Elon Musk cuts Twitter employee benefits as he warns of bankruptcy

[konfab]

Well the key point is, Elon had the chance to examine all of Twitter's supposed lies before signing on the dotted line. He chose not to. So all his arguments about bot numbers and mDAU and whatever else are entirely irrelevant. Nobody cares. They might have been made up, they might have been lies. Doesn't matter at all. Because he had the chance to dispute those figures but was more interested in posting memes on Twitter than doing actual due diligence.

If the fact that Twitter was already running themselves into the ground was apparent to a random myBB poster like you, surely it would have been clearly obvious to Elon, and then confirmed via the copious amounts of research he would have put in, before deciding to commit forty-four billion united states dollars of actual money to buying this dumpster fire? Isn't he supposed to be the most brilliant businessman in the world? Surely someone of his business acumen wouldn't do something so idiotic as that?

Or he wanted a better price out of Twitter via an out-of-court settlement.

 

[Paati Sooth]

Yea... I don't understand why he didn't just throw the billion and write it off. Now he spend x40+ times more...

I presume his ego made him do it...

He couldn't just throw the billion and write it off. There were specific conditions which had to be met in order for the walk-away fee of $1b to kick in. And both Twitter and Musk had to agree to walk away. Elon offered an inflated price, Twitter stuck to their guns to force him to go through with the deal he committed to.
If I recall correctly, the only real valid condition under which the $1b clause would happen, is if Elon couldn't fund the $44b purchase. Given that his net worth was over $200b at the time, even if none of his other partners came to the party to chip in, and none of the banks were willing to give him any loans, he still couldn't argue that he was unable to fund the purchase.

 

[PaulMurkin]

Like it or not, Twitter shapes world politics. The amount of influence it has should have made it profitable a long time ago, but they were likely too busy running it like an adult daycare than making it profitable.

Twitter has never been profitable, which meant it was on a runway in one way or other. Musk is the right sort of person to get it back on track. If it needs capital, he can literally borrow it against his own stock in Tesla for cheap.

Ah yes.. I forgot... its another tool for the corrupt, the politicos.
And then their hangers-on
Below them, the snowflakes, furries, pedos, influencers, attention seekers.

 

[Paati Sooth]

Or he wanted a better price out of Twitter via an out-of-court settlement.

I've never been much of a haggler myself, but I believe the way it works generally is that you offer less than you're prepared to spend, the seller says they want more, and you incrementally offer more until they accept. You don't start out offering twice as much as you're willing to spend and then after they agree to that price, start asking them if they'll accept less money instead.
But what do I know, I'm not a genius businessman like Emerald Mine Elon Musk

 

[quovadis]

Twitter has never been profitable, which meant it was on a runway in one way or other. Musk is the right sort of person to get it back on track. If it needs capital, he can literally borrow it against his own stock in Tesla for submarket rates.

We’ve discussed this ad nauseum but less provisions and not deferring certain items would’ve resulted in a larger loss in some years but the last couple would’ve been hundreds of millions in profit. There’s more to it than just the net profit line item.

 

[konfab]

Ah yes.. I forgot... its another tool for the corrupt, the politicos.
And then their hangers-on
Below them, the snowflakes, furries, pedos, influencers, attention seekers.

Twitter is a $hitload of fun, if you have the right attitude.

 

[quovadis]

Or he wanted a better price out of Twitter via an out-of-court settlement.

It doesn’t work like that. The offer is the offer. It’s not subject to negotiation.

 

[Markd]

The NASDAQ has lost 30% already this year. That's where the tech stocks are. And a large chunk of my pension savings.
One would expect most of the companies are struggling.

View attachment 1419707

That index has been struggling this entire year. You're just going to have to ride it out, and not do anything rash.

 

[quovadis]

.

I've never been much of a haggler myself, but I believe the way it works generally is that you offer less than you're prepared to spend, the seller says they want more, and you incrementally offer more until they accept. You don't start out offering twice as much as you're willing to spend and then after they agree to that price, start asking them if they'll accept less money instead.
But what do I know, I'm not a genius businessman like Emerald Mine Elon Musk

When offering to purchase all issued shares in a company it’s a little more complicated and invariably to ensure shareholder acceptance is always in excess of the market value. The shareholders ultimately decide if the offer is accepted or not.

