Article: Elon Musk Offers To Buy Twitter

[Reid1boys]

Really not sure why he'd want it seeing how Twitter is pretty much in it's final form. It's not like there's gonna be a lot of future innovation that dramatically changes the way people post 280 characters. The only value Twitter has is traffic and it's hard to imagine there's an untapped market anywhere in the world at this point.

Maybe there's more to Twitter than I know about. I only have an account to view content that is linked on other platforms.

well... he doesnt advertise Tesla... at all. He could have limitless free advertising on Twitter.

 

[triplets_93]

 

[Creeper]

I guess everyone saw this coming. I never thought it was smart for him to buy Twitter so I think him backing out of the deal makes sense. Twitter clearly lied about the number of bots and spam accounts.

 

[Reality]

I guess everyone saw this coming. I never thought it was smart for him to buy Twitter so I think him backing out of the deal makes sense. Twitter clearly lied about the number of bots and spam accounts.

I agree. Given the drop in Twitter's market cap (as with most companies the last few months) and the higher-than-disclosed percentage of bot accounts, he would be stupid to pay $44 billion for it.

That said, I will not be surprised if he makes a second offer at some point with an adjusted and lower price.

 

[dsturgeon]

I agree. Given the drop in Twitter's market cap (as with most companies the last few months) and the higher-than-disclosed percentage of bot accounts, he would be stupid to pay $44 billion for it.

That said, I will not be surprised if he makes a second offer at some point with an adjusted and lower price.

There was a reason for the dog and pony show, but I am not sure what it was. Whether elon bought it or not, blackrock, statestreet, and vanguard own it, and they own each others companies, and morgan stanley is the other company listed in the top 5 of the shareholders of twitter. I would guess blackrock, state street, and vanguard own huge portions of morgan stanley, and musks other companies

 

[Reality]

 

[Creeper]

A lot of people have been curious about Twitter's bot accounts for a while. I think Twitter doesn't really want to know what the actual bot count is, they would rather go with their estimate. Twitter reportedly has 400 million accounts. 5% is 20 million bots. I have no idea how many bots Twitter can detect per day, but if there are 20 million there could be 40 million.

I am agreeing with Musk on this one. I think there are way more than 20 million bot accounts on Twitter. I have seen new accounts suddenly gain hundreds of thousands, even millions, of followers almost over night. And it is not just Twitter that benefits from bot accounts. Monetized accounts claiming to have millions of followers are potentially defrauding their sponsors too. If this goes to court, I think Twitter has a lot to lose too. If the courts forces a third party audit of twitter accounts and they come back with a larger number of bots, there are going to be all kinds of lawsuits flying around for Twitter and also some major Twitter users who have been paid for sponsored tweets.

I think Musk will force this issue if Twitter plays hardball with him.

On the other hand, Twitter has gone through major account purges multiple times. They could argue they were making a good faith attempts to manage the bot problem. Still, if the number exceeds 5% Musk can walk away.

 

[Reality]

A lot of people have been curious about Twitter's bot accounts for a while. I think Twitter doesn't really want to know what the actual bot count is, they would rather go with their estimate. Twitter reportedly has 400 million accounts. 5% is 20 million bots. I have no idea how many bots Twitter can detect per day, but if there are 20 million there could be 40 million.

I am agreeing with Musk on this one. I think there are way more than 20 million bot accounts on Twitter. I have seen new accounts suddenly gain hundreds of thousands, even millions, of followers almost over night. And it is not just Twitter that benefits from bot accounts. Monetized accounts claiming to have millions of followers are potentially defrauding their sponsors too. If this goes to court, I think Twitter has a lot to lose too. If the courts forces a third party audit of twitter accounts and they come back with a larger number of bots, there are going to be all kinds of lawsuits flying around for Twitter and also some major Twitter users who have been paid for sponsored tweets.

I think Musk will force this issue if Twitter plays hardball with him.

On the other hand, Twitter has gone through major account purges multiple times. They could argue they were making a good faith attempts to manage the bot problem. Still, if the number exceeds 5% Musk can walk away.

I think the market valuation decrease due to the drop in the stock market overall is the real reason behind him pulling out of the deal as it was.

That said, I do agree that he has a valid argument about the bot problem on Twitter.

However, no one is talking about the real problem Twitter is facing.

Twitter claimed only 5% of their accounts were bots in official SEC filings. As a public company, that information must be valid and accurate.

If Twitter was to find/prove that it was more than 5%, especially a lot more, then the SEC would likely investigate the company and all Twitter shareholders could conceivably file a class-action lawsuit against the company for misrepresenting their public disclosure details.

In other words, Twitter has a lot of incentive to never confirm or admit that more than 5% of their user accounts are bots.

The best strategy for Twitter's board would be to negotiate a lower purchase price with Elon Musk under the premise of the "major market downturn" being the justification.

If this does go to court, Elon Musk's lawyers will inevitably subpoena the data Twitter refused to provide. That could create a lot of financial headaches for Twitter, including SEC investigations and fines as well as shareholder lawsuits, even if they win a settlement from Musk beyond the $1 billion agreed to exit fee.

