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Elon's Giant Package

37 points| bceskavich | 3 years ago |readmargins.com | reply

40 comments

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[+] tomcam|3 years ago|reply
> He’s concurrently framed the entire purchase of Twitter under some nebulous vision of free speech.

On the contrary, it is the most concrete vision of free speech I can imagine. Elon said explicitly that he wants Twitter to support any legal speech. The United States has by far the most caselaw in the world detailing the use and restriction of speech.

[+] 4oo4|3 years ago|reply
I think to test this, to make sure it doesn't become Truth Social (where all speech is free, but speech against the owner is bannable), that someone needs to tweet critical and/or trolling things about Musk all the time, as a sort of canary. For example, this photo of him and Ghislaine Maxwell.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/07/03/20/30363780-8488279-...

I don't doubt his vision of free speech but I highly doubt his ability to prevent his ego from getting in the way of executing it. This is the same person that cancelled someone's Telsa order out of spite when they were overly critical of a launch event.

[+] 0xdeadb00f|3 years ago|reply
What Elon wants and what Elon delivers are two different things. We should know this by now.
[+] thomassmith65|3 years ago|reply
If Musk were actually buying Twitter instead of screwing the stock around for a few months, it would be a change, not a widening, in 'free speech'.

Likely more free if you want to robo-spam Dogecoin pump-and-dump schemes, convince suckers to 'hodl' tsla, or falsely accuse an enemy of being a 'pedo guy.'

Likely less free if you try to tweet the whereabouts of Musk's private jet, promote a union for Tesla factory workers, or be a politician with an ant-monopoly platform.

Personally I will avoid reading more posts about the Twitter sale for five or six months. If it's still on then, I'll accept it is real. Until, I assume it's just stock manipulation.

[+] asaramis|3 years ago|reply
is this for real and should I be angry?

Cathie Wood and ARK are selling too. While putting out a report with a price target of $4,600 for TSLA, they’ve been taking profits and trimming their TSLA position in their flagship ARKK fund from almost 4 million shares to less than 1 million. One of the biggest cheerleaders for Tesla is publicly saying the stock will quadruple, while cutting their holdings by 75%.

[+] hayd|3 years ago|reply
TSLA's gone up a lot in the last few years, perhaps 20% of Ark's market cap being in a single stock might be bad business? But I wonder if it's more likely to do with them losing 50% of their assets in less than a year:

> As of February 2021, the company had $50 billion in assets under management. By January 2022, assets had dropped to $23.9 billion, after a period of poor performance.

[+] blitzar|3 years ago|reply
> putting out a report with a price target of $4,600 for TSLA

That is the PR department.

> they’ve been taking profits and trimming their TSLA position

That is their fund mangement arm.

Are you for real and should I be angry? Were you really unaware that the words these people say on the tv, while helpfull for their current position, dont always reflect their actions or even actual beliefs?

[+] bombcar|3 years ago|reply
Cathie is a bit of a case and I'd stay away from the ARK fund myself (it's basically a bad way to own TSLA which was great when TSLA jumped) but that fund is limited to holding no more than some percentage as TSLA, maybe it was 10%?

Disclosure: I held TSLA in the past, not at this time, though I hold index funds that hold it.

[+] vmception|3 years ago|reply
No, you shouldn't be angry you should be objective.

The fund can have its own investment time horizon that has nothing to do with the time horizon and accuracy of the report.

[+] jdrc|3 years ago|reply
> After the past few weeks, can you imagine the public outcry if regulators tried imposing any limits at all?

Au contraire this makes it much harder for him to use it to manipulate the market. It would be like Bloomberg manipulating his other company stock.

Maybe he just wants to use the userbase to turn it to a payments platform

[+] ncmncm|3 years ago|reply
More likely, use it as a political platform.
[+] rkagerer|3 years ago|reply
Can someone explain this:

Now just imagine he does end up owning Twitter and taking it private. Musk can break every securities law related to public communication ever invented, and at worst, he’ll be fined relative pennies. If the GOP wins back Congress, could you imagine any regulator going after Elon if he reinstates Trump?

[+] blitzar|3 years ago|reply
> Can someone explain this

Its made up bullshit.

> Musk can break every securities law

Owning twitter does not make someone immune to the law.

> could you imagine any regulator going after Elon if he reinstates Trump

Yes, even when Trump was President his friends were prosecuted and jailed, friends of Presidents regularly go to jail. Giving Donald Trump, a regualar citizen, a twitter account does not a provide you with a get out of jail free card.

[+] cinntaile|3 years ago|reply
There is a claim in this article that says Elon Musk his Twitter account can't be banned by the SEC if he owns Twitter. The problem with that claim is that the law > Elon.
[+] john567|3 years ago|reply
I don't think that's it. The article is speculating. I do believe, maybe a bit naively, that Elon is actually doing this because he believes in free speech to protect democracy.

He has said, on numerous occasions, that he wants to advance society and make humans multi-planetary. And if that's due to his ego and how he wishes to be remembered then God bless his ego. He has made an amazing amount of interesting things happen!

Remember, he was part of Trump's advisory board, even for a short while. Whatever he learned might influence his decision. And I bet they are going to reverse a lot of bans...

Since Twitter doesn't make money and he's paying a lot of money for it, I wonder how he will turn such a large machine profitable specially when I believe Twitter have a large number of employees that oppose Elon's agenda. This is the most perplexing part to me.

Making Twitter a better place is a good thing though and it is a place where I've spent considerable time. I've been temporarily banned for using the wrong word combination in Tweets and I find that disgusting. I hope Elon can take the user base and improve on it. I do think that this overly suppressive direction Twitter has taken over the past time is the wrong choice. I am cautiously optimistic.

[+] jgalt212|3 years ago|reply
> The idea that the company would 11x its market cap was called ‘laughable’:

> Revenue ~5x’ed from~ $12 billion to $54 billion.

For every dollar I make for you, you pay me $2. What a deal.

[+] ncmncm|3 years ago|reply
Is the "giant package" double-entendre something already played out? I haven't paid enough attention to know one way or the other.
[+] mrlonglong|3 years ago|reply
It's his rockets and his testicles^WTeslas on the roads. Pretty phallic, no?