Twitter Adopts Poison Pill in Bid To Thwart Elon Musk Takeover (axios.com) 249
Twitter's board on Friday enacted a defensive measure meant to deter Elon Musk's $43 billion hostile takeover bid. From a report: The "poison pill," as it's called in corporate terms, gives Twitter's existing shareholders time to purchase additional shares at a discount, thus diluting Musk's ownership stake. Musk disclosed a 9.2% stake in Twitter earlier this month. He then announced he was joining the company's board of directors and began proposing several changes to the platform, including turning the company's headquarters into a homeless shelter. [...] He later backed out of joining the board and offered to purchase the company for $54.20 a share, though he did specify how he planned to pay for it. Twitter said in a statement that "its Board of Directors has unanimously adopted a limited duration shareholder rights plan. ... The Board adopted the Rights Plan following an unsolicited, non-binding proposal to acquire Twitter."
So Musk can also buy at a discount? (Score:3, Interesting)
Musk is an existing shareholder. Thus he can buy additional shares at a discount. Since he's offering to buy all Twitter stock, that means he has enough money to buy more of these additional shares than other shareholders, thus solidifying his stake?
Re:So Musk can also buy at a discount? (Score:5, Informative)
The article was sparse on details, however SRP/Poison Pills typically only offer this discount to minority shareholders (e.g. 5% shareholders) or shareholders that have had shares vested for some period - in either case it would exclude Elon.
Nope they have that covered (Score:5, Informative)
Musk is an existing shareholder. Thus he can buy additional shares at a discount.
No, they already thought of this (not the first time a plan like this has been put in place):
In the event that the rights become exercisable due to the triggering ownership threshold (15%) being crossed, each right will entitle its holder (other than the person, entity or group triggering the Rights Plan, whose rights will become void and will not be exercisable)
From the more detailed news story [prnewswire.com] the Slashdot linked story pointed to.
Re: So Musk can also buy at a discount? (Score:5, Informative)
How is this decision good for shareholders?
Re: So Musk can also buy at a discount? (Score:5, Informative)
According to one of the members of the board he feels the growth potential of Twitter is more valuable than Musk's current offer. Considering this decision was unanimous it seems the board agrees and they are in fact the largest shareholders.
Re: So Musk can also buy at a discount? (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that is the Saudi that said that.
This brings up something that should have been obvious to me, but I missed it till just yesterday.
I'd not thought of foreign nationals owning majority shares of our US social media sites.
Talk about foreign influence over the US!?!?!?
I think that makes is very scary as to how much sway over US politics and culture and how we react and act towards other countries, IF they can control the narrative in the US.
That's almost better than buying politicians.
Perhaps we need to start by requiring social media sites to publicly the % of it being owned by non-US citizens, etc....so as to know how much/little to trust what is coming out of those information silos.
I'm guessing "hell yes" that the Saudis would figure very little money offered would be more valuable than holding sway over public opinion in the US.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
So, more government regulation over corporations? Who says the left and right wing can't agree on anything.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I don't think any of us really have a problem with govt requirements for food labeling, for example where seafood comes from (I don't buy foreign seafood)....
I wouldn't have a problem requiring US social media sites having a website label you could readily check to see potential non-US ownership and influence.
Would you have a problem with something as simple as that?
Hey, it could be like the "fact checkers" the SM sites have, they'd just have a crew
Re: (Score:3)
Well, I don't think any of us really have a problem with govt requirements for food labeling
My friend, there are more an-caps out there you might think. I have mad many a discussion with people who absolutely want to dissolve the FDA immediately and let "the free market" determine food safety.
I don't have problems with labelling foreign ownership, nor would I really have an issue with some specific laws limiting what kind of foreign ownership can be done and disclosures about it. In my improved system I would actually like the United States to have a large Sovereign Wealth Fund that exercises mo
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, I can't agree on this one. It would be WAY too much govt. intervention.
See now you have to accept that someone making the point that government intervention in social media and speech would also be considered "way too much".
Hell there is more and better precedent for governments being highly involved with healthcare (every other developed nation on earth, including large parts of the US) then getting directly involved in social media and speech (China, Russia and other autocracies)
Re: (Score:2)
I respectfully disagree...that intervention would be at the level of national security.
