Hacker News Reader

Comment by boringg | Hacker News Reader

Are you tired of this man or are you tried of the unrelenting media coverage of every single thing he does? The media uses his name to drive ad revenue - he uses the media for free coverage. I would agree he has had too much time in the limelight and many people are getting exhausted of his coverage.

I think that caricature is pretty off base. He bought something that was damaged and its value went off a cliff. What kind of person would pay full freight for Twitter as the tech valuations plummet - only a fool would stay locked into that deal.

View on HN

>He bought something that was damaged and its value went off a cliff.

He waived due diligence now is complaining about something that should have been obvious in advance, and in fact was one of the things he said was an issue with the platform that he'd fix.

>What kind of person would pay full freight for Twitter as the tech valuations plummet

The kind of person that signs a deal. Were he and his team not smart enough to offer fair value for the company? What kind of person absolves a billionaire from rules we all have to follow?

> What kind of person absolves a billionaire from rules we all have to follow?

Twitter have two options if Elon refuses to close. They can sue him. Or they can settle. The former will be a multi-year boondoggle for everyone involved. Nobody wants that. But neither does either side want to settle for less than they can get.

Both are thus positioning to make it seem like they'll make the boondoggle the boondoggliest if they're forced to face it. Twitter isn't great at theatrics. Elon is. Thus, he's taking the lead. That said, it remains in both parties' rational interests to appear willing to pursue their aims to an irrational extent in the courts, so the other side settles for less than that. Keep that in mind over the coming weeks.

Point is, yes, when you're a billionaire, signing a contract means something different from you or myself because the cost of enforcing a $44bn deal is minuscule compared to the cost of the deal. (And in this, he's far from unique.)

>Keep that in mind over the coming weeks.

Sure, I agree.

But the OP's interpretation of events is dead-wrong. This isn't the media picking on poor Elon. The guy dove head-first into something without thinking through consequences, now he and his supporters are claiming to be some kind of victims in this. Twitter did nothing wrong here.

> Twitter did nothing wrong here

I have nothing but respect for Elon's work at Tesla and SpaceX. But Elon Musk is a known quantity in terms of counterparty behavior. Nobody should be surprised this is happening, least of all Twitter's Board.

I never said poor Elon so please don't use false language to frame your own counter statement. I said the media and Elon use each other and that we're all pretty tired of that.

"Twitter did nothing wrong here" -- what kind of framing is that?

Again there is no victimization of Elon - he's just trying to get out of a deal - you are using some overly hyperbolic language in your comment which is common these days and equally as annoying as Elon's twitter thread.

I think many (including myself) find this Twitter purchase symbolic of his general demeanour — rather than a careful and calculated decision it appears to be an impulse purchase.

The value of Twitter may have decreased since he made his offer, and he may want to back out, but he (impulsively) made an agreement to purchase it, so backing out comes with the responsibility of $1 billion.

Maybe it is indicative of his demeanor or maybe it isn't - that is your own perspective. Maybe it is impulsive - he certainly is impulsive - though to be fair his impulses (if that is the case) have been pretty accurate though maybe his lucky streak has come to the end.

Honestly I think it's comical that people are complaining that he's not paying up for twitter when valuations went off a cliff and twitter hasn't divulged bot data (when CLEARLY that's what he was doing all along (see my comments eons ago saying that he was pointing to this as an exit strategy). Twitter could have put that information forward and kept the $1B but they knew either (1) don't know or (2) they didn't want to for fear of damaging their company.

It's like all of a sudden Twitter is the good guy and Elon is the bad guy when at the end of the day this is two business entities interacting and positioning themselves.

>Honestly I think it's comical that people are complaining that he's not paying up for twitter when valuations went off a cliff and twitter hasn't divulged bot data

We aren't complaining, we're mostly confused how the world's smartest man would make a bid on a product not based on actual valuation, but instead on the inflated current public market price.

He's free to back out of the deal, but some people aren't falling for the victimization. His bid was a mistake, and he should own it.

>twitter hasn't divulged bot data

Once again, this should have been part of a due diligence process that the Musk team deemed unnecessary.

He is not the worlds smartest person - maybe the worlds most ambitious person.

