Elon Musk Officially Purchases Twitter, Takes Company Private

[nuckin_futz]

49 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

I was the one who threw the $1 trillion valuation out on SpaceX. I heard that number from a guest on 'The Space Show' and apologize for not remembering the guest's name. How are you valuing SpaceX? I am not sure how much of SpaceX Musk owns? He has investors. 

Private companies are usually valued by comparing them to similar companies. Obviously there is no similar company to SpaceX so they are being valued on their latest round of  equity raising.

 

Musk appears to own 47% of SpaceX.

[Smashian Kassian]

On 5/4/2022 at 8:44 AM, JM_ said:

`never? you mean never getting 100% of what you want? or never getting anything you want out of gov't?

 

We don't live in 1932-33 Ukraine, so I guess the answer is never getting 100%, by why settle for a low percentage regardless?

 

If the glorification we hold of democracy is the constituents having control (and a single vote every 4 years certainly isn't control over the federal gov't, whatsoever) then why do we have to perpetually accept the ineptitude & malfeasance of the political class? 

 

Its not just about getting the outcome I would prefer on a 'culture war' issue or leader who individually represents us, we're talking about people/parties who have no regard for our interest/prosperity unless its in their interest. 

[Smashian Kassian]

On 5/4/2022 at 10:23 AM, The Lock said:

Decisions made in the past provide experience as we can look back on them, yes; however, this doesn't determine whether a path is "correct" or not. It may provide facts to look at in determine potential future actions, but multiple paths can be formulated from these facts. Also, it depends on the direction each individual wants to go. What does each person want their country to look like? This, in turn, will also determine how they look at history itself. So, while context matters, it still come back to multiple "correct" paths to take.

 

This is the crux of what your saying here; individuals have their own values. Correct.

 

 

On 5/4/2022 at 10:23 AM, The Lock said:

 

So, at the end of the day, history doesn't really change what I'm saying. It doesn't change the fact that there "correct" is an opinion. "Correct" could have been assisted by history, but that's only as good as the person interpretting that history. It doesn't change that correct is still an opinion. It only makes some opinions more educated than others.

 

Sure, a true Communist could call the extents of the Holodomor western propaganda (I've seen it on Twitter). That doesn't mean they are right.

 

Analyzing history leads us to determining whether decisions made were correct or not. History in relation to current times gives us lessons to apply, not the clear answer, for sure - its more like wisdom than an answer key. 

 

But history does show us that there were 'correct' decisions (better outcomes) that were made or not made - which means that issues now can lead to better or worse outcomes. That's my point.

 

And one of histories lessons is that popular isn't always right. 

 

 

On 5/4/2022 at 10:23 AM, The Lock said:

So then this whole thing goes back to influence. This whole thing goes back to majority votes being the next best thing. The answer the most people deem as the "most correct" is the answer that gets into power. Therefore, it's important to focus on making sure enough people have the more educated answers. You need to influence enough people with no mis-information in order to achieve what is it you sound like you want to achieve.

 

This whole notion that "correct" is better than "popular vote", it doesn't solve the problem. What will solve the problem (if it's a problem in the 1st place) is making what you deem as "correct" as being the popular vote, at least assuming that your "correct" path is a good idea to begin with.

 

You want to fight mis-information? Educate. Influence. That's what it's about. "Correct" could mean so many things. "Correct over popular" could even mean communism. It could mean fascism. Those "ideals" involved a small group of people thinking they had the correct path, in some cases, a single person. Popular, prevents these scenarios from happening for the most part.

 

Popular is the Nazi's/Fascism, Popular is Communism, Popular is slavery, Popular is war. Its all been 'popular'. Communism did not grab merely 'a small group', the New York Times shilled for the Soviets.

 

My point of 'correct' is simply that popular =/= correct, therefore individual autonomy is preferred where possible.