The healthcare is on the personal level of who says what treatment I can get and by whom, or even "if".
Besides, the US already had some "managed" healthcare programs and they have huge budget overruns and scads of problems (Medicare, Medicaid and VA).
Frankly, adding e
Re: (Score:2)
Well I disagree with that entirely. The health of the US citizenry is more a national security interest than their social media, 90% of which isn't actually about politics and there have always been arguments about the balance between security and freedom (Patriot Act anyone?). Our national security in the 21st century stems from our economic dominance and that stems from the productivity of the US workers and businesses. If anything our lack of health in this country is a yoke keeping us from reaching e
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, you have anecdotes and feelings, and not even any specific ones. Great arguments.
https://www.healthaffairs.org/... [healthaffairs.org]
According to CMS, for common benefits, Medicare spending rose by an average of 4.3 percent each year between 1997 and 2009, while private insurance premiums grew at a rate of 6.5 percent per year.
https://www.blogs.va.gov/VAnta... [va.gov]
87% of Veterans indicated they trust the VA since the outpatient services surveys have been deployed.
https://www.kff.org/medicare/i... [kff.org]
One percent of all non-pediatr
Re: (Score:3)
The things we deny government are also wrong in the hands of any other equally powerful entity or group. They must be stopped for men to be free.
You do realize this is a very anti-capitalist take right? This is an argument a socialist would make (the power should be in the hands of neither the government or the capital owners but the workers). I just want to make sure we are on the same page here.
I mean right now the issues with social media are fully capitalist, the government is pretty light touch because of the first amendment. One could make the argument that the government being involved is more democratic because we elect the government. No
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately conservatives have no actual arguments here, they oppose any reform because they have spent a decade plus railing against the ACA despite the fact that it is in fact "the conservative health care care system".
Republicans should be proposing a public option or German style multi-payer system that retains private insurance and provides a competitive marketplace for consumers versus a single payer plan. Since they backed themselves into a corner they have to take an entirely nonsensical and cont
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure your comment makes complete sense. You say you don't want your medical decisions made by the government. However, you have no personal decision in what does and does not get covered right now. Those are made by your insurance company. You still have no say in the issue.
This to me leads into the fact that by having the government responsible for making these decisions, at least at some level (not them directly but someone eventually responsible for it) they are actually elected. Private insurers are not electable, at least at any level the average American can actually vote at, and there are so few of them that they are colluding on prices. Blah blah "they have to" blah blah, whatever.
But any time I hear a right-winger go all high and mighty about how they don't want gover
Re: (Score:3)
Ahh...the real reason you oppose federalization of health insurance...As long as you get yours, who cares what happens to anyone else, right?
You forget that Skippy is someone's brother, someone's son, was someone's elementary school buddy...and Skippy may have very well been injured in Iraq serving your country, and then develo
Re: (Score:3)
Because not everyone has that luxury, in fact a majority of plans are at the "Silver" level which is kinda on par with medicare except medicare pays far less for equivelant services.
Also there is a moral argument to be made that peoples health should not be determined by if they can afford it. Most other countries have realized this and therefore they do have some degree of universal access be that with a multipayer system of both private/public services or single payer systems. Every other country pays l
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, I can't agree on this one. It would be WAY too much govt. intervention.
I do not want the Feds or local govt involved in my medical care and medical care decisions.
Ya have to admit - it is much better to have a corporation that makes more money by paying as little as possible for your health expenses.
I'm happy with the coverage, availability, choice and level of care I currently have.
Aha - this is what we call the "I got mine - fuck you!" outlook. I presume in rebuttal, you would gladly accept no medical treatment if you lost your job, and had no coverage, and as a man of your principal, would not accept any health care fropm the government.
I would not want my medical care and decisions made in the image of the common DMV (*shudder*).
So are you planning on suicide on your 65th birthday? I have bad news for you. At that point, you're getting com
Re: (Score:2)
The other big problem is that corporations spend a lot of money on "lobbying" (i.e. bribes) to politicians.
Since most corporations have foreign shareholders, then this would be illegal foreign lobbying in US politics.
Re: (Score:2)
The Saudi investor only owns like 5%-ish of Twitter.
