[motohagiography]

Imo, the only hypothetical reason for Musk not to buy it would be because the real numbers on the bot issue showed the company has seriously defrauded investors, and the stock goes to almost zero. That's implausible to me. It's kind of an outsider case where shorts could get squeezed pretty hard if they're wrong about that, as a Musk owned Twitter has huge growth in front of it.

However, I'd propose there is also a counter-intuitive case to be made that Twitter's management has an incentive to drag out the court case and delay the sale even at the cost of wrecking the company stock if it preserves their control for just a few more months because it gives them one last election cycle of popular narrative influence before the U.S. midterms. It's just a company that has made money for some people, but the party is facing an existential threat at the ballot box in November, and it's plausible they agree to damn the torpedoes and unleash legal chaos that sinks Twitter's stock price but hangs on to control of the company (and its narrative) for just a few more weeks in support of the elections. They would even have tacit support of establishment (R)'s who would be glad to see their MAGA problem handled for them with deplatforming policies.

The strategy there is like burning your ships during a retreat to prevent the enemy from using them after it overruns your perimeter with an (R) controlled house and senate, and a weak record going into 2024. These platforms are political operations, and they're not going to risk a repeat of 2016. This is wildly speculative, but maybe Twitter takes advantage of Musk's balking on the deal and holds on to content policy control until after midterms, then they scuttle the ship and hand over the ashes to him at the reduced price.

Crazy?

[RosanaAnaDana]

You know its funny that you mention this through a political lens because the entire time I've been watching this narrative play out, this is the exact reason that I think Elon made his play. The value in twitter would be in delivering it to the 2024 R assumed candidate. If you can't hold the office, control the office.

I've speculated that the J6 committee might actually be the origin of Elons cold feet. Maybe he sees the assumed candidates position as far more tenuous than he previously thought, and thus the value of the platform is decreased as well. Maybe Elon sees charges coming for the assumed and in his calculus, this lowers the valuation.

[Sebb767]

But is there a 46 billion USD value in getting Trump (I'm assuming you're referencing him) back on Twitter? He lost his last candidacy while still having a Twitter and Facebook account, I don't think just restoring his account will be enough to tip the scales in his favor.

[RosanaAnaDana]

I mean that's the question right?

46B to control the POTUS? Or at least be his golden child?

Also 3 months ago I would have given the election to the prior. Things are more mixed now. But if Musk delivers him Twitter? All bets are off.

[madeofpalk]

> Imo, the only hypothetical reason for Musk not to buy it would be because the real numbers on the bot issue showed the company has seriously defrauded investors, and the stock goes to almost zero.

My understanding, at least from reading Twitter's lawsuit and other's commentary on it, is that Twitter lying about bot numbers is irrelevant because Musk agreed to, in contract, buy it regardless of those facts.

[cmer]

Based on information publicly available deemed correct and accurate by the company. This is false representation and downright fraudulent. If indeed Twitter lied about their not numbers, there will be a major lawsuit against the company.

[graeme]

Not quite:

1. Twitter represented that they made sample, exercised judgement, and could be wrong

2. That is hard to falsify

3. For it to matter in this lawsuit, it would have to be so false that it materially adversely affects the company

If 10% of users are bots, #1 wouldn’t even be false. If 20% of them were, it might be, but you’d still have to cause a material adverse effect. Like a large change in expected revenue.

[Sebb767]

Even 20% would not fly, winning with MAE in Delaware is basically impossible - the one case where a buyer actually proved MAE there is still referred to as unicorn. Given that Elon waived due diligence and even openly talked about the bot problem, this would probably still be a coin toss if he somehow proves that there are 90% bots.

[klyrs]

The outcome I'm rooting for is that Twitter's suit resolves quickly and they're granted specific performance, and Musk's lawsuit gets dragged out until he's suing the company he just bought.

[sgjohnson]

The time for due diligence on that was before he signed the merger agreement.

[danans]

> Crazy?

Not crazy. More like a garden variety conspiracy theory that sounds especially silly due to its use of poorly cloaked expressions like "the party". Why not just say "Democrat[ic] party"? Obfuscation doesn't make the theory any more credible, and probably makes it less credible.

[motohagiography]

Every macro investment hypothesis is a conspiracy theory. By 'crazy' I meant to be asking, has this been said before and already been discredited?

[kmeisthax]

Yes, very crazy, but not for the reasons you think.

