I find it amazing that not one of the top comments gives Elon ANY consideration that maybe, just maybe, he has a legitimate case against Twitter. We don’t know what he’s found, what he was told, what he was promised, what changed on Twitter’s side. Some very top level people bailed or were fired shortly after Elon’s acquisition proposal was announced.
It sure appears that Elons is just balking, but what is far more likely is that he has uncovered some deep Twitter bullshit and he plans to unveil it in court. Forced to air the dirty laundry by the court, he avoids defamation suits.
Elon is extremely intelligent. Not perfect, not omniscient, maybe he screwed up? Or maybe he has a lot more info than any of us internet loons at the moment?
> It sure appears that Elons is just balking, but what is far more likely is that he has uncovered some deep Twitter bullshit and he plans to unveil it in court. Forced to air the dirty laundry by the court, he avoids defamation suits.
I have no idea how you can claim that that is far more likely. You think it is more likely that Elon is going to expose the numbers Twitter reports to the SEC as off by an order of magnitude than Elon just not wanting to follow through with this deal?
EVEN IF the numbers reported were off by a factor of 10, this would also have to cause advertisers to pull out! The revelations you claim Elon might make have to have material effect on the value of Twitter for them to make a difference in this impending court case. Yeah, it’s possible, I guess? But it’s definitely not more likely!
Think about it this way: what could Elon possibly reveal that would make advertisers pull out? They advertise on Twitter and make money already! Why stop now??
From the actual SEC filing: As further described below, Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect (as that term is defined in the Merger Agreement).
I’d say that’s a pretty strong accusation that probably has something to back it up. Maybe it’s a lie, but I sure wouldn’t bet on it.
My businesses have spent millions on advertising across all channels, from newspapers, magazines, billboards to social media, AdWords and influencers. I strongly believe all ad dollars yield far less than platforms want us to believe. After all, they are selling us on their platform. Much of my revenue that gets attributed to some platform would have otherwise occurred without that specific ad spend. However, I’d rather be wrong and waste some ad spend versus be wrong, lose a million in revenue.
Personally, having spent money with Twitter, I suspect Twitter has no real evidence that their value proposition to customers is worth anything close to what they claim (i.e. making fraudulent claims), but that Twitter has lots of data on the unpublicized falsities of their platform (bots, click farms, otherwise fake accounts).
>I suspect Twitter has no real evidence that their value proposition to customers is worth anything close to what they claim
What?? The value of their service is what their customers are willing to pay, which they've done so to the tune of BILLIONS per year. They would not continue to do so if they didn't get the value Twitter charges for their service.
Customers care about return on investment, and if spending $1 on the platform bring in more value than that, then they'll continue to spend on that platform. It really is that simple. Ad platforms have tools to help customers make the most of their spend, but ultimately ROI will dictate how much they'll spend on it.
I'm also a small-time Adwords user, and while I'm sure there's some click fraud going on, what I care about is getting more value per dollar than I spend.
Maybe, instead of the "Elon is a genius playing 4D chess" speculation, we can simply look at his actions and conclude than no reasonable person would seriously go about buying Twitter the way he did.
Given this and previous behaviour it seems pretty reasonable to assume that Musk was doing it for the lolz and to get attention as "the savior of free speech".
It's useful to note that after he signed the contract the market decided he wasn't serious about it. That's the closest we have to an objective judgement on Musk's intentions.
His character flaws aside, you don't become worth 275 billion dollars by throwing 45 billion away for the lulz. I think it's a safe bet that a man who has an entire top notch law firm working exclusively for him knows a thing or two more about what he's doing than we do. Even if it is a mistake, even if he's trying to back out of something and being disingenuous, it's still almost certain that our online speculation colored by our character sentiment is not what is actually going on here.
The calculation is simple, it’s what we know from his track record, that he has made numerous calculated, high risk moves over several decades and has generally prevailed in a substantial manner. It’s just in vogue right now to assume “Elon is a pompous fool,” full bore myopia. The same guy that has ramped up several massively successful companies.
I don’t have a dog in the hunt, I genuinely don’t care of the outcome, I don’t think Twitter is worth buying, I don’t care if Elon loses several billion or whatever. I just wouldn’t bet against him on something like this where he has much more information than any of us. That’s a pretty simple calculation.
Let's not forget we're talking about a raging narcissist who said in 2018 that he may be bipolar (which, imo, checks out). Sometimes it feels like we're awkwardly dancing around this when discussing his "antics" -- but I think it's more likely that people forget those details and simply focus on his celebrity.
I think a lot of people don't understand what bipolar is. They hear it and think he is a moody guy whose actions are reasonable. They don't understand that manic episodes are characterized by unreasonable, illogical, destructive behavior. A grandiose vision of being Twitter's and free speech's savior, which turns out to be very poorly thought out, fits with that.
Have you actually read the latest SEC filing? “Waiving due diligence” does not waive breach of contract. Opening paragraphed snipped below. Maybe it’s a lie, or maybe there is more to the story.
>>As further described below, Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect (as that term is defined in the Merger Agreement).
Again, from the latest filing, these are pretty damning:
>> In addition, during the June 30, 2022 call, Twitter’s representatives indicated for the first time that the workflow and processes for detecting spam and false accounts in the mDAU population is different and separate from the workflow and processes for identifying and suspending accounts in violation of Twitter’s policies. On that call, Twitter indicated that it would not be willing to provide information regarding the methodologies employed to identify and suspend such accounts.
Furthermore:
>> Despite public speculation on this point, Mr. Musk did not waive his right to review Twitter’s data and information simply because he chose not to seek this data and information before entering into the Merger Agreement. In fact, he negotiated access and information rights within the Merger Agreement precisely so that he could review data and information that is important to Twitter’s business before financing and completing the transaction.
For Musk to get out of it he has to find a materially adverse effect (MAE), which is incredibly difficult and almost never happens. As Matt Levine explains in the article, it basically has to mean that Twitter is a complete fraud and has been covering up a fraud for a long time (think Enron), which is very unlikely given that users obviously use it, and advertisers obviously advertise on it quite happily.
I'm tired of people parroting this line. It is factually incorrect. This line has been started by the author of the article we are discussing, and picked up by people who like the way it sounds, but if you'd read the article the author also clearly states (significantly less dramatically) that he has an out if Twitter lied because that would be breach of contract. He goes on to say there's no evidence that Twitter lied, which may be true, but it's a fact. If twitter lied about their numbers it is a breach of contract, MAE be damned.
If he had a case, he would have said that he had a case in this letter.
Everything I've seen about Musk suggests that he is not particularly smart, but he is audacious. The hyperloop, the claims about autonomous driving, the boring company nonsense, and all sorts of other Tesla-related claims have all come out to be massive disappointments.
If 64,000 people bet on a coin flipping heads 16 times in a row, one of them is going to make it. That one is Elon Musk.
It sure appears that Elons is just balking, but what is far more likely is that he has uncovered some deep Twitter bullshit and he plans to unveil it in court. Forced to air the dirty laundry by the court, he avoids defamation suits.
Elon is extremely intelligent. Not perfect, not omniscient, maybe he screwed up? Or maybe he has a lot more info than any of us internet loons at the moment?