Re: So Musk can also buy at a discount? (Score:5, Insightful)
And anyway I'm way more worried about foreign investors buying up all the single family homes than I am about them buying shares of Twitter. The Saudis control of Twitter is a lot less of a concern anyway and the fact that we're still heavily dependent on their oil because we refuse to shift to renewables. We've got way bigger fish to fry than Twitter
Re: (Score:2)
I'm concerned about this too.
I think we need to push heavily into renewables, and until they are a realistic medium for us to switch fully onto, I think we need to have the US Feds take off the restrictions and encourage extreme domestic oil producti
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the world, like life...is a contest. There are winners and losers. Your governments primary responsibility is to do what it can to make sure its citizens are in the winners bracket.
If you think differently, someone will cut your legs out from under you trying to win themselves.
Ideall
Re: (Score:2)
If we have problems with foreign nationals holding large stakes in US corporations we are just at the tip of the iceberg. What would you like to do about it?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I think we ALL should have a problem with their ownership of social media sites that have huge sway over US politics, culture and foreign policy.
This is a national security issue.
Either report the influence for people to see.
Force to be more of a common carrier model, so that the SM site cannot tune or manipulate what is said or what is seen and influence the US.
Those are a couple o
Re: (Score:2)
I guess you're also in favour of other countries regulating American social media companies then?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, of course I'd "prefer" to have everything to our advantage, after all, life is a contest.
But being realistic, I would expect it.
And, it's social media, I don't really give a damn much about it in other countries....they can use it or not, I don't care.
I know this is an alien concept (Score:2)
though he did specify how he planned to pay for it (Score:3)
He did? Or he didn't? Kind of important for the story. And I'm almost 100% sure it's "didn't"...
Finding secured (Score:2)
Maybe he specified "funding secured". :)
Re:though he did specify how he planned to pay for (Score:5, Funny)
He claimed Mexico is going to pay for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
$40,000,000,000+ business deals do not happen with "cash".
Re: (Score:3)
Do you really think Musk has $40 billion in liquidity he can just buy Twitter with? Or can just turn 40 billion worth of asset liquid in short order?
Nothing like this happens without Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan and their ilk being involved.
Wallstreetbets (Score:2)
Hodl TWTR !!
Seriously, who would sell twitter at this point?
MySpace (Score:2)
What they're afraid of, in a nutshell (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone who will actually hold the Twitter workforce and leadership accountable for weaponizing Twitter to support progressive causes. For example, someone like Musk who would order every moderator who has gone after the Babylon Bee to be fired with cause.
Or on a more ominous note, someone who who demand the firing of all of the employees who participated in shutting down the 2020 discussions about the Hunter Biden laptop story which is now absolutely not disputed by anyone except foaming-at-the-mouth anti-
I think they're more afraid (Score:3)
What they're doing is saying "Go away and stop fucking with our stock, we're not going to let you do that, and if you try you'll lose money".
Ordinarily companies don't have to do that, because the that's the SEC's job. But the SEC seems to have stopped doing it's job. That can't end well for any of us.
Re:I think they're more afraid (Score:5, Informative)
of Musk pump and dumping their stock.
He's offering a $20 premium buying the stock, and doing it very publicly. I don't think you know what a pump and dump scam is.
Re: (Score:2)
He already owns 9%.
He kept that quiet longer than the mandatory 10 day reporting period, which is currently the subject of a lawsuit from investors who feel they were the victims of a scam.
If he sells those shares and then announces he is giving up on buying Twitter, it will be a pump and dump.
Re: (Score:3)
> He kept that quiet longer than the mandatory 10 day reporting period, which is currently the subject of a lawsuit from investors who feel they were the victims of a scam.
He just offered them 30% more than they think they missed out on.
Re: (Score:2)
They're absolutely not afraid of a P&D (Score:2, Troll)
To the detriment of most of their shareholders. They brought in Goldman to publicly announce it was a bad deal, and then someone dug up Goldman's own ratings [gab.com] for Twitter...
Sell, PT: $30.
The idea they're afraid of a P&D is hilariously unsupported by the financial reality. The fact is that Musk offered Twitter shareholders an absolute steal of an exit plan for their stock beyond what Wall St thinks it's worth.