If Twitter was a Democratic Party institution they would have banned Trump in 2015. Instead, they bent over backwards and created a new policy specifically to justify not banning @POTUS when his rulebreaking[0] became apparent in 2017. The only reason why we even think of Twitter as (D) Media is because January 6th forced them to reverse course.

Your theory is inconsistent with Twitter's prior actions, too. While management initially geared up to take a poison pill, they never actually committed to it. Once Musk had actually lined up a purchase proposal, management actually agreed to it, and then Musk tried to bail out from that deal. If Twitter was actually (D) Media, they would have committed to the poison pill plan instead of backing down. Likewise, if Musk was buying Twitter with the intent of turning it into (R) Media he wouldn't be trying to back out[1], he would be following through.

A much easier explanation is that Twitter management was caught off-guard by Musk, and then later realized Musk was bullshitting in a way they could take advantage of. Conversely, Musk figured he could pretend to buy Twitter while unloading Tesla stock and then realized way too late that he was actually committed to buying Twitter.

[0] Which, interestingly enough, included ignoring DMCA 512 takedown notices

[1] Interestingly, Donald Trump has gone on a rampage on Pravda Social about how Musk is a bullshitter.

[danans]

> A much easier explanation is that Twitter management was caught off-guard by Musk, and then later realized Musk was bullshitting in a way they could take advantage of.

Doesn't that mean Musk was caught off guard (or in a self-own) by Twitter, not the other way around? Or that it seemed like a good deal for all parties until the floor fell out from under both Twitter and Tesla stock, at which point it became an incredibly bad deal for Musk.

[kmeisthax]

Both. Twitter used Musk's own momentum against him.

[MonkeyMalarky]

>Twitter has huge growth in front of it.

Twitter has been around for 16 years. In western countries, I think everyone who was going to join, has joined by now. What growth is left? Children becoming old enough to join, people with multiple accounts?

[motohagiography]

An internet protocol for short message services with an established user base. This was Dorsey's vision, and one Musk appeared to nod to. A t.co product could compete with Signal, Slack, and WhatsApp. Further Slack has wasted what I thought was a huge opportunity to create a Twitter competitor where channels could have public facing boards that published curated highlights from Slack chat. They could have done federation without the body odor. A t.co product could just adapt their existing userbase into using private IRC-like experience, with all of their celebrity and social proof stuff intact.

The product level stuff has huge opportunity, but I think the company became too indexed on their nannyishness, so much so that some billionaire got pissed off and is taking their toy from them.

[danans]

> A t.co product could compete with Signal, Slack, and WhatsApp.

Entering a crowded and poorly differentiated market where there already huge players with major network effects is the plan? Seems unlikely.

More likely he wanted to do exactly what he said: reduce content moderation (hence expenses) and get people to pay for verified accounts. But none of that is likely to pay back the 20B premium he'd have to pay for it today, so he wants out.

[motohagiography]

A fully adopted protocol with whole new products on top of it will make the 20B back. It's a platform killer. Elon's basically building an internet Deathstar, and we can only hope he will use it for good.

[danans]

Ah right, how could I have missed the "great sorcerer" theory of Musk.

The whole media landscape seems to be entertaining itself and it's audience with that wholly unoriginal one, cuz they sure love their rich fictional anti-heroes.

[RosanaAnaDana]

Right?

Twitter's done.

But that's not the point or where it value lies.

[MonkeyMalarky]

Stepping back a bit, assuming one can grow a social media platform to XX% of the population, what makes it any more or less valuable than the next fad/platform that grows to the same XX%? If you are selling eyeball-time via ads, the two platforms have similar value. Maybe it's a little bit different with better ad targeting. But any arguments based on "our audience consists of well educated 18-35 year olds with disposable income" lose merit once growth plateaus and you realize that your audience is just the same general population that cable reached 20 years ago.

[sdrinf]

Matt Levine ( https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-07-18/elon-w... ) laid out an argument today, that the reason for Musk wanting to fight on the bot numbers is precisely to drag this out until April 2023, when his financing commitments expire, at which point he no longer has to close (and Twitter loses all of their upside). I have no dog in this fight, but this incites Twitter to move as fast as possible (which they seem to be doing).

[majormajor]

You have a whole lot of assumptions baked into this theory, but they all seem a bit irrelevant given that Twitter is the party pushing for speedier resolution...