 

The bolded is certainly ideal but people hold different views/experiences. 2 people could have the exact same information, both be taxing pay citizens that wouldn't want to kill or harm anyone, and (free of external pressures) come to different conclusions/desires. Its not that either are bad people, but your just not going to convince most regardless. (especially once you then factor in external/social pressures)

 

Even if we go with popular being best, why does 1 entity (party) have to represent you on absolutely every issue? Nevermind something you regard as having no concern for the life of you & your family? (depending who's in power). Why not choosing your position on issues on a more individual basis than handing over the keys every 4 years?

 

This idea would be considered deranged if it wasn't hardwired into us. The parties themselves have no concern for the reasons people choose them, this is why 'broken election promises' is a regular thing. Their just trying to win a popularity contest. 

 

 

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Smashian Kassian

[Russ]

17 hours ago, Elias Pettersson said:

Doesn't Musk have over 18 separate investors including Larry Ellison and the Prince of Saudi Arabia backing him up on the sale?  He isn't putting the $44 billion in all by himself.  He's leveraged the sale pretty well IMO.  We will see what happens I guess.  It should be interesting.

 

As for SpaceX, Musk has talked about taking it public.  He may even spin off Starlink and make it a separate company altogether.  2-3 years may be aggressive, but I would say that if Starlink can grab 20% internet market share over the next 5 years and Starship can colonize Mars, you are looking at a company that will be valued in the trillions.  Starship is even looking at replacing the airlines.

I am looking pretty hard at getting Starlink right now, hopefully if they did make it seperate they could continue making the service better

[JM_]

9 hours ago, Smashian Kassian said:

 

We don't live in 1932-33 Ukraine, so I guess the answer is never getting 100%, by why settle for a low percentage regardless?

 

If the glorification we hold of democracy is the constituents having control (and a single vote every 4 years certainly isn't control over the federal gov't, whatsoever) then why do we have to perpetually accept the ineptitude & malfeasance of the political class? 

 

Its not just about getting the outcome I would prefer on a 'culture war' issue or leader who individually represents us, we're talking about people/parties who have no regard for our interest/prosperity unless its in their interest. 

don't you have to ignore the real gains we've made in things like human rights, healthcare, multiple industries, and quality of life to make a statement like that? our standard living is unmatched in the world. We're incredibly lucky to have had public systems be built up to the point where we can now take them for granted like this. 

 

I think part of this is a lot of folks don't really seem to know what our system has done for us, or how it actually works. Do you really not see all the gains we've made over the last 100 years?

[bishopshodan]

Cold feet.

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/elon-musk-twitter-deal-on-hold-1.6451942

[thedestroyerofworlds]

 

 

First, Elon's gonna buy.

 

Then, it's not just him, he's got a bunch of investors. 

 

Now, it's on hold.

 

I guess he's wondering if paying the billion dollar cancelation penalty is worth it as opposed to actually "buying " the thing.  I guess if he dumps his shares, maybe.  

 

Probably happening as Elon has bigger fish to fry.   Like how much his baby has tanked.

Edited May 13, 2022 by thedestroyerofworlds

[nuckin_futz]

What a phony this guy is. Using this excuse about spam accounts to pull out. It's right in Twitter's filings about the declared % of spam accounts possibly being incorrect.

 

He'd rather have people think he's a reckless idiot than pop the myth that he's some business wizard.

 

Way to burn $1 billion dollars and your reputation.

[Smashian Kassian]

16 hours ago, JM_ said:

don't you have to ignore the real gains we've made in things like human rights, healthcare, multiple industries, and quality of life to make a statement like that? our standard living is unmatched in the world. We're incredibly lucky to have had public systems be built up to the point where we can now take them for granted like this. 

 

I think part of this is a lot of folks don't really seem to know what our system has done for us, or how it actually works. Do you really not see all the gains we've made over the last 100 years?

