Do you think Elon gets permanently banned from Twitter if he backs out of the deal?

[avg123]

I feel like the moment he backs out of the deal, he gets booted off twitter as revenge. I dont think he will back off the deal. I think he is using the bot issue as a negotiation tactic to drive down the price and twitter saw through his bluff

[Shimejii]

No. Would be a pretty dumb thing to do.

[Action_Johnson]

In the current state of affairs, who gives a flying fuck about Elon's twitter deal? 

[drdrewnatic]

I highly doubt they would; but it would be absolutely hilarious if they did.  

[poochyena]

21 minutes ago, avg123 said:

I think he is using the bot issue as a negotiation tactic to drive down the price

Telsa shares have dropped off a cliff, so he can't afford the purchase now, so he's looking for any excuse he can find to get out of the deal while not violating any laws or making himself look bad.

[stage]

I was more impressed of him having a threesome with Cara Delevigne and Amber. My man.

[LogicalDrm]

Doubtful. It would be petty and would solidify Twitters fall as platform. I doubt any creditable person/organisation would stay on service which kicks out their critics.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, poochyena said:

Telsa shares have dropped off a cliff, so he can't afford the purchase now, so he's looking for any excuse he can find to get out of the deal while not violating any laws or making himself look bad.

People say things like that, but has anyone actually considered that maybe he's not leveraging all his Tesla shares to do so and that he can get partial financing from the Twitter stock itself.

 

I mean SpaceX is estimated at over $100 billion and he apparently holds over 40% private stock in it.  That alone puts his wealth high enough to afford it.

 

Ignoring that, look at Toys R Us as an example, the primary funding from going private was from the companies wealth itself.  Similar deals could be brokered.  i.e. Musk puts up Twitter stake as collateral.

 

Putting in perspective, if lets say they estimate the value of Twitter at half it's current rate at $18 as collateral, market cap at $28 billion.  Assuming even a 100% ownership (which it doesn't appear like it would be but worst case here), that's $44-28 = $16 billion of other funding that would need to occur (Tesla or SpaceX).  It's no different than getting a mortgage from a bank for your house.  You aren't putting up other items as collateral, it's the literal house you are buying that is the collateral.

 

He's also made it clear he won't be a 100% owner in Twitter, he will keep enough to have it run as a private company.  So very likely he has billions lined up from other people.

 

It's foolish to say he can't afford to purchase it, because when you have the current amount of wealth he can afford it.  Even at $350 Tesla price, his net worth from Tesla stock alone would be $62 billion.  Then if you consider SpaceX assuming only a $50 billion evaluation, that's still ~$20 billion.  So even very conservatively he has about $82 billion of funds available (minus any loans he currently has).

 

To the topic, I doubt they will ban him.  I think even they recognize if they ban him they would open up the flood gates.

 

1 hour ago, avg123 said:

. I think he is using the bot issue as a negotiation tactic to drive down the price and twitter saw through his bluff

Well I mean, if a 3rd party analysis shows like 10% bot activity that's quite significant given that Twitter's SEC filing states less than 5%.  It's not like it's a negotiation thing either...I mean he can lower his bid if he wants (depending on what contracts have been signed).  It also goes to a shareholder vote.  Some of the 3rd party ones (prior to Elon's tweeting about it) were reporting estimates of 15%.  If it's truly that high, or worse higher then it actually does become quite an issue given it can detract advertisers if it's high (and being served to mostly bots)

 

Quite honestly though, if the deal falls through and he sells all his Twitter stock it's going to become a real nightmare for Twitter.  It's hard to survive as a company if the metrics you try selling to the stockholders turns out to be really fabricated.

[Hybris5112]

I could see Twitter being the vindictive savages they are trying to make themselves feel big by banning Elon but I think for the rest of the world its only going to hammer home what most people already know about Twitter: It's a toxic place. The only difference is that we would know for a fact that it is toxic both internally and externally.

 

I hope that Elon reveals the actual bot numbers because that would bring attention to a issue that all platforms are dealing with and that is the sheer number of bots that we all find annoying and destructive to the places we frequent.

[poochyena]

9 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's foolish to say he can't afford to purchase it

"can't afford" doesn't mean "doesn't have the money to make the purchase". Just because I have $2000 in the bank right now doesn't mean I can afford to buy a $2000 or even $1000 phone.