The major shareholders disagree with Goldman (Score:2)
You're also looking at it all wrong. When Goldman says sell they're not seeing you need to bail on Twitter they're saying that if you sell now you can buy back later if you want and make a profit. I
Re: (Score:2)
Let's never mind the fact that almost every conservative answer to what they want done about Twitter and social media involves more government regulation and enforcement of that regulation. But in this super special case they wouldn't dare call it "overreach" .
Re:What they're afraid of, in a nutshell (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone who will actually hold the Twitter workforce and leadership accountable for weaponizing Twitter to support progressive causes.
Actually they're probably afraid of losing control because they're ordinary humans.
Remember what a hostile takeover is, an attempt to offer enough money that enough of the shareholders agree to sell the company. Generally, if it's a good deal for the shareholders they'll accept.
However, these poison pills pop up in every hostile takeover. Why? Because the board members and senior management care more about protecting their jobs and are willing to hurt the shareholders' interests to do so.
Now, they also care about the company as they built it surviving, but they're essentially trying to keep their own jobs.
For example, someone like Musk who would order every moderator who has gone after the Babylon Bee to be fired with cause.
Or on a more ominous note, someone who who demand the firing of all of the employees who participated in shutting down the 2020 discussions about the Hunter Biden laptop story which is now absolutely not disputed by anyone except foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Trumpers who would deny the sky is blue if Trump said it was blue.
So what you want, in a nutshell, is an ideological purge of moderators you disagree with and "foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Trumpers". Moves I'm sure you frame as supporting "free speech".
Re: (Score:2)
Aw man, all you needed to mention was "but her emails!" and I could've nailed BINGO
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
The NYT is admitting no such thing. And the WaPo did piece on the laptop, there's nothing smoking there. The Biden "family" outside of Hunter isn't connected other than they tend to get together for things like Thanksgiving (A Conspiracy!!).
The only thing leaking are the brains out of your head. Stop believing Fox, bad for you, make you go blinkers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even the NY Times is admitting that the Hunter Biden laptop is not only real, but there is serious smoke coming from the Biden family.
Repeating something endlessly doesn't make it more true.
Re:What they're afraid of, in a nutshell (Score:5, Insightful)
I watched congress foam at the mouth for months all the while being unable to produce a single piss tape.
Must be missing something... (Score:2, Troll)
The Rights Plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders
What sort of control premium are they imagining here? Musk already offered to pay a decent premium above the market price of the stock.
AFAIK, you can't dilute a shareholder of common stock without issuing new shares, which dilutes all existing shareholders. They could issue preferred stock with increased voting power per share, and prevent Musk from purchasing those. There may still be workarounds though - he could be able pay proxies to buy up the preferred stock and later transfer it to him.
Blame Elizabeth Warren (Score:2)
She woke-shamed Elon Musk into selling some of his Tesla shares, now he has enough cash to get fooled into doing stupid stuff for the authoritarian nationalist mob. Congratulations you stupid greedy bitch.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
She woke-shamed Elon Musk into selling some of his Tesla shares, now he has enough cash to get fooled into doing stupid stuff for the authoritarian nationalist mob. Congratulations you stupid greedy bitch.
Musk didn't sell his Telsa shares because he was shamed into it, he sold his shares because Telsa is ridiculously overvalued. It's doubtful it can grow in value much more, and all that needs to happen is another car company to come out with a hit EV and/or self-driving car and the value plummets.
Re:Blame Elizabeth Warren (Score:5, Insightful)
Musk didn't sell his Telsa shares because he was shamed into it, he sold his shares because Telsa is ridiculously overvalued.
Elon Musk sold a bunch of shares because he had a giant pile of stock options maturing. He needed to get money to buy them, and then he needed more money to pay the tax bill on getting the money, and while he was at it he got an extra-large chunk of cash.
He sold a bunch of shares, but his options gave him even more shares, so net he ended up with more shares of Tesla [insideevs.com] than before he sold shares. So your theory that Musk was dumping Tesla stock because he knows it will be worth less in the future is trivially disproven.
It's doubtful [Tesla] can grow in value much more, and all that needs to happen is another car company to come out with a hit EV and/or self-driving car and the value plummets.
