There was some grim stuff happening in the Chancery case: multiple bits of evidence suggesting that Peiter Zatko had in fact been in touch with Musk's team, in advance of the "whistleblowing" release. The Chancery court had just come in with an order giving Twitter extended discovery rights to look for those communications.
If it did turn out that Zatko had been talking to Musk's team, that would be a very big deal, not only undercutting a big part of Musk's current case (which he was set to lose anyways) but also falsifying several statements made both to the Delaware court and also to Congress(?!).
I wonder also if the appearance, performative as it is, that Musk is choosing to buy Twitter rather than being forced to buy Twitter is helpful for financing. He's more or less obligated to purchase Twitter, but there's no rule preventing him from offsetting the expense with a syndicate of co-investors; that syndicate might be easier to put together if he can shift the narrative.
Not surprising, this is actually the least-shitty path for Musk now.
He fucked up and his other alternatives were waaay more expensive (e.g. being forced to sell more stock and lose control of TSLA, shorters have a field day, people lose confidence on TSLA even though FSD is "one month away from working", it could all go down because of this).
No one sheds 44B "to honor a deal", at least not him, lol.
Epilogue: Matt Levine was on point all the time, I'd like to hear now from all the folks who were saying that Musk was going to get away with it.
inb4 "it was all 4D chess, this is what he wanted" Yeah, sure pal ...
My bet is on the rest of the communications being publicized by the court. Billionaires aren't used to their private texting being public like that.
Musk might like the circus around him, but a lot of people who have been texting him probably aren't enjoying the hundreds of news articles analyzing their private conversations. He could have gotten some communications that he'll become a persona non grata in many of his circles if he doesn't stop the court procedures immediately
I'm sure you already know this, but the deal has already been financed. He is not buying the whole Twitter by himself, just the majority. If co-investors bail out, investment banks who signed the deal take those stocks.
If you compare the purchase price to what Twitter likely would cost without the deal–using the price change of other social media platforms and internet ad platforms as a benchmark–it seems likely that Musk is paying ~$20 billion over the current market value.
If Musk wants to offload even more stocks, he takes huge haircut. At least 50% or more. It's likely better to wait for better times and restructure Twitter.
No matter how you look at it, this is horrible deal for Musk unless he can make Twitter shine again.
>If it did turn out that Zatko had been talking to Musk's team
42 days ago I commented on the Mudge whistleblower article that there is no way that news coming out at that moment was coincidence, and that the Silicon Valley powers-that-be were aligning against Twitter. Of course, I was accused of "blind hatred of Musk".
This community has some massive blindspots for it's heroes.
> If it did turn out that Zatko had been talking to Musk's team, that would be a very big deal, not only undercutting a big part of Musk's current case (which he was set to lose anyways) but also falsifying several statements made both to the Delaware court and also to Congress(?!).
I largely agree with this supposition, which makes it unfortunate that Musk (and co) can take a step like this to try to eliminate discovery that could point to perjury and a clear conspiracy for market-manipulation.
Twitter wants to keep looking in light of a mysterious email from May 6 that turned up in the files of Quinn Emanuel, a legal firm that represents Musk.
Specifically, someone reached out with an anonymous ProtonMail account on that date purporting to be a “former Exec at Twitter leading teams directly involving Trust & Safety/Content Moderation.” In the email, the sender suggests that Musk’s team get in touch on another platform (through “alternate secure means”) in order for them to provide information about Twitter.
One thing that’s odd about that letter — not the only thing, but one thing — is that it makes a demand on the Chancery Court to adjourn the trial. That is, it’s not a notice of settlement or even a request for adjournment, but some kind of weird attempt to bargain with the Chancellor, even though the issue at trial is whether Musk already reneged on this exact same offer. Not sure I understand what they’re trying to do here.
> If it did turn out that Zatko had been talking to Musk's team, that would be a very big deal, not only undercutting a big part of Musk's current case (which he was set to lose anyways) but also falsifying several statements made both to the Delaware court and also to Congress(?!).
But I was assured that Mudge is a hero of impeccable personal integrity, that he is beyond reproach, that only an ignorant brain-dead moron with no knowledge of greybeard hacking could even think that he might be anything less than a paladin of righteousness!
Seriously, though, that doesn't even begin to touch the Bad Shit coming out of discovery. For a guy claiming to be a centrist, he's co-ordinating with a pro-AfD/Putin German press baron, and for a "free speech champion" it's pretty odd that "the redacted senders and recipients lay the groundwork for a "war" and "battle" after Musk takes over Twitter — a "coordinated pressure campaign" that will lead to deplatforming of political enemies." (https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/15773449644046008...).