10 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Even at $350 Tesla price, his net worth from Tesla stock alone would be $62 billion.  Then if you consider SpaceX assuming only a $50 billion evaluation, that's still ~$20 billion.  So even very conservatively he has about $82 billion of funds available

having $82 billion net worth is not the same as having $82 billion funds available. Just because my house is worth $120k doesn't mean I have $120k in funds to spend.

4 hours ago, Hybris5112 said:

I could see Twitter being the vindictive savages they are trying to make themselves feel big by banning Elon but I think for the rest of the world its only going to hammer home what most people already know about Twitter: It's a toxic place.

How would banning the most toxic person on the platform show that its toxic? Wouldn't it do the exact opposite?

[Lord Bloobus]

Since he's proved he can't help but manipulate markets ("haha oopsie, my bad"), he should be sued for insider trading by the SEC, booted from boards and fined to the tune of billions for damages to markets directly and the trust in the overall trading economy. He's already been found guilty previously and you can tack his tweets to the rise and fall of stocks (usually private information), it's all about actually making him feel the heat with fines that actually have teeth.

[ultimatebob]

Yeah, I think that they would ban him eventually. They'll need to wait for him to say something really egregious, though, like something that breaks US law.

 

(Other than insider trading, they oddly seem to be cool with that)

[cat milker]

9 hours ago, poochyena said:

How would banning the most toxic person on the platform show that its toxic? Wouldn't it do the exact opposite?

I'm not an Elon Musk fanboy or anything, but how is he toxic? He makes good points, and shares funny memes and stuff from time to time. The most toxic person on the platform is either a dream stan or a someone from the government

[OrdinaryPhil]

I actually dislike Elon quite a bit but he isn't toxic. Twitter has always been a social dumpster fire and I don't think anything (or anyone) can change that. But things are basically on fire right now in American politics and Twitter has played a significant role in fanning the flames. Part of that role does involve the use of bot accounts to leverage social influence and so Twitter obviously wants to downplay the part the played in ... recent political events (trying not to say anything that can get me banned, lol).

I suppose the OP's question comes down to the people who ran Twitter prior to the buyout offer.

 

If twitter has been doctoring the numbers either directly or indirectly by adding followers to accounts that suite their political agenda - which would be defrauding everyone who paid time and money to advertise on their platform - than they would certainly want to keep that from being discovered. Their current behavior indicates this.

And if the powers-that-be at Twitter are the type and kind of people who would deceive and defraud the public, and they have shown themselves to be vindictive and petty in the service of their political agenda before; why would they not continue to be vindictive and petty in the future. I think it would be very consistent with their character to ban Musk and play the 'misinformation' card to justify it.

[OrdinaryPhil]

@poochyena;

 

You are entitled to think he is toxic. We can disagree on that. Based on your... "reasoning" I don't foresee us reaching a common understanding and so it would be pointless to continue.

more importantly, this is straying outside the scope of this thread. I've answered the OP's question by elaborating on why I think the answer to their question is yes. Debating the toxicity of Musk as a person will only further derail this thread.

If you want to talk about why you disagree with Musk politically, or if you want to talk about why his tweets bother you, perhaps starting a new thread would be a better way to go about that

[Kisai]

23 hours ago, avg123 said:

I feel like the moment he backs out of the deal, he gets booted off twitter as revenge. I dont think he will back off the deal. I think he is using the bot issue as a negotiation tactic to drive down the price and twitter saw through his bluff

No. That's stupid. Elon would just silently quit Twitter and leave people to speculate on the silence.

[LogicalDrm]

7 hours ago, ultimatebob said:

Yeah, I think that they would ban him eventually. They'll need to wait for him to say something really egregious, though, like something that breaks US law.

 

(Other than insider trading, they oddly seem to be cool with that)

Doesn't need to even say something that would be against the law. If the ToS of Twitter would be equal to all users, would just need to say something that's against ToS. Which, apparently, "dumb bitch" is when target is male. Somehow its fine when target is female, so no, I don't see Twitter banning him anytime soon.

[wasab]

If he backs out there will be 1 billion dollars penalty, at the very minimum and the Twitter board can take him to court and force him to buy at the agreed upon price instead of agreeing to a 1 billion dollar penalty if they wanted to. Warren Buffett has taken on a large long position on Twitter stocks anticipating the deal will go through at around 50ish dollars per share. At around 38 dollars it is trading now, that is a nice deal. 

