Elon Musk Offers To Buy Twitter For More Than 40 Billion | Talking Points Memo

TPM Article Topics
1

Elon Musk Offers To Buy Twitter For More Than 40 Billion EDITORS' NOTE: TPM is making our COVID-19 coverage free to all readers during this national health crisis. If you’d like to support TPM's reporters, editors and staff, the best way to do so is to become a member. Elon Musk gestures as he speaks during a press conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas on February 10, 2022. - Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk delivered an eagerly-awaited u... Elon Musk gestures as he speaks during a press conference at SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village in South Texas on February 10, 2022. - Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk delivered an eagerly-awaited update on SpaceX's Starship, a prototype rocket the company is developing for crewed interplanetary exploration. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) MORE LESS Tesla CEO Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, which amounts to about  $43 billion, on Wednesday after becoming the social media giant's biggest shareholder by buying a 9.2 percent stake in the company. Musk argued in his offer to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor that Twitter needed to become a private company because it was currently failing to "serve" the "societal imperative" of free speech. If Twitter accepts Musk’s bid, then the Tesla CEO, who’s repeatedly railed against online “censorship,” could be poised to restore ex-President Donald Trump's Twitter account, as Republicans hope. Follow the developments live:

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1413219
2

South African richie-rich, go fuck yourself.

8 Likes
3

Fascist Apartheid MoneyBro threatens to stamp off in a huff. Fuck that guy.

4 Likes
4

I have to confess, when I saw the headline, I had a momentary fantasy of all the progressives on Twitter taking a hiatus, leaving Twitter to the fate of Truth Social.

9 Likes
5

He could probably get Truth Social (Disease) for a song…

7 Likes
6

How much is Elon Musk worth? Where does his money come from?

7

He’s worth something on the order of a quarter trillion dollars. Musk was one of the founders of X.com an on-line bank that merged with another bank to become Pay-pal. Prior to that he owned a web software company that Compaq acquired.

3 Likes
8

So he’s gonna dump his stock if he can’t own Twitter outright?

Whiny-assed Titty Baby.

3 Likes
9

Twitter should take the money and start a new Twitter. They can call it “Twitter” since the old Twitter will be renamed “Parler 2.”

6 Likes
10

These days? Largely government contracts and electric vehicle subsidies.

His wealth is mostly in the form of Tesla stock (which is insanely overvalued and will go poof sooner or later) and his stake in SpaceX (largest shareholder, but still a private company).

11

So far, I’m holding on to this from Max Kennerly:

"Good news, IMHO: this is not a great offer, it’ll be easier for the Board to fight. It’s above share price, but it’s not a significant enough premium and it offers no efficiencies.

(I own TWTR call options because I figured he’d try something like this.)" https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1514563179711549444?s=20&t=_jKFogOOycnUrxOYLp0Ldw

3 Likes
12

I’m even happier that I sold my Tesla now than I was when I sold it.

Not that I give a twit about Twitter, I’ve never tweeted nor will I ever do so.

2 Likes
13

Basically a lie, but that is always easier than the truth. He owns about 17% of a company which had 7 billion in profits last year, is just about doubling sales every year and is one of the 3 companies with most advanced AI for cars (Waymo and GM are the other 2). Sales in EV’s are more than doubling every year. I would peg Tesla at being worth about 500 billion, I agree with you that it is overvalued but it’s not just going to disappear.

Tesla is also one of the leading producers of utility scale battery projects.

2 Likes
14

I didn’t claim that Tesla is going to disappear, just that its stock is way overpriced and will eventually collapse. Tesla’s days of holding a near-monopoly on electric vehicles are coming to an end.

12 Likes
15

If he did take twitter private, I would leave.

Elon Musk considers himself to be the contrarian intellectual you knew in college who would say things like, “OK, hear me out - maybe Stalin’s purges weren’t such a bad thing…”

Why give money to that troll?

9 Likes
16

Anyone else unable to see the live updates?

1 Like
17

While I am not so secretly envious of Tesla’s (I like the design and some performance aspects) I don’t want to give more money to some asshole who’s contemptuous of laws, regulations, and a system of taxation that that are allegedly set up to benefit the citizens of this country.

Musk considers himself to a Libertarian, which I’ve seen described as a republican who smokes pot.

No thanks - he already has an outsized influence on American society.

11 Likes
18

If I was a twitter shareholder I would take the money.

19
1 Like
20

but Prince Alwaleed bin Talal,

1 Like