I disagree. I used to think that the legacy car companies would pose serious competition for Tesla, starting around 2020. It didn't happen, and hasn't happened yet, and it won't happen anytime soon. Real competition has to arrive at some point but Tesla will be several times bigger by then.
There is so much demand for Tesla cars that Tesla has been repeatedly forced to raise prices. Typical margins for the car industry have been around 7.5% in the past half-decade, and Tesla is making 30% per car, and now simply raising the price and still selling all their cars. Raising the price without costs going up means margins get better.
Why do customers keep buying Teslas even when Tesla raises prices? Because Tesla cars are actually better than other available BEVs. Watch a Sandy Munro car teardown video. My favorite was the Ford Mach E video where they showed all the little hoses and fasteners from the Mach E cooling system, and compared it to the shorter and simpler system in a Model Y. Every extra fastener is an extra point of possible failure, and all the extra hoses mean that a Mach E hauls around extra mass in the form of extra coolant. The punchline was when Sandy Munro said "this is the second-best car we have seen after a Tesla." In other words, every other BEV is worse.
Tesla has relentlessly automated their operations, and streamlined their designs, to the point where it takes a Tesla factory 10 hours to build a Model 3. VW takes over 30 hours to build their BEVs. VW has a total of 12 factories in Europe, and collectively those factories can build 1.9 million cars per year; Tesla built a single "gigafactory" in Germany that, once fully built-out, will be able to make over 2 million cars per year. This could be as soon as two years from now.
Tesla has contracts with major battery suppliers, bought battery companies to get their technology and people, built their own battery factories, and has long-term contract with raw materials suppliers.
Tesla doesn't have a dealer network and spends $0 per car on advertising. The legacy car companies have to charge a couple thousand dollars extra per car to recoup these two costs.
So put it all together. Tesla builds the cars faster than anyone else, for less money, and sells at a higher profit margin. Tesla already has better deals on batteries than anyone else, and is building out their own battery factories. So how is another company going to beat Tesla at their own game?
If legacy car companies want to sell BEVs against Tesla, they have to sell a worse product, they have to meet or beat Tesla's price which probably means they have to sell at a loss, and they need to find a supply of battery cells from somewhere. How many cars can a legacy company afford to sell at a loss? How many can they even build? GM's CEO Mary Barra has promised that by 2026, GM will be able to build 1 million BEVs per year; Tesla already built almost a million cars in 2021, and by 2026 could literally be building four million cars per year.
As for self-driving, look at the YouTube videos showi
Re: (Score:3)
One of the reasons Tesla has a 30% margin is they're selling so few cars that there's a lot of unmet demand. When they increase production prices will come down to meet them.
Another reason Tesla has a high margin is that electric cars are just less expensive to build if you do it right. A transmission has thousands of little parts; a Tesla doesn't have one. A Tesla doesn't have a smog control system. Tesla's production lines have heavy automation, Tesla has contracts to get batteries inexpensively, etc.
S
Re: (Score:3)
> doing stupid stuff for the authoritarian nationalist mob
Yes, the free speech people are the authoritarians and the political censors are the libertarians. :rolleyes:
Re: (Score:3)
I doubt Musk even knows who Warren is. Admittedly, she's dingbat, but not one anyone on the right takes seriously. . .unless. . .maybe she is involved in baby sales. You should look into that.
Legality of this? (Score:2)
Re:Legality of this? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit of an open question, but the relevant case law (so far) is Moran v. Household International, Inc. [wikipedia.org]
Moran v. Household International, Inc., 500 A.2d 1346 (Del. 1985) is a decision of the Delaware Supreme Court that upheld a shareholder rights plan (also known as a "poison pill") as a legitimate exercise of business judgment by Household International's board of directors. Moran is significant as the first case in which a U.S. state court upheld a shareholder rights plan.
The Delaware Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling.
Dear Twitter Shareholders (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo, and Yahoo Shareholders listened to their board and said no instead of taking a no-brainer overinflated cash offer given to them by a probably drunk Steve Ballmer?
Remember how they all got screwed with shares not even worth 10% of the value MS put on the company when Verizon bought Yahoo's corpse 9 years later?
Do you honestly see your share worth more 9 years from now than what is being offered today?