And I'm not necessarily saying HN complaining - I'm referring to the general public narrative

> this should have been part of a due diligence process that the Musk team deemed unnecessary

Separately from intent (where I agree with you), legally, Twitter was required to provide “properties, books and records [and] information concerning the business, properties and personnel” per section 6.4[0], which is cited in today’s letter[1]. (The fact that it is not a due diligence, IIUC, means that this information should not change the decision to make the purchase; but if Twitter was found to violate the merger agreement, Musk could walk out on it anyway.)

It will all hinge in litigation on whether Twitter can argue that Musk’ demands were not “reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transactions” or would “cause significant competitive harm to the Company”.

In my mind, it is easy to argue that Musk did violate section 6.4 by making his request public, impacting the stock, which is not a “reasonable best effort to minimize any disruption to the respective business”.

[0]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312522...

[1]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...

He self-publishes his SEC defying schemes and polemics on Twitter all the time. He also reacts to these media stories you mention in ghastly ways. Truly an awful person.

I used to admire him until probably a year ago and always liked him for saying what it is but recently I've had enough of him. I feel like he has no empathy for people and he has no class anymore. Just look at the 10% layoff email he sent to Tesla employees and see if you can find any empathy in this email.

The much circulated email was the email sent to the executive team, not the employees.

And the layoff isn't 10% of all workers. It was 10% of salaried workers, a much smaller amount.

This goes exactly to the point of the person you responded to. The media blows up smaller news items into bigger ones for clickbait.

> And the layoff isn't 10% of all workers. It was 10% of salaried workers, a much smaller amount.

Could you clarify what the set complement of a salaried worker is?

Salaried workers are office-based. Hourly workers are factory-based.

That actually clarifies the whole circus Musk pulled. He announced that anyone not coming back to the office (which obviously does not apply to factory workers) is effectively tendering their resignation. Then Tesla announces just days later that a 10% layoff of salaried workers is going into place. This is typical Musk behavior in that he tries to control narratives by pre-empting them. By sending this email out and then announcing layoffs later, it sets the narrative that it's an employee problem, and not a Tesla or executive problem. From what I saw of some reports of Tesla employees, Tesla doesn't even have enough desks and parking spaces for everyone to come back to. Musk knew what he was doing.

The hoops people will jump through for Musk is continually surprising.

These types of comments are equally as tiresome. We get it, you don't like Elon Musk and despise anyone making an argument to the contrary. Glad you could enshrine it in this comment that adds absolutely no value to the conversation.

People who like Musk find them tiresome. I was just simply pointing out that it continues to be the case that no matter what Musk does, someone defends what he does and massages things to be viewed as less despicable. (For example, the original comment didn't even mention it was 10% of all workers, as directly implied by the comment I replied to.) Everything he does is in pure self-interest and with manipulation in mind. There is zero humility and zero honesty. How much of this manipulation does he and Tesla and the other bits of his endeavors have to do before people accept what he is? I'm also tired of people who should know better continuing to help form this little bubble around him while people who don't know better (young people and kids who look up to him) are adversely affected by this.

> Glad you could enshrine it in this comment that adds absolutely no value to the conversation.

These comments are equally as tiresome. You reply to a comment that apparently adds no value (not a sentiment I necessarily disagree with) with a comment that adds even less?

People searching for perfect allies are going to be constantly disappointed. Musk, for all his faults, has enabled some amazing things...all of which seems completely lost on rabid Musk haters. Life is a spectrum and living on either end is subscribing to a warped view of reality.

> You reply to a comment that apparently adds no value (not a sentiment I necessarily disagree with) with a comment that adds even less?

So this is going to be an argument of which comment(s) add less value? We already started very close to 0 with yours so can continue to ride the asymptote as far as our stamina allows.

You do realize that he has actually significantly changed the landscape for global warming right? He has lifted off electric vehicle market, changed energy storage, increased global interest in space exploration.

You have to balance his incredibly strong capital manner with the fact that he also is changing our human trajectory. He's tiresome, gets into petty arguments with people but he's also changing our trajectory more than almost all other humans on the planet right now - for better or worse.

Whether his heavy lifts stands the test of time and significantly alter our trajectory is truly the question here. This Twitter buy doesn't really matter in the arc of this century unless it is merely a reflection point which Musk fades to irrelevance.

People will jump through hoops to defend him because he's doing work that no one else is capable of doing.

> You do realize that he has actually significantly changed the landscape for global warming right?