The fact that he's started tweeting pro-Putin talking points might be because of the political company that he keeps, perhaps it's because the source for Telsa and SpaceX's aluminium is Russia, but it's interesting that he's suddenly decided that he does want Twitter, after all, now that Ukrainian forces are making serious inroads toward the territory seized by Russia in 2014.
He got slammed in discovery, lost a lot of his pre-trial motions, and started losing a ton of his net worth by appearing like a buffoon. He was about to go into an emergency conference at the Delaware Chancery court, and I assume that he was being told "you are going to lose" by his lawyers if not the Chancellor herself.
There was some indication that Mudge may have been in contact with him. He lost a lot of discovery motions about bots. His own experts told him that he had no case about Twitter bots. This case has been a loser from the beginning, and I think he thought he could get a better price by doing this. He likely didn't want anything else to come out.
The Twitter board did a great job not bowing to the pressure.
It's interesting to consider how Musk's behavior might change if his net worth was more liquid. I'd expect him to buy up a platoon of lawyers, send them off to battle in his stead, and go join Larry Ellison on his island for mojitos at sundown.
Oh man, I’m usually not one for drama, but I really want this deal to go through.
I don’t use twitter and as such don’t really care if it implodes, but from what I’ve heard twitter has been a cesspool of negativity for a while now and on a slow but steady downtrend in general.
I’m sure Musk will try anything to recoup his investment, so it’ll either go out with a bang, or he somehow manages to pull a rabbit out of his hat and actually turn twitter around. Though I don’t think that’s very likely.
Either way it’ll be a fun pastime to follow the unfolding of it.
Stock up on the popcorn because once he lets the nutters loose on twitter to say anything and everything they want without limit other than a direct personal threat to someone or directly advocating terrorist actions, it's gonna be a real shit hole. That is if he wants to watch his $44 billion go up in smoke, no sane person will stay there amongst the nuts and Q's
I like Twitter for all it's spaceflight related stuff from NASA and ESA, DLR and others, where live streams can only occur in form of text and photo updates. I couldn't think of a replacement platform for this use case. Or current news events for which the press is to slow to publish, or where they quote Twitter as the source, like today's "Fuck you" message, which is something which might make it into some history books. Sometimes some IT related posts are interesting, from people who are at the source or generally have a very good understanding of the topic.
I never scroll my "feed" or whatever they call it.
Maybe get some first hand information on something before wishing to blow it up because someone told you it's bad? Never understood people taking joy and having fun watching others work get ripped apart.
I have no inside info but I think this is because he is getting wrecked by discovery. More and more about him is being leaked from that and he doesn't like it. He'd rather lose billions.
>Twitter issued this statement about today's news: We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC. The intention of the Company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share.
I'm not actually sure they would have made him go through with it vs. just pay some large fine to Twitter if he was insistent on wanting to get out. The issue is the road to get to that point would have run through a LOT of discovery and legal wrangling that was already starting to drag out some suspicious-looking stuff.
Maybe it's all nothing, but even so, fighting anything in court is a punishment of its own.
What if this whole thing was to shift the narrative from the sky is falling Musk should not be allowed to buy Twitter to let's force Musk to buy Twitter. Cost him +/- nothing.
I honestly don't know why people try and find weird and convoluted answers for a very simple events. The narrative that Musk shouldn't be allowed to buy twitter doesn't matter, it's as simple as that, there was no mechanism anyone had to stop him, and he showed no sign of bowing to that pressure when he was originally offering the deal. He only tried to pull out when he saw the stock market collapse. It's very simple.
And what have his shenanigans achieved? We now have all his text messages which prove all the worst fears of the people who don't want him to own it.
I am not a Musk fan and I really don't want him to buy Twitter. However, neither do I want him to get away with his shenanigans. I want to see, for a change, a billionaire held accountable.
But a court will not terminate or delay legal proceedings due to one party unilaterally offering to settle on the eve of trial, especially not if the offer is contingent on such court action. For the court to even delay proceedings this close to trial, both parties must approach the court requesting such a delay. And while this happens the overwhelming majority of the time when a settlement is being worked out, Musk is not a trustworthy counterparty and his prior behavior in this specific case works against him here. Twitter might be willing to delay the start of trial by a few days, but that's the best Musk will get unless he actually goes through with the acqusition.
