Musk Romney

[bigtree]

...many people are asking themselves today why Musk buys a faltering company for $44b, and nonsensically works overtime to attract people intent on disrupting and tearing the place down. But this is a classic 'corporate raider' tactic, for someone looking to flip an asset, gutting it and selling it for parts.

What if Musk's intention, and all of the money he's pumping into the venture, is to take Twitter down? It's not as if Musk isn't already exhibiting all of the symptoms of a foreign agent bent on establishing disruption and chaos in our nation's discourse.

That's been the republican model for decades, to invest billions of dollars a year into tearing down the very govt. they intend to control. To make govt. smaller, less effective, except for their moneyed interests in defense and other corporate ventures. It's a party of hack businessmen.

The alternative is they're really just that, hack businessmen who somehow managed to fall upward, and don't seem to know how to get out of the way of their own ineptitude and absolute cluelessness or indifference about what their ultimate customers actually want or need.

[SCantiGOP]

1. All of us sometime let our egos lead us astray

Seems logical that an oversized ego who make huge mistakes.
I think Musk is exhibiting a lot of the egomaniacal traits that we have seen in Trump, and has gotten in over his head in his attempt to keep himself in the daily news spotlight. I’m not sure he has either an exit strategy, or a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish in the first place.

[bigtree]

4. "when they show you who they are..."

...every move he's made makes clear he wanted Twitter as his political plaything.

But is he really that shallow, or is there some other 'game' being played here?

[jimfields33]

9. I think we have to wait more than five freaking days.

He’s just trying to fix the disaster. That was Twitter. Give him a year and see what he does. Heck even the President get 100 days.

[bigtree]

14. this is Musk 'trying to fix the disaster'

...

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

"Give him a year and see what he does."

[Just A Box Of Rain]

2. What "parts" of a broken up Twitter are possibly worth $44 billion, plus debt servicing costs?

[bigtree]

3. depends on who the buyer is

...or what they really want for their investment.

What would Putin want if he spent billions on Twitter? What would the Saudis want? What would Musk give them?

[Just A Box Of Rain]

5. Sounds extremely far-fetched

and Twitter would seemingly not be more valuable if it were broken into parts, which was the original premise.

[bigtree]

10. as far-fetched as paying twice as much as the company's worth?

...basically what a corporate raider would do.

What do you call a business model focused almost soley on pissing of its customer base by making the product suck?

Trump and Musk have the same, seemingly mysterious penchant for upending the ventures they invest money and time in. I think it's time to start asking if their failures are due to the glaring, obvious conflicting interests they both choose to associate with and pursue.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

11. But where is the "break-up value?"

Twitter has some value as an intact entity, but not much in the way of hard assets.

Corporate raiders look for something very different.

[bigtree]

13. you're likely thinking of something you can hold

..something material, or at least something that puts money in pockets.

But that's not all that multibillionares spend money on. There's influence, for one.

There's stifling influence, for another.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

15. Such "influence" only exists in an intact and functional Twitter

and not one decimated into parts. That was my point from the get-go.

Twitter has few hard assets and no "break-up vale" to speak of.

That is entirely different from the strategy of some corporate raiders, right?

[bigtree]

17. wow, back to square one

...why wouldn't there be value for someone in a decimated twitter who believe an intact twitter threatens their interests?

Is that hard for you to envision, that someone might pay billions to disrupt something they see as a threat to their interests??

I've just described the republican party in total.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

19. Let's see if I have this right.

Your premise is that it is worth $44 billion, plus the cost of debt service, for a nefarious bad actor to destroy Twitter, as if an intact Twitter is something essential to preserving democracy?

That is a very different proposition than Twitter having the sort of "break-up value" that corporate raiders look for in companies.

Both seem like highly dubious propositions.

[bigtree]

22. someone hasn't been paying close enough attention

...to what's happening right in front of us.

And, studiously avoiding talking about what republican gillionaires have been doing for decades.

Are you familiar with how countries finance wars? How do they determine the intrinsic value of the part they contribute to?

It's the same thing political investors do with their money. Invest it to partly fund the direction the aspire the government to assume. Why should this political gadfly's buy of Twitter be seen as anything more than part and parcel of the same enterprise, this one with Saudi investors already built into the ownership?

No, let's assume, improbably, the reason rw richies are so intent on influencing on twitter is because it's irrelevant to their interests.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

24. You seem intent on moving the goalposts as your premises successively fail to hold water.

One could argue that it is in the interests of someone to own Twitter in hopes of using it for "influence;" however, that would require keeping Twitter functioning and intact, which is not the tactic of corporate raiders, which you originally outlined.

Someone is paying attention here.

[bigtree]

25. you mean because I haven't accepted your premise that neutering twitter isn't an asset

... to someone, especially billionaires who, on total, invest billions a year into republican races and pols..

Musk could easily want twitter as functioning and intact as republicans want government.

[Just A Box Of Rain]

26. That's not *my* premise.

Your premise seems to change with every response.

I think it might one worth it so someone to own Twitter as a way to have influence, but that requires a platform that is intact and not one dismembered for "break-up value (a la corporate raiders), which was your original starting point.

[Scrivener7]

20. "What would Putin want...? What would the Saudis want...?"

Quite chilling and feasible when you put it that way.

Twitter has all kinds of information on its users. Cambridge Analytica, now working under a different name, could make that pay off in a very big way for bad actors.

And Russia and Saudi Arabia are bad actors, regardless of what our more troll-tastic posters are pushing.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. Yeah. Classically, it seems like corporate raiders buy things with hard assets--

--real estate, machinery, inventory, pension funds. With Twitter he's mainly buying people's attention.
Hal Sparks was postulating that what Musk really has planned is to use Twitter to boost his crypto currency interests, using its huge user base to market things that require paying with crypto.

[bigtree]

12. information is an asset

...and for some interests, like the ones Musk recently began identifying himself with, disrupting a principle source of American discourse and info might be the best thing their money can buy.

Why did Romney spend millions for a seat that pays $174k? How many ways did he recoup that, or try to? What about the billions GOP investors spend?

Maybe it's not primarily Twitter Musk is looking to destroy, but it's influence.

[Scrivener7]

21. He's buying all the data and metrics they collected for advertisers on all their users. That

could change elections. That could change markets. As you say, crypto is one example but there are countless others.

[BootinUp]

6. He wants to turn it into a protocol according to this guy

Link to tweet

[JHB]

8. That doesn't usually work unless the buyers can shift the debt onto the company

Once in control, they shift the cost of acquisition onto the company and pay themselves back. For now, Musk's loans are secured against his Tesla stock. If Twitter borrows billions and pays out "special dividends" to stockholders, the "sell it for parts" strategy would be more likely.

[2naSalit]

16. And the value of...

Disruption to a very important election from which he could benefit massively.

[bigtree]

18. exactly, 2naSalit

...basically the republican game-plan that's already financed by tens of billions in just this election.

[2naSalit]

23. Indeed.

Crashing the main communication platform of most of the people just prior to the election is a key move to creating confusion and chaos for those whom they target. Easier to cheat when you can limit who's watching.

[bigtree]

27. this thread aged well