[thebradbain]

> "Because if they do anything Elon’s gonna threaten to make their lives miserable in many different ways."

> "this is an ugly tantrum"

I think you and OP are in agreement there.

But I'm highly interested what you think Elon would personally do to make the board's lives miserable. If anything, standing up to his tantrums gives them more "street cred", and if Elon does take over Twitter they will all immediately lose their "cushy job that pays well for little work" anyways.

If I'm a board member, extracting the $1 billion breakup fee from Musk without giving up any control of the company would be my number one strategy in saving my job, in defending my worth as a board member against Elon's charges of ineffectiveness, and in carrying out my fiduciary duty to shareholders.

[rurp]

Elon has the ability to direct an angry mob at anyone he wants just by saying some mean things about them, true or not. I certainly would not want millions of rabid Elon fans gunning for me.

He could also maliciously try to deny Twitter board members and executives positions at other companies, like he did with the SEC employee turned law associate.

Given Elon's power and pettiness I'm sure there are many other ways he can and will try to harm people he dislikes.

[archagon]

Well, then Twitter can simply close his account.

[rurp]

That doesn't prevent him from telling companies he will only do business with them if they help him freeze out people he doesn't like.

[mikkergp]

Is he disputing the $1 billion dollar break-up fee? In the big scheme of things I just don't know that that element of it is that big a deal in comparison to the $15 or so billion dollars Twitter is not getting from the delta between current stock prices and Musk's original offer.

[thebradbain]

Yes, he's positioning himself to be able to claim he is as able to walk away without paying the breakup fee, by claiming Twitter breached contract first:

"Musk’s lawyers say in the letter that Twitter has offered only to provide details about the company’s testing methods. But they contend that’s “tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk’s data requests,” and constitutes a “material breach” of the merger agreement that gives Musk the right to scrap the deal if he chooses."

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-spacex-tech...

[mikkergp]

I saw that quote, and I guess don't highly doubt that he wouldn't try to walk away from the fee, but since he's currently contractually obligate to purchase twitter well over it's valuation, I figured the emphasis of that statement was more to say that he could back out at all, since that's the much bigger financial risk.