 

On 5/19/2022 at 1:02 PM, poochyena said:

"can't afford" doesn't mean "doesn't have the money to make the purchase". Just because I have $2000 in the bank right now doesn't mean I can afford to buy a $2000 or even $1000 phone.

having $82 billion net worth is not the same as having $82 billion funds available. Just because my house is worth $120k doesn't mean I have $120k in funds to spend.

How would banning the most toxic person on the platform show that its toxic? Wouldn't it do the exact opposite?

That is a very good point. Elon can not simply use his massive wealth, which is mostly lock in his Tesla stocks for viarious reasons.

 

First off, directly selling Tesla shares would mean paying capital gains taxes which means he would need to sell well above the 44 billion dollars twitter asking price worth of tesla to cover the purchase. This massive sells can easily drive down price of tesla. For this reason, the Tesla board of directors placed a strict limit to how much Tesla stocks Elon can sell. Not to mentioned that it looks quite bad, or at least will give the people the wrong idea, if Elon, Tesla's own founder and CEO, is dumping stakes in his own company.

 

Alternatively, he can collaterialize his tesla shares and avoid selling and the taxes like all billionares do. Problem with this apporach however is that tesla stocks are so volatile that no banks are willing to lend him this much. Tesla is more volatile than bitcoins in fact. If elon does find some creditors who are willing to take the risk, Elon will himself be increasingly expose to the risk of a margin call should Tesla stock price fall significantly, which it very well may given how volatile it is. 

[Neroon]

On 5/20/2022 at 4:12 AM, cat milker said:

I'm not an Elon Musk fanboy or anything, but how is he toxic? He makes good points, and shares funny memes and stuff from time to time. The most toxic person on the platform is either a dream stan or a someone from the government

Well for 1 he scams people with pump and dumps. He buys BTC, says he will accept it for his cars, price goes up, he dumps it, claims BTC is bad for the environment (duh, we all knew that for 10 years already, he absolutely did as well), calls off accepting it for his cars, buys back BTC, and hey let's accept it again. Same kind of crap with Doge and Shiba.

 

This guy has the mind of a very intelligent kid, who has no remorse for anything and anyone. He does what he wants, whenever he wants, he doesn't care what happens, and will screw over people whenever he feels like it. I know talking about possible diagnosis is frowned upon, but I've been a mental health professional for nearly 15 years, and honestly his behaviour comes very close to that of a sociopath. Everything he does, publicly anyway, points in that direction. He is for sure a narcissist, and we know he has ASD (autism spectrum disorder), but for me it pushes it to sociopath, due to scamming people out of their money like that, while already being so filthy rich.

 

Quote

Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental disorder in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others. People with antisocial personality disorder tend to antagonize, manipulate or treat others harshly or with callous indifference. They show no guilt or remorse for their behavior.

 

[aisle9]

When Musk backs out of his Twitter deal, the stock will crater. He'll get Twitter anyway, but he'll pay a whole lot less to do it.

[wseaton]

Can buy a lot of wheat for 40 billion. Also build a lot of single family homes. Maybe if Elon doesn't buy Twitter he can spend some effort coming up with a solution for the grid issues in Texas and Cali so people can charge all their Teslas this summer during rolling blackouts. Oh wait....that would require an engineer.....

[clementishutin]

With all this back and forth from twitter for elon musk, it is kind of publicity for both.

[Mark Kaine]

On 5/25/2022 at 11:24 AM, wseaton said:

. Oh wait....that would require an engineer.....

I can be an engineer for 40bn, no problem!

 

On 5/25/2022 at 2:33 AM, aisle9 said:

When Musk backs out of his Twitter deal, the stock will crater.

shouldn't it go up having its near guaranteed destruction just avoided?

 

 

[aisle9]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

shouldn't it go up having its near guaranteed destruction just avoided?

 

 

If musk sells off his stake in Twitter, the stock collapses. Then he buys it all back cheaper.

[Mark Kaine]

57 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

If musk sells off his stake in Twitter, the stock collapses. Then he buys it all back cheaper.

doesn't he just have 10% or so?

 

also i cant say that makes any sense.

 

 

hostile takeover:  prices should go down

 

hostile takeover avoided: prices should obviously go up!

 

(thats besides Twitter being basically worthless so nothing of this makes sense, but thats "stock market" for you, I guess!)