It took me about 3 seconds to realize that after the stock market crashed, Elon wanted to get a better price. The 5% stuff is just a random excuse.
- "I'm going to buy twitter", buys a bunch of shares, has to report it
- Board says "No", adopts poison pill
- "Fine, I'll make you let me buy you" submits a contingent but binding offer to the board.
- Board says, well, our duty is to the shareholders, you're offering a big premium, we accept, here's a bunch of terms to keep you from backing out without paying them something.
- "Ha Ha!" shouts Elon, "I've proven I can buy anything now!"
- Yes, yes, say the banks as they bind him and his companies stock to the tender offer, you can buy that, we just want TSLA stock, that's fine.
- Stock market looks at the situation and says "wat", down-values TSLA because their CEO is spending his time buying... a social media platform?
- Musk starts to see the writing on the wall and realizes if he can't make twitter substantially more valuable in the short term, he's on the hook for a large chunk of his personal wealth (which hurts) but also a large chunk of his company (which hurts the ego) and starts to suffer buyers remorse.
- "Ha ha" says the board, you can get out any time you'd like, we'd just like our 10-digit check.
- looks for an escape clause - maybe you committed securities fraud Mr. Twitter? Check again for me would you?
I mean, broad strokes, this has been the saga in front of us - rich man wants to do something silly, gets told no, gets more determined, and fights tooth and nail, and finally, regrets his decision.
So now, _either_ he was short-sighted and wanted to buy a company he'd failed to do due diligence on and is trying to get out of the purchase that way, OR he has heap big buyers remorse, pays a billion and gets out of it that way, or he becomes the proud partial owner of a social media company with limited network effects. Who knows, but he had already staked up 7% or so beforehand - so 3B give or take, didn't back down looking into their numbers then, and only _after_ ponying up another 35B did he think, you know, maybe this is a bad idea.
But I just got an air popper, so please, let the show go on.
What if there's internal data indicating that it's closer to, like, 30%?
In that case, a buyout offer conditional on a DAU audit is certain to expose that data, and that's checkmate for TWTR.
Musk can then either buy it at a massive discount, or use the enormous amount of free press to launch a competitor with mandatory device attestation.
If you could save a few billion wouldn't you?
It's a negotiation, and with the markets turning, he's got all the cards.
The cost of reneging is only 1bn, and the company would probably lose half it's market cap if the deal fell through
Almost everything people believe about Musk is lies and BS. Do you have anything to back up what you're saying? Otherwise you're just adding more lies and BS on to the pile.
Why is wanting a better price such an issue? "The 5% stuff" is like when information surfaces about a faulty or inaccurate odometer reading on the used car you're about to buy. If tampered with, let's negotiate a new price.
