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Comment by bedast | Hacker News Reader

Musk is openly antagonistic to any kind of regulation and regulatory bodies. This is all a game to him. Any fines he faces are the price of having fun, to him. It's why whether Twitter succeeds or fails is a moot point. He doesn't actually care about Twitter. It's a toy. It's an RC plane he's flying around, right now, and it's just a matter of time before he intentionally aims it into the ground to see how big of an explosion he can make.

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I considered this purchase a miscalculation on his part. After he bought 9% of twitter, he wanted to do some market manipulation like with Tesla. Only he got burned last time, so he attempted to do it legit with his "offer". He never expected them to actually accept. And why he tried so hard to back out.

However, now that it's done, I don't doubt his earnest or abilities to drive twitter forward. In any case it will be very interesting to watch.

If he wanted to manipulate market then just the rumor about the purchase would send stocks higher. In fact, after his announcement on April 14th, Twitter rose 7.5% on the next session (18th). No need to actually sign the deal to make few hundred millions of dollars.

On the other hand, how would he cash out his gamble? You cannot announce that you want to buy 100% of the company stocks, and then start selling off the 9% that you already have, that would be a dead giveaway that the offer is not serious.

There is zero evidence for literally anything you're saying and your accusations are completely baseless.

Circumstantial evidence. And he has literally done it before [1].

[1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226

He memed the price. How is that a miscalculation? Everything he's doing with Twitter is going as planned.

wouldn't that damage his reputation as a credible CEO? Not sure if a billionaire would care, but still, he holds the office of the CEO in a few companies.

Why do you need credibility when you own the company? This isn't a public trading company where share holders can vote you out.

No. Because he's a multibillionaire. The scale of his wealth means he doesn't have to care what people think. He can maintain his lifestyle and continue to make various life and business choices despite losing $44b because, overall, it's not that much compared to his overall wealth.

Maybe no one will want to hire him as CEO, if that's what you're referring to. But he can just buy another company if he wants to be CEO of it.

> wouldn't that damage his reputation as a credible CEO?

Elon Musk? A credible CEO?

And here I was thinking shitposting wasn't allowed on HN.

Huh? Before him, we never had re-usable rockets. Nor did we have electric cars gain mass adoption. Who was the CEO behind those?

He has not done this with his other large businesses. He has in fact done the opposite, raising them from nothing to hugely successful companies that are also great for humanity. I'm no fanboy - I just call them like I see them.

You'll probably mention a few side-projects of his that haven't done much - but he hasn't flown them into the ground either. They're just interesting experiments.

Those may be more passion projects for him. But he's also violated labor law, safety regulations, committed SEC violations, and so on.

But if you want history of using his money for extreme trolling, just look at the whole Hyperloop thing, where he admitted it was a troll.

He's had a lot of disdain for Twitter in the past. He's laughed at people he's kicked out already. The Twitter story is one giant troll. If, somehow, it manages to get any kind of success, he wins. If it fails, he writes it off and moves on to the next sociopathic experience.

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