Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter outright
Posted: 14 Apr 2022, 13:17
For $41bn. A greater than 50% uplift on the value before he started investing in January.
His goal is to take it private and transform it. He also says he has no confidence in the board. In other words, the moment he owns it, the board is toast.
This is a bit of a rock and a hard place for Twitter. First the share price is high because Musk has decided the fastest way to the kind of short message service he wants is to buy it. But the implied threat is that if they do not take the offer and fall on the sword of Musk's reorganisation, then that $41bn will be used to fund a startup messaging service. Musk himself will go to that service, bringing 80m twitter users with him overnight. Something which could take a new chat/messaging service a decade to reach.
The board of Twitter have clearly shown themselves to not have the vision to expand Twitter to [x] billions of users and be completely pervasive. They are left with an essential hostile takeover which if they decide to reject it, morphs into a hostile new company intent on taking their business.
I'm sure the Twitter board thought it was a really good idea to offer Musk a seat on the board and try to cap him at 15%. I'm wondering if they think it was such a good idea now? Everybody who voted for that one (minuted in the company minutes), is for a long walk off a short plank should Musk take over. There they were congratulating themselves on marginalising that "Insane person", to quote some of the more Woke twitter staff, only to find themselves facing the wrong end of a rather large gun.
Sometimes I wonder if these people actually read anything other than what they write themselves? The wall of the echo chamber has been torn down, the mists of self deception have been blown away and the comfort blanket is lying in shreds on the floor.
The only question now is "do they have the balls to fight or will the fold?".
I'm with lots of shrieking, bleating, lots of "you can't do that, it offends me", then fold. But I might be wrong.
Whatever they choose there are only two options. Fight of their lives or fold.
Given that Musk's personal followers number 39% of the entire Twitter daily patronage, I'd be more than a tad concerned.
His goal is to take it private and transform it. He also says he has no confidence in the board. In other words, the moment he owns it, the board is toast.
This is a bit of a rock and a hard place for Twitter. First the share price is high because Musk has decided the fastest way to the kind of short message service he wants is to buy it. But the implied threat is that if they do not take the offer and fall on the sword of Musk's reorganisation, then that $41bn will be used to fund a startup messaging service. Musk himself will go to that service, bringing 80m twitter users with him overnight. Something which could take a new chat/messaging service a decade to reach.
The board of Twitter have clearly shown themselves to not have the vision to expand Twitter to [x] billions of users and be completely pervasive. They are left with an essential hostile takeover which if they decide to reject it, morphs into a hostile new company intent on taking their business.
I'm sure the Twitter board thought it was a really good idea to offer Musk a seat on the board and try to cap him at 15%. I'm wondering if they think it was such a good idea now? Everybody who voted for that one (minuted in the company minutes), is for a long walk off a short plank should Musk take over. There they were congratulating themselves on marginalising that "Insane person", to quote some of the more Woke twitter staff, only to find themselves facing the wrong end of a rather large gun.
Sometimes I wonder if these people actually read anything other than what they write themselves? The wall of the echo chamber has been torn down, the mists of self deception have been blown away and the comfort blanket is lying in shreds on the floor.
The only question now is "do they have the balls to fight or will the fold?".
I'm with lots of shrieking, bleating, lots of "you can't do that, it offends me", then fold. But I might be wrong.
Whatever they choose there are only two options. Fight of their lives or fold.
Given that Musk's personal followers number 39% of the entire Twitter daily patronage, I'd be more than a tad concerned.