 

[CalPolyTechnique]

Y’all are hearing one side of matter from Musk and taking it as gospel.

This will be settled in court.

 

[Creeper]

I think the market valuation decrease due to the drop in the stock market overall is the real reason behind him pulling out of the deal as it was.

That said, I do agree that he has a valid argument about the bot problem on Twitter.

However, no one is talking about the real problem Twitter is facing.

Twitter claimed only 5% of their accounts were bots in official SEC filings. As a public company, that information must be valid and accurate.

If Twitter was to find/prove that it was more than 5%, especially a lot more, then the SEC would likely investigate the company and all Twitter shareholders could conceivably file a class-action lawsuit against the company for misrepresenting their public disclosure details.

In other words, Twitter has a lot of incentive to never confirm or admit that more than 5% of their user accounts are bots.

The best strategy for Twitter's board would be to negotiate a lower purchase price with Elon Musk under the premise of the "major market downturn" being the justification.

If this does go to court, Elon Musk's lawyers will inevitably subpoena the data Twitter refused to provide. That could create a lot of financial headaches for Twitter, including SEC investigations and fines as well as shareholder lawsuits, even if they win a settlement from Musk beyond the $1 billion agreed to exit fee.

I will be curious to see how the SEC handles any findings that Twitter underestimated the bots. Will they take it seriously and fine or indict Twitter execs, or will they slap them on the wrist and let the shareholders file a class action lawsuit? I know how federal regulators handled banks with anti-money laundering mistakes and it was no joke. But I think the SEC will go easy on Twitter and let the shareholders deal with it.

 

[Reality]

Y’all are hearing one side of matter from Musk and taking it as gospel.

This will be settled in court.

I am not assuming anything as I really do not care either way. As for "sides", most of the articles out there about this are attacking Elon Musk so not sure where you are getting "one side" from this.

In any case, even if Twitter does sue Musk in the short-term I doubt it will end up in court because neither side will want to go through that drawn-out process.

 

[RJ_MacReady]

Y’all are hearing one side of matter from Musk and taking it as gospel.

This will be settled in court.

I, and others, are literally shocked at your position on this news.

 

[Reality]

 

[John813]

We are definitely in the weirdest timeline.

Richest man in the world loves to **** post on the platform that is now suing him.

 

[NorthoftheRedRiver]

I can't blame Musk if he started getting solid data on bots being much more prevalent than earlier projected. I've been in enough mergers/purchases to understand the valuation auditing process. In the case of Twitter, if a big chunk of transactions are fake, the company's assets are much less than advertised. One doesn't pay for phantom assets; one either pays less or backs out. This is why due diligence is performed.

 

[Hoofbite]

Let's hope that Elon and Twitter go into an epic battle that bankrupts them both. Well, Elon can keep enough to maintain SpaceX because that's pretty cool. The cars are "meh" and I know a few people who have had issues (no different than any other manufacturer, but given the price there shouldn't be as many) and their solar roofs are entirely a cosmetic. Nobody is judging someone based on the aesthetics of that person's roof. Good looking solar power at a cost of 2-3x the rate for regular panels is not worth it.

 

[Creeper]

Keep the popcorn popping. This could get entertaining!

One of the problems with out civil courts is either party can say anything in filings to the court. Twitter can claim they did all they could to provide Msuk the bot data he asked for while fully understanding the data they provided is useless. Musk can file a similar motion in response claiming the data isn't what he asked for, even if it is good enough. Or he can argue there has to be more.

But I will still go back to my previous opinion. Twitter is not telling the truth about bot accounts. Maybe they will purge accounts while this works its way through the court but when I deleted my account a couple of years ago I was sure the bot count was the majority of accounts. When Musk announced he was buying Twitter I re-opened my account and honestly I thought it was worse than when I left. This is not a scientific analysis, just an opinion based on limited experience.

Of course, they may be talking about 2 different things. One might be the spam accounts which Twitter knows about. These are the accounts the sponsor tweets and advertisements. Then there are the fake accounts which follow people for money and turn ordinary Twitter users into influencers. I don't think Twitter has an accurate count of these accounts, but I think it is more than 5% of their user base.

 

[Robbieac]

I am not assuming anything as I really do not care either way. As for "sides", most of the articles out there about this are attacking Elon Musk so not sure where you are getting "one side" from this.

In any case, even if Twitter does sue Musk in the short-term I doubt it will end up in court because neither side will want to go through that drawn-out process.

It must suck when you get owned by Reality....

 

[Robbieac]

It simply must suck to be you.

On the other hand, thanks for sparing us the "this is due to satan" mindless nonsense.

You have an extreme difficulty staying focused on the topic.

Care to respond to Reality calling out your misinformation?

Or are you just going to ignore that you got caught in a lie?

 

[CalPolyTechnique]

You have an extreme difficulty staying focused on the topic.

Care to respond to Reality calling out your misinformation?

Or are you just going to ignore that you got caught in a lie?

What’s the lie?

His subjective opinion of what he’s read is not to be confused with fact.