[bmelton]

I say this with no animus whatsoever, but I would be shocked to learn that's the reason Musk bought Twitter.

I have no private insight to his motives, but profitability / vanity / dozens of other motives seem a lot more likely to me than spending $44 billion to fix a censorship problem, even if that does make for (selectively) good marketing.

[mgamache]

It seemed like a PR move that went horribly wrong. He got trapped by the offer that he probably thought he could back out of. I am sure he's all for free speech, but he tried so hard to kill the deal it makes me think he never really wanted it.

[shagie]

April 5th, Elon joins Twitter's board after revealing that he had 9.2% of Twitter's shares the day before.

A week later (April 11th), he decided not to join the board because he wouldn't be able to exceed a 14.9% cap.

Three days later, he makes a meme-ish offer of $54.20 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514698036760530945

Side bit look at the stock prices and volumes - https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TWTR/history/

---

I suspect that both the "this is the backout penalty" and the SEC looking closely at him for trying to manipulate the price of Twitter discouraged him from backing out.

He was able to use it as an opportunity to sell some other significant amounts of stock as part of the "I am going to buy Twitter" that he would likely have been able to keep as cash if he was able to successfully back out of buying Twitter (though he's containing to sell stock).

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/08/business/elon-musk-tesla-stoc...

[guelo]

It's pretty clear from his court released texts that moderation was one of his main concerns.

[lapcat]

All of his business associates in this are right-wing activists. Why did right-wing activist and non-tweeter Larry Ellison offer Musk a blank check to finance the Twitter deal?

[type-r]

I'm sorry, are you saying you have to be a user / customer of a business to be able to invest in it?

[lapcat]

No, I asked the specific question: Why did Larry Ellison invest in Twitter?

It was a terrible business deal if your concern was profit. Even Musk says he overpaid, and the previous investors of Twitter were clearly eager to get out of that investment, going to court to force Musk to buy it.

If you read the text messages between Musk and Ellison, which came out as part of the trial, Ellison was offering Musk basically any amount of money, a blank check. Why?

[bmelton]

I don't know the answer to the questions you asked, but it's worth pointing out that "overpaid" can just as likely mean "I could have gotten it for cheaper" as it could "I paid more than it is worth."

[lapcat]

The point is that Musk didn't acquire Twitter for business reasons. Nobody thought Twitter was a great financial opportunity. He acquired Twitter in order to change Twitter, for whatever his actual goals may be: "save humanity", "free speech", shits and giggles, etc.