There's no realistic possibility of the court terminating the proceedings before a deal closes unless Twitter withdraws its lawsuit. And they're not going to do that until the acquisition goes through, because if Musk pulls the rug out from under them again, they'd have to file a new lawsuit. That new lawsuit would be starting back at square one, and likely wouldn't be completed in time before the original offer expired.
Twitter makes $5B in revenue with -$0.5B in income. Musk would need to turn it into a profit machine to recoup some of his investment.
Per the annual report 2019[1] Twitter spent
- $1.8B in Cost of Revenue
- $1.2B in R&D
- $1.1B in Sales/Marketing
- $0.58B in Administration
- $0.76B in Litigation
Unlike other tech companies, it looks like a private Twitter can be profitable.
Elon could even do layoffs and move staff to cheaper locations like Europe. Salaries in States are much higher than they are in London/Ireland, for example[2].
This is fascinating and exciting to me, to be honest. Like a lot of people around here I'm sure, I've spent a lot of time thinking about Twitter's influence on our society and I can't say it's positive. The degree to which politicians all now depend on it unquestioningly bothers me a lot. The way our adversaries use it to subvert us is worrying. What it does to people's health isn't good.
Musk is the one billionaire that I honestly believe thinks of humanity's best interests in the big picture, long term. He's clearly identified Twitter and social media in general as a challenge to be wrestled with. Just really glad about it tbh.
[+] [-] tptacek|3 years ago|reply
If it did turn out that Zatko had been talking to Musk's team, that would be a very big deal, not only undercutting a big part of Musk's current case (which he was set to lose anyways) but also falsifying several statements made both to the Delaware court and also to Congress(?!).
I wonder also if the appearance, performative as it is, that Musk is choosing to buy Twitter rather than being forced to buy Twitter is helpful for financing. He's more or less obligated to purchase Twitter, but there's no rule preventing him from offsetting the expense with a syndicate of co-investors; that syndicate might be easier to put together if he can shift the narrative.
[+] [-] moralestapia|3 years ago|reply
He fucked up and his other alternatives were waaay more expensive (e.g. being forced to sell more stock and lose control of TSLA, shorters have a field day, people lose confidence on TSLA even though FSD is "one month away from working", it could all go down because of this).
No one sheds 44B "to honor a deal", at least not him, lol.
Epilogue: Matt Levine was on point all the time, I'd like to hear now from all the folks who were saying that Musk was going to get away with it.
inb4 "it was all 4D chess, this is what he wanted" Yeah, sure pal ...
[+] [-] shmatt|3 years ago|reply
Musk might like the circus around him, but a lot of people who have been texting him probably aren't enjoying the hundreds of news articles analyzing their private conversations. He could have gotten some communications that he'll become a persona non grata in many of his circles if he doesn't stop the court procedures immediately
[+] [-] Nokinside|3 years ago|reply
If you compare the purchase price to what Twitter likely would cost without the deal–using the price change of other social media platforms and internet ad platforms as a benchmark–it seems likely that Musk is paying ~$20 billion over the current market value.
If Musk wants to offload even more stocks, he takes huge haircut. At least 50% or more. It's likely better to wait for better times and restructure Twitter.
No matter how you look at it, this is horrible deal for Musk unless he can make Twitter shine again.
[+] [-] itsoktocry|3 years ago|reply
42 days ago I commented on the Mudge whistleblower article that there is no way that news coming out at that moment was coincidence, and that the Silicon Valley powers-that-be were aligning against Twitter. Of course, I was accused of "blind hatred of Musk".
This community has some massive blindspots for it's heroes.
[+] [-] nrmitchi|3 years ago|reply
I largely agree with this supposition, which makes it unfortunate that Musk (and co) can take a step like this to try to eliminate discovery that could point to perjury and a clear conspiracy for market-manipulation.
[+] [-] tpmx|3 years ago|reply
Edit: Not exactly proof of contact between Zatko and Musk, but found this:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/04/twitter-musk-zatko-whistle...
Twitter wants to keep looking in light of a mysterious email from May 6 that turned up in the files of Quinn Emanuel, a legal firm that represents Musk.
Specifically, someone reached out with an anonymous ProtonMail account on that date purporting to be a “former Exec at Twitter leading teams directly involving Trust & Safety/Content Moderation.” In the email, the sender suggests that Musk’s team get in touch on another platform (through “alternate secure means”) in order for them to provide information about Twitter.