While you're thinking about that, Remember that Vine idea that Twitter bought and killed some years ago that some Chinese company cloned and is now dominating social media with?
So a poison pill (Score:2)
How much is owned by the Saudis? (Score:5, Informative)
Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth)@antoniogm
It's fascinating the outcry at the thought of Elon buying Twitter: We don't want this guy with the wrong values running the public square!
Meanwhile one of the biggest Twitter shareholders is....Saudi Arabia.
@elonmusk Replying to @Alwaleed_Talal @Twitter and @Kingdom_KHC
Interesting. Just two questions, if I may.
How much of Twitter does the Kingdom own, directly & indirectly?
What are the Kingdom’s views on journalistic freedom of speech?
Re: (Score:2)
Antonio García Martínez (agm.eth)@antoniogm
It's fascinating the outcry at the thought of Elon buying Twitter: We don't want this guy with the wrong values running the public square!
Meanwhile one of the biggest Twitter shareholders is....Saudi Arabia.
@elonmusk Replying to @Alwaleed_Talal @Twitter and @Kingdom_KHC
Interesting. Just two questions, if I may.
How much of Twitter does the Kingdom own, directly & indirectly?
What are the Kingdom’s views on journalistic freedom of speech?
Alwaleed bin Talal owns about 5.2% of Twitter [aljazeera.com]
Which is slightly less than what he owned of News Corp (ie, Fox News) [observer.com].
So... just how much emphasis do you want to put on the influence of a ~5% owner of a news or social media company?
Re: (Score:3)
So... just how much emphasis do you want to put on the influence of a ~5% owner of a news or social media company?
Maybe about ~5% emphasis? Which is pretty significant.
not a chance (Score:2)
There is absolutely zero chance of musk pulling this off.
There is no way they would hand over such a massive propaganda tool. I think the goal here is merely to make them squirm.
I so wish (Score:2)
I SOOO wish Musk would consider forcing them to take that pill. Not wise, I know. And not gonna happen. But one can dream, right?
Like a python swallowing a croc then bursts open.. (Score:2)
Simple (Score:2)
Meanwhile options go wild I guess.
Sir Musk can cause this kind of upstir wherever he wants.
I did not intend to use the word upstir in any negative connotation.
The problem I have with this (Score:5, Insightful)
They would be dumb not to accept his offer (Score:3)
We are now in a commodities rally. Tech stocks are probably going to drop off a cliff even more than they have.
If I was him I would just use that money and make my own Twitter.
I agree with Elon (Score:3)
...what does it mean that a company would rather self-immolate than let an outsider buy it.
Elon Musk is hardly right wing (what's his kid's name again, A12?) *but* he also isn't assertively woke.
It's not that someone antithetical to their ideals wants to buy them, it's someone who's not deeply dogmatic in precisely the same way.
Tell me again how important they feel their control is of this medium? THAT ALONE should compel the Fed to investigate...except that the current administration are complete fellow-travelers to the Twitterbois.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"face down the woke mob"? Really? What in all of this has literally anything to do with "facing down the woke mob"?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Since when has Musk been enlightened, compassionate or aware of the world?
For that matter, yeah, I know, there's a lot of species of bacteria in a person, but it's still not nice to call someone a mob.
Re:Cowards (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how huge multibillion dollar corporations, the stock market and other such bastions of free market capitalism become "far left woke mobs" as soon as you don't like the outcome.
Re: (Score:2)
It's the same old pllitical story. "The problem with this country today are all the people/organizations who don't agree with us!"
Re:Cowards (Score:5, Insightful)
Geez. Is everything seen through the lens of politics now? left & right, Dems & GOP ?
I'm not on twitter, don't care if it lives or dies. Social media is a cancer. I do appreciate Musk for what he has created in both SpaceX and Tesla (I own neither a Tesla nor Falcon) but don't agree with his personal positions on lots of issues. And I'm totally comfortable with this dichotomy. I feel no need to pigeon hole him or others based on their political views.
And importantly this poison pill has nothing to do with the politics and everything to do with corporate power. I think it's crap that they are doing this. If I were a shareholder I want my $54 per share now, thank you very much. And the board by doing this is entrenching their own power and that of their cronies. Total crap, but nothing to do with cultural politics, and the fact that people are sooo distracted by politics makes it easy for the power hungry to obtain more power with ease.
