[selfportrait]

It’s quite rational to buy a company for tens of billions of dollars on the campaign of “cleaning up the bots”, troll and disparage the entire way through, publicly declare yourself Republican amidst the frenzy, and then act shocked that there are bots and withdraw from the deal for a “positive expected value” chance at a lawsuit while running a bunch of other companies amidst inflation and worries of recession. Very rational behavior for a very rational guy with billions of dollars, 100 million Twitter followers and a cult of personality.

[cato_the_elder]

Rationality of him trying to buy Twitter is up to debate. I'm talking about deciding what to do when you promise to buy at a high price, and tech stocks crash afterwards. Given that, what he's doing now (trying to pull out) seems rational to me.

[selfportrait]

He’s not trying to pull out because of some great strategy on his part — he’s lied to your face and everyone’s else’s by ridiculously suggesting Twitter lied about the bots and that he’s surprised there are bots when that was the whole message in the first place: buying Twitter to rid it of bots (and free speech or whatever other lie he’s clinged to). He’s mired the whole process in controversy and has shown repeated contempt for the law and his own contractual obligations.

Let’s also not forget the core of the matter: this is a class issue through and through. One of the most wealthy and powerful people on earth — propelled by government subsidies and contracts for his companies Tesla, SpaceX, etc. — is only able to do what he’s doing, and flaunt his contempt only because he is rich and powerful. Very few people would be able to do what he’s done and run away with it: calling somebody a pedophile with no cause, essentially claiming victory over his battle with an ineffectual SEC over his misbehavior, getting into a contract with Twitter with a populist energy and dominant conservative support only to (no surprise) cancel it last second etc.

This is an issue of wealthy people evading the rules everyone else has to play by under threat of violence (lawsuits, prison, etc.)

The amount of effort his cultists put to defending him and arguing that this is some brilliant play is beyond ridiculous.

[sethrin]

Sure, but that conversation should have been between him and his lawyers, and between his lawyers and Twitter's lawyers. He might have actually had a chance, if he had. As is, he can't win for losing.