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Comment by openthc | Hacker News Reader

More than one financial analysit/money manager has floated this idea in our circle. It seems reasonalble; an pointing to the last time he sold a bunch (11B?) and told everyone it was to pay his taxes. They seem to think it was to just convert some high-risk (TSLA) to low risk (Cash, etc).

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That sounds reasonably logical, but by what measure of logic is overpaying for Twitter, of all assets, a good deal? There are surely better companies to do this sort of thing with, and end up with an actually valuable asset at the end of it.

I agree with you. If the object was to convert overvalued stock, you would not just convert it to another overvalued stock, right?

Notice that he is not, in fact, converting it.

To over simplify: it's the trick of a illusionist; look over there! Something interesting (now switch the rabbit for the dove or whatever). So while GenPop is looking at this noisy deal; he's able to shuffle around money in three(?) ways -- where the net result is to reduce the TSLA holdings w/o too much penalty (or somethign). I'm not smart or rich enough to fully understand. The logic is distraction to execute a big dollar amount shift in equity positions.

According to this theory, he never intended to buy Twitter. He just used the offer to liquidate stock without raising too many eyebrows and now he's backing out, with a few billion extra in cash and, if everything works out for him, not even a termination fee.

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