[+] [-] HillRat|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voisin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rodgerd|3 years ago|reply
But I was assured that Mudge is a hero of impeccable personal integrity, that he is beyond reproach, that only an ignorant brain-dead moron with no knowledge of greybeard hacking could even think that he might be anything less than a paladin of righteousness!
Seriously, though, that doesn't even begin to touch the Bad Shit coming out of discovery. For a guy claiming to be a centrist, he's co-ordinating with a pro-AfD/Putin German press baron, and for a "free speech champion" it's pretty odd that "the redacted senders and recipients lay the groundwork for a "war" and "battle" after Musk takes over Twitter — a "coordinated pressure campaign" that will lead to deplatforming of political enemies." (https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/15773449644046008...).
The fact that he's started tweeting pro-Putin talking points might be because of the political company that he keeps, perhaps it's because the source for Telsa and SpaceX's aluminium is Russia, but it's interesting that he's suddenly decided that he does want Twitter, after all, now that Ukrainian forces are making serious inroads toward the territory seized by Russia in 2014.
[+] [-] jfoster|3 years ago|reply
What evidence is that?
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] la64710|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pclmulqdq|3 years ago|reply
There was some indication that Mudge may have been in contact with him. He lost a lot of discovery motions about bots. His own experts told him that he had no case about Twitter bots. This case has been a loser from the beginning, and I think he thought he could get a better price by doing this. He likely didn't want anything else to come out.
The Twitter board did a great job not bowing to the pressure.
[+] [-] sidcool|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smoldesu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Version467|3 years ago|reply
I’m sure Musk will try anything to recoup his investment, so it’ll either go out with a bang, or he somehow manages to pull a rabbit out of his hat and actually turn twitter around. Though I don’t think that’s very likely.
Either way it’ll be a fun pastime to follow the unfolding of it.
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwertox|3 years ago|reply
I never scroll my "feed" or whatever they call it.
[+] [-] endorphinbomber|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nrmitchi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snarf21|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kjs3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 323|3 years ago|reply
Would they force him to buy Twitter? Pay a fine?
[+] [-] mikkergp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r721|3 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/twitterir/status/1577380758192197632
[+] [-] datalopers|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noirbot|3 years ago|reply
Maybe it's all nothing, but even so, fighting anything in court is a punishment of its own.
[+] [-] qaq|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavlov|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SilverBirch|3 years ago|reply
And what have his shenanigans achieved? We now have all his text messages which prove all the worst fears of the people who don't want him to own it.
[+] [-] malshe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gamblor956|3 years ago|reply
But a court will not terminate or delay legal proceedings due to one party unilaterally offering to settle on the eve of trial, especially not if the offer is contingent on such court action. For the court to even delay proceedings this close to trial, both parties must approach the court requesting such a delay. And while this happens the overwhelming majority of the time when a settlement is being worked out, Musk is not a trustworthy counterparty and his prior behavior in this specific case works against him here. Twitter might be willing to delay the start of trial by a few days, but that's the best Musk will get unless he actually goes through with the acqusition.
There's no realistic possibility of the court terminating the proceedings before a deal closes unless Twitter withdraws its lawsuit. And they're not going to do that until the acquisition goes through, because if Musk pulls the rug out from under them again, they'd have to file a new lawsuit. That new lawsuit would be starting back at square one, and likely wouldn't be completed in time before the original offer expired.
[+] [-] braydenm|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lvl102|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karamanolev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gilbetron|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coolgoose|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nyokodo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flerchin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxys|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] incahoots|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peppertree|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] outside1234|3 years ago|reply
Now, in terms of Twitter, I worry.
[+] [-] SpacePortKnight|3 years ago|reply
Per the annual report 2019[1] Twitter spent
- $1.8B in Cost of Revenue
- $1.2B in R&D
- $1.1B in Sales/Marketing
- $0.58B in Administration
- $0.76B in Litigation
Unlike other tech companies, it looks like a private Twitter can be profitable.
Elon could even do layoffs and move staff to cheaper locations like Europe. Salaries in States are much higher than they are in London/Ireland, for example[2].
[1] https://s22.q4cdn.com/826641620/files/doc_financials/2021/ar...
[2] https://www.levels.fyi/companies/twitter/salaries/software-e...
[+] [-] hbcondo714|3 years ago|reply
Funny the title of this post sounds like he made a tweet that turned into a SEC filing.
[+] [-] benlumen|3 years ago|reply
Musk is the one billionaire that I honestly believe thinks of humanity's best interests in the big picture, long term. He's clearly identified Twitter and social media in general as a challenge to be wrestled with. Just really glad about it tbh.