There’s a lot that can be said about Elon Musk, and not all of it good.
His space race against Jeff Bezos has been good in that it provides America with a way back into space after the screwjob with NASA. His self-driving electric Tesla vehicle? Well the jury is still out on that.
His managerial style is more reminiscent of the industrialists of the 19th century, especially when it comes to using certain members of the office staff for... ahem... “personal matters”. And his family matters are supposedly a dumpster fire that makes the HBO series “Succession” look downright tame. His father supposedly had babies with his stepsister, and what a piece of work he apparently is! His own daughter is supposedly changing her name to divorce herself from him. And he’s now in a pissing contest with an even bigger dumpster fire that goes by the last name of Trump. And that’s not the only pissing contest he's engaged in.
And then there is Twitter.
Now, full disclosure... even though I have in the past (and the present) deride Twitter users, I have to include myself among them. Yes, I am a Twit. I use it for personal and professional purposes. So I have a stake in the continued use of the service, even if it is simply as a user.
Now Musk decided he wanted to buy Twitter this past April. He bought shares and supposedly promised to buy Twitter and “take it private” after whining about Twitter blocking people like a certain orange dumpster fire. He then raised enough money (in other words, he took out loans) to make a complete buy-out for $43 billion.
Then he whined about “bots” and “fake accounts” and said he can’t go through with the deal because Twitter supposedly “wasn’t cooperating”. So he’s taking his billions and walking away.
Not so, says Twitter execs, who are now filing lawsuits to force the deal through.
So now the idiots in the media are whining about Musk supposedly being forced to go through with the deal and what that would entail and whether or not a court could force someone to continue with a financial transaction that they no longer want. If you start the process of buying a car and then back out, could the dealer take you to court to force you to buy it? That’s essentially what is being argued by the idiots in the media.
Let’s get a few things straight...
First, Musk is wrong in his idea that Twitter is some First Amendment “free speech forum”. Twitter is a private company, not a public medium. The Internet is a public medium, and Twitter is not the Internet. As such, Twitter has every right to make rules about how its users use the service, just like Facebook and Google and Yahoo and all the others. If they say you don’t spread misinformation about pandemics and vaccines, then you don’t. If they say you don’t say something to incite a riot or start an insurrection, then you don’t. And if you do that stuff, then they have every right to ban and bar you from that service.
It's called “terms of service”, something that Musk should know about.
People don’t have a “right” to use Twitter. They have permission as long as they abide by its rules. To say that people have a “right” to use Twitter, no matter the message, no matter the content, is to nationalize the service. It would be no different than people just taking Musk’s Tesla vehicles off the lots and claim they have a “right” to them because the roads are considered “public”.
Now let’s talk about the deal.
This commentator is of the speculation that the idea of buying out Twitter was more of a “rich people” thing than some genuine concern for the business. Rich person gets offended, they buy out the thing that offended them as revenge. Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne is notorious for this sort of stuff. Elon Musk was slapped down for the stuff he tweeted about, he buys Twitter so they wouldn’t do that to him again. And then he adds in the orange dumpster fire and his acolytes just for good measure so he could claim it wasn’t just about him. Or... that’s the speculation.
The thing about bots and fake accounts? Do you honestly think that Twitter is the only service that has that problem? Instagram, Discord, Facebook... the whole Internet is rife with bots and fakes. And no matter how much you try to weed them out, they come back like the mythical Hydra, and in greater numbers. Whine about bots, Mister Musk? Might as well whine about potholes interfering with your precious Tesla cars. Or space junk threatening your Starlink satellites in orbit.
There is really only one reason why Musk would be concerned about bots and fake accounts, and that would be if he wanted to turn all users into paying subscribers. You can’t get money from a fake account.
As to whether or not Musk would be forced by the courts to follow through with the purchase of Twitter, I would hope that this is not what the lawsuit would really be about. As mentioned before, it would be like you or I going to a car dealership, backing out of the sale before the final signing, and have the dealership suing us to go through with the purchase anyway. That just doesn’t make sense.
I would hope that the lawsuit would be to force Musk to abide by the stipulation in the initial agreement that he would have to pay $1 billion if the deal fell through. Doing so would certainly cement the failure of the deal. Musk should not be able to just walk away scot-free after all the hassle and media drama we’ve all been put through, not just my fellow Twitter Twits and the Twit investors.
There are some speculations about this as well. Certainly saying the deal is off has caused Twitter’s stock value to collapse. That means it’s overall worth is less than the price Musk wanted to buy it for. One can easily see Musk wanting to re-negotiate for the lower price and credit himself for being a “master dealer-maker”. If so, I think the Securities and Exchange Commission would like to have a word about that.
Someone else once speculated that Musk never really wanted to buy Twitter at all, but used the purchase to lighten his load of Tesla stock, since it was used to make the purchase. Sell some stock for liquidity, cancel the buyout, and keep the money and not be burdened by Tesla stock.
Again, these are all theories and speculations. But, either way, this looks bad for Musk and screws Twitter investors.
If I were the judge, I would make it simple for Musk and Twitter: either go through with the acquisition for the price that you offered, or fork over the $1 billion as per the agreement and not only walk away, but be barred from ever holding stock or talk of acquiring Twitter ever again. Because let’s get brutally honest here... the amount of BS being tossed about concerning this service is unacceptable and needs to end.
You don’t like Twitter doing what they do? Then follow the lead of the orange dumpster fire and create your own. Before Facebook, there was MySpace. Before MySpace, there was Prodigy and CompuServe and America Online. Yahoo used to be the only search engine and now there’s Google, Bing, and Duck Duck Go. These came about because real businessmen, real inventors, real entrepreneurs don’t play games with the biggest services. They create competition and beat them at their own game. That’s something that Musk should have done instead of letting his ego guide him.
If you really don’t want to buy Twitter anymore, Mister Musk, then pay the billion and let the deal die. It is that simple for a supposed “smart businessman” to comprehend.
No comments:
Post a Comment