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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

My read on it is that the shareholders didn’t want Musk controlling the company (owning 51%) and dragging them along with him. Being the absurdly rich person he is, he’d likely not care too much about how service changes would affect the stock price.

However they are quite happy to let Musk buy all of them out (owning 100%) at a reasonable price then let him do whatever marketshare-tanking moves he wishes. They don’t actually care about the fate of the company, they just don’t want to lose money.

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The board actually held a pretty minimal % of the company, I would not read anything into the average shareholder's view from the board's position.

Elon's next move was a tender offer which put the issue in front of shareholders for an up/down vote on a full buyout, which would sidestep any board poison pil.

But owning 100 % was Musk's offer all along.

Leaving the option of gaining control via 51% hostile takeover would essentially be a ~50% discount for Elon. If your goal is to sell at the highest price you don't want to count on someones word or intentions.

Plus even if Elon really wants all 100% for reasons, the bank providing funding would certainly want him to consider any cheaper options since it's (nearly) the same gain for them but less risk to finance buying 51% vs 100%.

Yes, this has also confused me. What is so different now than 10 days ago?

Musk could have screwed the other shareholders by buying 51% and leaving it at that.

Hostile takeovers haven’t been common for a while, and so twitter was unprepared when one started.

Good analysis from Matt Levine for those who are interested:https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe...

Musk's offer 10 days ago didn't have financing secured. Today's offer does.

Nothing is different. This is not a hostile takeover

… any more.

There was nothing stopping him from increasing his share while the board was deliberating. He could have used that tactic to increase pressure. The poison pill clause meant that the board was free to take whatever decision they wanted in the timeframe they deemed fit.

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