[lostcolony]

Actually, the Twitter stuff emphasized just the opposite - even after the board agreed to the sale, a majority of shareholders (well, specifically, a majority of the voting power as determined by shares) still had to agree. And because they did, Musk is on track to own Twitter.

Facebook also demonstrates it - Zuckerberg and a few others (many of whom have given him voting power on their behalf) own 'Class B' stock, which is worth 10 votes (and thus could reasonably be treated as each share being worth 10 of Class A shares). What is sold to everyone else is 'Class A' stock worth 1 vote. Despite owning fewer stock shares, then, Zuckerberg has more votes and thus has effective majority control.

You mention due to stock tiering, but that's just it, those tiers don't remove votes, or even owning a share of the company (your stock still does), it just ensures that majority control stays in the company's control. It doesn't change the claim that stock shares = shares in the company. It just changes the percentage each stock is of the company, so it's not as simple as 1 stock = 1/(# of outstanding shares) control, but it still is (100% stock) = (100% control), and (X% of voting power from stock) = (X% of control).

[blibble]

> Zuckerberg and a few others (many of whom have given him voting power on their behalf) own 'Class B' stock, which is worth 10 votes (and thus could reasonably be treated as each share being worth 10 of Class A shares).

the stock exchanges really missed a trick by not prohibiting this sort of bullshit

[lostcolony]

It's not really that different than just issuing 11x class B stock, and sitting on 10x, except that it looks like Zuck has less control than he actually does.