 

[Paati Sooth]

.
When offering to purchase all issued shares in a company it’s a little more complicated and invariably to ensure shareholder acceptance is always in excess of the market value. The shareholders ultimately decide if the offer is accepted or not.

Most definitely. The shareholders wouldn't agree to be bought out unless it was worth their while. But if his intention was to negotiate a lower price via an out-of-court settlement, then the shareholders would likely not have agreed to that anyways, because they're already expecting to be paid $weed. So even if the twitter board entertained the out-of-court haggling, the shareholders would still reject it, and he'd have to spend the $weed/share anyways.

But he put more thought into coming up with his overly-inflated offer amount so that he could make a weed joke, than he put into investigating whether it was a worthwhile purchase in the first place.

 

[quovadis]

Most definitely. The shareholders wouldn't agree to be bought out unless it was worth their while. But if his intention was to negotiate a lower price via an out-of-court settlement, then the shareholders would likely not have agreed to that anyways, because they're already expecting to be paid $weed. So even if the twitter board entertained the out-of-court haggling, the shareholders would still reject it, and he'd have to spend the $weed/share anyways.

But he put more thought into coming up with his overly-inflated offer amount so that he could make a weed joke, than he put into investigating whether it was a worthwhile purchase in the first place.

The process doesn't allow post-haggling. You make an offer, board recommends it and shareholders vote on it. There is no mechanism for haggling as then it would be able to be manipulated.

 

[J&B]

Elon talks about his failures:

 

[netstrider]

The NASDAQ has lost 30% already this year. That's where the tech stocks are. And a large chunk of my pension savings.
One would expect most of the companies are struggling.

View attachment 1419707

They all scored BIG TIME in the covid years while we were all forced to hide in our homes.

 

[Paati Sooth]

They all scored BIG TIME in the covid years while we were all forced to hide in our homes.

Agreed, their values were all super-inflated over the past few years, and rather than things crashing, they're just normalising in response to the world returning to in-office work.

 

[Pegasus]

That index has been struggling this entire year. You're just going to have to ride it out, and not do anything rash.

Ok. That’s an interesting strategy. Doing nothing when your business environment changes drastically.
I don’t think Michael Porter covered that one.

 

[netstrider]

Must bought the domain x.com from PayPal in 2017 which had been under their posession until then.

Likely he has some plan for it going forward.

 

[quovadis]

Must bought the domain x.com from PayPal in 2017 which had been under their posession until then.

Likely he has some plan for it going forward.

He owned it prior. X.com was an online bank he also founded.

 

[Willie Trombone]

If you look at most of Musk's "achievements", they're not that impressive compared to what many other people have achieved.

Basically, he sold his share of PayPal for a **** ton of cash. He then bought into various other companies. It's not like he's Nikola Tesla or Albert Einstein. The dude basically bought a bunch of companies with Nikola Teslas and Albert Einsteins.

Jeff Bezos basically had the vision to build Amazon from the ground up. Gates did the same with Microsoft. John Carmack built one of the world's most successful game studios, and has then worked on everything from rockets to AI.

Everything since PayPal isn't really an achievement for Musk.

That's a bit of a stretch.
He's turned 100 mil at 31 years old into 180 billion in 20 years.
However you look at it, that's a significant achievement.

 

[netstrider]

He owned it prior. X.com was an online bank he also founded.

Yes, but it was registered under PayPal so when he left they controlled the domain.

 

[Willie Trombone]

Fair enough about SpaceX. That's pretty much his baby as well and is undoubtedly a huge success.

But many other things he "achieved" because he only had buckets of money and bought into existing organisations.



As above.

100 mil doesn't go far in big business, especially those with steep barriers to entry - competing in the motor vehicle industry and space industry. Not a bucket of money by anyone's standards. He's outperformed Gates, Branson, Jobs, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Buffet, Adani, the Arnaults....
And he's done it spending money on real projects, not just investments.