But what the richest person in the world wants isn’t always good for the rest of us. After all, Musk isn’t just offering to buy another expensive bauble, but rather a global online community that as of 2019, included approximately 330 million monthly active users. With control of such a vast online platform comes great responsibility. And Musk’s ability to be an accountable steward of this massive online community is questionable at best.
That’s why Twitter shareholders should reject Musk’s offer.
So that’s CNNs take, writing to millennials who watch Marvel superhero movies.
We should also get real about Musk’s brand of free speech absolutism. It’s a philosophy often trumpeted by rich White men — those who haven’t experienced the chilling effect that online hate and disinformation have on people with far fewer privileges.
This is why Twitter shareholders should reject Musk’s offer. Yes, this deal is about a lot more than just money; it’s about protecting civil and human rights, public health and safety and democracy.
And the right to not just turn it off if You don’t like it and go somewhere else.
Keep in mind that Twitter is slated to report first-quarter earnings this Thursday, and originally the board was going to wait until after that earnings announcement to respond to the bid.
Something changed.
My suspicion is the financials of the Q1 earnings report will not support the $54.20 high end evaluation offer originally proposed by Musk.
If the low Q1 earnings rumors are accurate; and if Twitter had declined or fought the offer; the board would have been in the position of declining a deal that was substantially higher than the company market value, a tenuous position legally. Thus, a deal was made., as noted elsewhere.
The petty vindictive elites look to be positioning themselves to teach Elon a lesson.
I also think the earnings were most likely not so great and Twitter share price would tank heavily if Elon’s offer is refused. Board would be in hot water.
Hope this will work out for the best, but having witnessed Elon’s childish antics (and outright illegal behavior regarding securities fraud/market manipulation) over the years makes me a bit skeptical.
His huge PR apparatus generated cult of personality that helps convince people to see him in a blindly positive light undoubtedly works. At the end of the day though, cutting through all of that…he consistently seems quite insecure, petty, and volatile. I can’t help but get a Trump vibe, albeit he seems much more adept and measured, comparatively.
People that are like this can still be good leaders, but with this guy and his track record, understandably many are a bit leery.
No better than Bezos or Gates in regards to helping the little guy. Pretty sure his Chinese Tesla workers are locked inside, slaving away as we speak…
Still trying to wrap my head around it. Money opens alot of doors.
Lol yes his childish bullying of gates is not surprising, and definitely hypocritical.
Dude has a nice beer belly himself, and would prob look like a basement dweller if it weren’t for his expensive hair transplant…as well as everything else money can buy.
I’m not sure he particularly gets away with it more than anyone else. I mean, the SEC is pretty toothless these days but they did manage to fine him $40M (and other punishments) for that “taking Tesla private” tweet.
I don’t really get the “billionaires in space” thing. I mean, there are lots of billionaires, and mostly they get up to much worse things than, well, pretty much single-handedly saving the US space programme.
If you want to hate on someone space-related, maybe start with people like Boeing and Northrup Grumman who’ve been spending billions of tax dollars on failing to make a working rocket for the last decade.
Well he is indeed a twit, has everyone forgotten his proposal, with no follow through or subsequent detail, to fly rockets between New York and Shanghai? Or his comment at an AI conference that self driving was a “solved problem”? Not to mention all his weirdly unpredictable behaviour around Bitcoin/Dogecoin.
