Point 1 – I am a fanboy.
I think that Mr. Mush has the makings of what Ms. Woods of ARK called a renaissance man. I firmly believe that by the end of the decade, we will all grow to appreciate that. I believe that he is performing a humanitarian effort on a scale that cannot be even compared top the philanthropic doings of Bill Gates or anyone in his circles. I think that Mr. Musk has more of a global approach to the world, which seems like an oxymoron, but I believe it to be true.
Now to the subject at hand. My personal politics and personal dislikes aside, I believe that the whole world has two different sides when considering every instance of a point, much like a coin. If the world was a sphere, we would all be happy, as it would just roll on…
However, the world is not a sphere. Its a pyramid. The world is driven by the financial world, which is 100% pyramid in volume. Musk is at the tip, literally. The rest of the populous holds the base, which is supposedly, a majority of the twitter user base. Convenient?
So what have we been told so far?
The world would have us know that Elon Musk made an offer on Twitter (after buying shares and thinking about, and finally rejecting, a board position). We are being told that he went to buy Twitter AS IS. Therefore, as Twitter argues in their suit and social positioning, no matter what is under the hood. So now that Mr. Musk has pulled out of the deal based on what Twitter is calling due diligence, they are suing.
Makes sense, no?
My short answer is no. When you go to buy a car, and you read an ad for a car that has wheels and has a great maintenance record (financial performance over the last few years, with filings etc), etc, etc, you assume you can drive the car if not stated otherwise, right?
My long answer?
Twitter has had the wonderful history of growing massive users over the past several years. They have been one of three, or so, platforms for social rantings, ravings, and sharings that have become the pinnacle of our society – whether any of you agree with it or not – and they have influence.
My legal argument from not a lawyer, but an idiot that thinks way too much about this:
Mr. Musk went to buy Twitter. They make the assertion that they are a system that is run on the basis of user input (that is human). Mr. Musk asks what the count of users is, vs spam users (he knows they exist and he knows that they can count – you would have to be an idiot not to be able to monitor this…). Twitter says that this is not something that they can disclose (to someone that was a candidate for board membership a few weeks prior, and a 9% shareholder…). Further, they have been telling the SEC that they have less than 5% bots (in one way or another through filings) which a statement to the otherwise would potentially make them lying to shareholders for the better part of 5-10 years at this point… OK let’s move on there…
The point here is this. Twitter said that their members are less than 5% bots. They said that their car runs and is blue. If Mr. Musk shows up to look at the car, and the car is in fact blue, however, runs with (I know, this doesn’t make sense since his cars are electric) 2 of the 8 cylinders firing, I believe that he doesn’t have to buy the car, unless they drop the price of course…
Now in my mind that isn’t the problem. The problem is that Twitter isn’t telling him that the car is running on 6 cylinders, 2 cylinders or 4. They are instead insisting that it is running on 8 cylinders, with an occasional misfire (Metaphor for the less than 5% bots) and then, they are saying that they can’t prove it, because that would potentially give user information to an outside – who they were willing to invite to the board just a month or two prior. However, when Mr. Musk’s team looks at the “car” they see that it isn’t really running. At least not like advertised on the public space. And they aren’t letting him take it to a mechanic, nor are they letting him hook up a code reader to the car… my first thought was, weird.
I try not to push too hard on social media positioning of political matters. In honestly, I use facebook to look where my friends are, but never post. I use it for the purpose of facebook marketplace and maybe, keeping track of power outages in my town (which is a ridiculous medium for that and my town should remedy this posthaste). However, I do believe that social media has a side. Especially in this case.
I WANT TO KNOW WHY THE MEDIA IS MAKING TWITTER OUT TO BE A VICTIM HERE???
I don’t get it. Twitter has, according to the mainstream, only give out information and had nothing but resistance from Mr. Musk’s team. UMM! Where do we see that? In the FACT that the twitter team has failed to disclose the information that a buyer needs.
Lets put the shoe on the other foot for a second.
If you were buying a house. And the seller said that everything is peachy (less than 5% bots – for those that can’t keep up), and you go to do the inspection, and there is no septic tank nor means of disposal of sanitary waste otherwise, don’t you have the option of backing out?
Another example. You go to buy a car. It’s the fully loaded X-XXX from company YYY. This car, as far as you know is in color zzz. And you show up to pick up the car from company YYY, and they are trying to present you with a YYY, model X-XXD in the color HHH, would you have a problem with this. I sure as hell would.
However, according to the media, to quote the Guardian, this represents a “model of bad faith”. Here is my issue here. ON WHOSE SIDE!!! Mush wanted to drop (lets assume for a second the contrapositive to the mainstream narrative, which may be influenced by the twitter folk) $44B to acquire a company worth $38B. So I assume that he did his math and realized that he was overpaying. There was a reason for this, because he knew that the purchase would have influenced the stock price upward. That is what is called “good faith”. However, when asked for information, Twitter would not disclose the information to a 9% shareholder.
I will lay this out another way. I have owned a company in the past that was private. I had ~80 shareholders. Some of which owned .003% of the stock that had been issued. When this shareholder asked me about the inner workings or discussions of the board, I gave it to that person. I may have asked them to sign a non-disclosure, but they got that info within 30 days.
There is something wrong here. Twitter is not helping its case with this lawsuit.
There is a solution here. There are multiple:
1) Twitter lowers its price, keeping its team and management in line, gets bout by Mr Musk, keeps creative control, invites Mr. Musk into the board to maintain a unparity on the platform.
2) Twitter leaves the deal, gets their billion dollars, agrees not to go back to this situation.
3) Twitter continues to sue, and we see how the courts play this out.
4) Mr. Musk just buys the platform, fires everyone, and sues them for their individual cuts for misrepresentation in the purchase (back to the car metaphor, a lemon law type of approach).
My last sequence of thoughts – lets play a game here. We have a company that is trying to be “Green” to an extreme and perhaps a fault. They are electric cars that don’t require us to buy gasoline. They are “green”… How is it possible that the main stream is against this company as it is. How is it that the government doesn’t ABSOLUTELY openly support this company? They are a bigger part of this ridiculous approach than anyone can even suggest. Should the “Left” really be alienating this valuable asset? I mean, yes, we do understand that media is a bigger controller, however, I think that the bigger fish should be what is being actually done, not what is being talked about… talk amongst yourselves… please.