. I told 'writing like this isn't okay' on HN & you could possibly need help with a full disclaimer I am not being sarcastic. And you're faulting me?

Edit: What he said is at least true even if it's not nice sounding

Going strictly by company laws, what Musk is doing is absolutely wrong - starting with SEC episode to the latest dropping of acquisition after purchase agreement. It doesn't matter if Elon isn't my tea-time buddy. By the same yardstick everyone should stop commenting on HN because 99% of the things posted on forums aren't exactly about our work life although we somewhat/vaguely know it.

Please let us not engage in this fault finding & keep discussion civil and interesting. Quoting guidelines:

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something"

Oh come on. You know what you did. Just accept that you were both in the wrong instead of providing these disingenuous defenses. Also I was remarking on the bit you quoted to me which should have been obvious.

I’m not sure what lesson there is to be learned here. Wasn’t it Musk who sent this to the courts by letting it go there? Why does everyone assume he’s not in control of this situation? Many favorable outcomes remain available to him.

He’s certainly improved his position since a few months ago, when the Twitter board was discussing “poison pills” to stop his purchase of the company. Now, the same board is begging him to complete the purchase.

Also, there was a recent reminder from Musk’s legal team: as its largest shareholder, Musk has a greater financial stake in Twitter than the entire board combined.

>Why does everyone assume he’s not in control of this situation? Many favorable outcomes remain available to him.

Well for starters he didn’t want a Delaware venue and didn’t want an expedited trial. Lost on both. Doesn’t sound like someone who is in control of the situation.

>Now, the same board is begging him to complete the purchase.

A very interesting way of phrasing reality. “Asking a court to force Musk to adhere to the contract he signed an executed.”

If you don’t work in PR, you definitely should. You have a gift for it.

> when the Twitter board was discussing “poison pills” to stop his purchase of the company. Now, the same board is begging him to complete the purchase.

These are two separate incidents although commonly conflated. Poison pill is used to block a hostile takeover where the board has been taken by surprise, by diluting stake - which happened because Musk didnt disclose to SEC for long time he owned 14.4% of the Twitter.

After the things were in the light of the day, he didn't take up the position on Twitter board & instead offered to purchase controlling stake in Twitter (something which was not possible as a board member). The negotiations hence followed for purchase

Then, he has famously backed out of the Twitter deal in bad faith & disparaged it publicly. Twitter is also beholden to its investors. They have every right not to tank their market cap because a rich guy got whimsical

>Now, the same board is begging him to complete the purchase.

"Begging" is definitely not the best word choice here. This is a lot less, "Oh, please, please, pleeeeeease Mr. Musk, please pay us, pretty please?" and a lot more, "Alright, we're tired of you fucking around. It's time for you climb out of your sandbox and hold up your end of the deal."

“And get your shinebox while you’re at it.”

> Also, reminder: as its largest shareholder, Musk has a greater financial stake in Twitter than the entire board combined

You verbatim quoted the actual closing arguments of Rossman (representing Musk in the trial).

How do you know I’m not Rossman?

Just kidding. Yes, I wasn’t sure which document that was from and I didn’t want to use exact quotes without knowing. But I should have cited it (not that he’d mind), so I edited my post.

It was a smooth turn of phrase if you ask me. It helps that it’s the truth.

It'd be much more rhetorically satisfying if it had anything to do with the matter at hand.

It’s relevant because it means Musk can credibly make all the same arguments the board claims to make in the interest of Twitter. It changes the dynamic of the trial compared to one against an outside acquirer. Twitter is suing its largest shareholder, Musk, who can (somewhat) credibly refute any argument that Twitter claims to be “in the interest of the shareholders.”

The lawsuit is about a contract though. I don't see where the interests of the shareholders come in to any actual courtroom arguments. There's nothing in the contract about "oh Musk must do blah blah unless it's not in the interests of the shareholders".

musk can't credibly refute such an argument as you describe unless he owns a majority of shares or can convincingly make the case that the holders of a majority of shares agree with him

Yes, I admit that “somewhat” I included in my comment was doing a lot of heavy lifting. But it’s still true it changes the dynamic of the trial. And it’s still true that the same board suing him to buy their company is the same board that months earlier tried to sabotage their company to stop him from buying it.

it literally does not change the dynamics at all, not one iota, unless he owns a majority of shares or can convincingly make the case that the holders of a majority of shares agree with him

neither is the case

the same goes for your opinions you shared about "sabotage": unless you or he can prove that a majority of shareholders believe in such silly-sounding narratives, we can proceed as if they are untrue at best, and irrelevant to the contract elon signed at worst

> as its largest shareholder, Musk has a greater financial stake in Twitter than the entire board combined.

How is that relevant to the contract Elon signed and now wants to renege on?