Has he? How do large rockets help with climate change? How does going to Mars, a dead planet that is almost a foreshadowing of where Earth is going with climate change and ecosystem destruction, help fight climate change? Electric cars will improve things a bit, but they are not a one-shot solution to climate change. They are cars after all, and for the first couple years of their life, they contribute more emissions than existing cars, so there's a crossover point. And those emission crossover point calculations do not take into consideration battery recycling or disposal. There are many, many other things that we could be doing. But Musk likes to keep the limelight on him and have his toys.

Many solutions to climate change are actually rather boring and easy in terms of their actionable solutions, but we don't do them. One can't hype up hundreds of millions of dollars of investment for planting native plants or composting or improving ocean ecosystems or reducing plastic use and habitat loss. If Musk truly cared about the climate, he would promote these other things. But he doesn't, because they can't be hyped, they wouldn't get him the attention he craves, and they wouldn't serve his ego.

I have seen it first hand. Young college graduates, apparently concerned about climate change, choosing Tesla over working for a fusion company. These are people whose tech and science influences are Musk and Iron Man.

> ... that he also is changing our human trajectory. ... but he's also changing our trajectory more than almost all other humans on the planet right now - for better or worse.

Comments like these are so hyperbolic that they're tough to even respond to. If I can be frank, they are sort of childish. Even out of billionaires, Musk doesn't contribute as much to these things as people like James Simons, who donates hundreds of millions of dollars to education, climate change research, and other scientific research. But Simons is an actually intelligent person doing actually important things with his money and influence. But funding education and scientific research is boring, apparently according to those obsessed with electric cars and rockets.

> he has actually significantly changed the landscape for global warming

Oh yes, by shilling proof-of-work cryptocurrencies he definitely made a contribution. I'm not even sure if his Tesla venture would offset this damage long term.

> unrelenting media coverage of every single thing he does?

Oh stop it! I lived in Los Angeles, that place is too big and populated by too many sharks. You only become famous if you really, really want to and deploy resources in a way that is optimized to reach that goal.

Musk wanted to be famous ever since the Paypal days.

There's a reason why you don't hear media obsessively reporting on 3 time Oscar winners Daniel Day Lewis and Jack Nicholson anymore. They have concluded their respective press tours (Lewis at least temporarily and Nicholson for a good 10 years, ever since he made "The Departed")

You need to seek press to get press, you don't stumble into it.

Agree with you. It's a 100% part of his strategy to get earned media and now maybe he's addicted to it.

I would wager that the risk to his earned media strategy is he is going a bit off the rails in the last 6 months and staff might not be as interested working for him in the future. I don't think it has scared off investors yet as it appears he has the midas touch in the business world.

>[first paragraph]

This post is probably not on top of HN because “the media” uses him for ad revenue, just saying.

>[second]

That’s not even close to the full picture. Its not like he went into a shop with cash to buy a car. Not saying that the gp is 100% correct either, but gross simplifications don’t help the discourse. Edit - To clarify: if he believed in the purchase as an investment, temporary tech valuations would not matter, what would matter is the quality of the product relative to the changes he wanted to make in the company. Twitter is very much intact, it didn’t materially change since the situation began.

Valuations always matter - even if you are temporarily the wealthiest person on the planet.

I'm not blaming the media for him. There are plenty of billionaires out there not in the daily news. He brought this on himself.

> He bought something that was damaged and its value went off a cliff.

Disingenuous.

He knew about the bots. Everyone knows about the bots.

There's "knowing that there are bots" and then there's "knowing that a significant amount of engagement is bots." I think most people hear Twitter's "less than 5%" and think bullshit.

> There's "knowing that there are bots" and then there's "knowing that a significant amount of engagement is bots." I think most people hear Twitter's "less than 5%" and think bullshit.

Disingenuous again. Most people knows a significant amount of engagement is bots, as you yourself agreed.

Not sure where the "again" is coming from. I'm not the same person.

>Most people knows a significant amount of engagement is bots

No, I don't think most people know that. They know there are bots, and they suspect there's a lot. That's why I said there's a difference between the two.

The terms of the deal waived any kind of due diligence or fluctuation in market price. The price reflected those terms. Musk recognized that there is a price that Twitter has to pay to enforce this contract. He is hoping that between the costs of enforcing the contract and the risk that the contract is enforceable, twitter walks away from the whole thing. Short term this seems like a pretty rational thing to do. In the future, if I were looking to do a deal with Musk, I wouldn't give much of a discount for waving due diligence, and make sure that I am protected from him pulling this kind of stunt.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com