Re: (Score:2)
FWIW, it's my guess that Musk was after buying public influence in his offer, and the board was after retaining public influence in their response. I really doubt that either side expected to make any direct profit from their offer/response.
Re: (Score:2)
P.S.: With the kind of cash that Musk is throwing around, I really wonder how hard it would be to create a rival platform. It's not like Twitter was especially innovative. And he's got the money (and name) to buy advertising as needed.
Re: (Score:3)
It's about inertia, it is hard to overcome especially today in social media spaces. Twitters lack of "innovation" is one of the reasons it has a pretty loyal and active user base. A vast majority of people on the platform get exactly out of it what they want so they really have no reason to leave it for something else. This is very much following an 80/20 rule in my opinion, there are 20% of users who don't like how Twitter operates and they are the loudest.
I follow a lot of politics and news on Twitter
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Migrations is far from the issue. The incentive is the audience itself. People are going to go where their friends are, where their followers and the people they follow are. You need to reach a critical mass to get that switch to happen. Nobody cared who owned MySpace but when everyone knew people who were using Facebook and stopped posting to their MySpace pages so they just naturally migrated to there.
Even with an incentive it's not enough to keep people around. All the Twitter competitors that have s
Re: (Score:2)
It's about inertia, it is hard to overcome especially today in social media spaces.
Not really. You just have to wait for the next generation of kids to not want to use the service that their parents are on.
Titter - It's the choice of a new generation!
Re: (Score:2)
Very true, but Twitter has a very specific model compared to Facebook, TikTok or Instagram and to their credit they don't thinker with it too much. It's pretty clear so far that Twitter has avoided most of that intergenerational user shock as a large majority of their users are simply 18-65. A Twitter account is kinda the Nintendo console of social media. Everyone has one even if it's not their primary.
Re: (Score:2)
This also. For all the Twitter promotes the far left, the far right, etc etc. The top 50 followed accounts are dominated by entertainment and sports stars, followed by news feeds. Aside from Trump (kicked off) and Obama (? POTUS ended 5 years ago) there are zero politicians in the top 50. So it's only in the cultural political wars echo chamber that are certain people's lives that twitter is relevant in that regard.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, the political areas of Twitter are just the loudest but in reality they are a minority of users. I really don't think a lot of people here who are very opinionated on Twitter actually use it? There seems to be a mythical quality to what people think happens over there when a lot of it is pretty meaningless.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it's a style of Trumpism. "Wow, he's got one idea I agree with, and he's rich, so he must be right about everything, not like those other rich guys!" After which the brains shuts off and you start creating fan clubs, then litmus test for fan club membership, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey look everybody, I've found someone who thinks partisan politics started in 2016. I recommend you look a little further back and check out things like Yellow Dog Democrats to see that the whole I vote for my team regardless of what the sta
Re:Cowards (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Cowards (Score:3)
Although I agree with the idea, I get stuck on the part where it basically sounds like raiding somebody who is offering something.
I picture somebody who gives out bread in their front yard. You walked by and accept this bread and then started complaining about how it's made. Instead of doing it yourself, you instead get a bunch of other people that's accepted the bread together into a mob and basically chant how great it would be the day that you take over the house and throw the homeowner out on the street
Re:Cowards (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much agree with this. On the latter part, however, I can understand why large Twitter shareholders might think that the bid is undervalued. Twitter was as high as $77 as recently as February of last year, and over $60 for most of last year.
Everything is political (Score:2)
We've been taught our whole lives that politics is something dirty. What are the two things you never talk about? Politics and religion. Where conditioned to avoid politics so that we don't engage in the political systems that affect our daily lives and can leave a power vacuum that people who do make that
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Need to read the 8k to be certain, but there are a number of ways this could boomerang.
Under the Rights Plan, Musk is entitled to the same privileges as others were a third party to purchase stock beyond the ownership threshold.
One strategy would be to get someone else to purchase 15% of the stock. That would allow Musk to increase his stake at the exercise price (which it sounds like is half the regular stock price) to a larger level at a discount. Depending on whether there's a cap in the Rights Plan on w
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Admit it, homosexuality turns you on. Come out already.