No I'm not taking it for granted, nor do I think its a contradiction. Whats been achieved in the West - individual freedom/liberty/autonomy, and societies that sustain those things for all - is remarkable. Its a miracle & an outlier in human history. I think this is why I'm criticizing the current state of things b/c I feel its slipping. And even if I'm completely wrong in feeling that way, why not ask why things can't function better?

 

My criticism can be boiled down to this; the idealism of democracy is eroding at this point in time. So what to do about it? (if anything?)

 

We hold 'our democracy' sacred because of the individual freedoms/autonomy people have to live as they see fit, and secondly the opportunity to participate in the political process that shapes the society - having some sort of a say. But my criticism would be that the political parties whom are suppose to represent constituents - us that have 'the say' - are entities in themselves that prioritize their self interest ahead of their constituents. I could give you examples

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by Smashian Kassian

[JM_]

8 hours ago, Smashian Kassian said:

No I'm not taking it for granted, nor do I think its a contradiction. Whats been achieved in the West - individual freedom/liberty/autonomy, and societies that sustain those things for all - is remarkable. Its a miracle & an outlier in human history. I think this is why I'm criticizing the current state of things b/c I feel its slipping. And even if I'm completely wrong in feeling that way, why not ask why things can't function better?

 

My criticism can be boiled down to this; the idealism of democracy is eroding at this point in time. So what to do about it? (if anything?)

 

We hold 'our democracy' sacred because of the individual freedoms/autonomy people have to live as they see fit, and secondly the opportunity to participate in the political process that shapes the society - having some sort of a say. But my criticism would be that the political parties whom are suppose to represent constituents - us that have 'the say' - are entities in themselves that prioritize their self interest ahead of their constituents. I could give you examples

 

for sure there are political pigs at the trough. But are they there because democracy is breaking down, or we're all just collectively too lazy to participate in selecting better candidates? I'd say the latter.

 

In the US, its really the right thats attempting to subvert democracy, its pretty scary what's going on there right now. Thankfully in Canada, our system doesn't allow for the kind of fake legal challenges and rigging that we're seeing down south. 

 

For us here, I don't know where its slipping, tbh. I see some mis-management for sure, but democracy itself slipping? I'd need examples. 

[Boudrias]

23 hours ago, JM_ said:

for sure there are political pigs at the trough. But are they there because democracy is breaking down, or we're all just collectively too lazy to participate in selecting better candidates? I'd say the latter.

 

In the US, its really the right thats attempting to subvert democracy, its pretty scary what's going on there right now. Thankfully in Canada, our system doesn't allow for the kind of fake legal challenges and rigging that we're seeing down south. 

 

For us here, I don't know where its slipping, tbh. I see some mis-management for sure, but democracy itself slipping? I'd need examples. 

At the height of Reform in my constituency we had 1750 members in a riding with +/- 60,000 eligible voters. 38,000 actually voted and our candidate took 25,000 votes. If memory serves our AGM that year might have had close to 200 attendees. That was a great turnout in those days. (2000). My point in this history is a demonstration of how little involvement there was at the constituency level in selecting candidates. Once a candidate is elected my experience was that he/she immediately removed any active member who might threaten their control of the riding. 

 

While Americans are more willing to sue that does not mean our system is any less susceptible to influence and even corruption. Combine that with the reality of how much power the PM has within our system. It far exceeds the POTUS. The PM determines who can run for his party on the membership. That alone stiffles any descent.   

[JM_]

53 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

At the height of Reform in my constituency we had 1750 members in a riding with +/- 60,000 eligible voters. 38,000 actually voted and our candidate took 25,000 votes. If memory serves our AGM that year might have had close to 200 attendees. That was a great turnout in those days. (2000). My point in this history is a demonstration of how little involvement there was at the constituency level in selecting candidates. Once a candidate is elected my experience was that he/she immediately removed any active member who might threaten their control of the riding. 

to me its interesting to compare Manning to Poilievre. Its not even close to the same kind of party.

 

53 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

 

While Americans are more willing to sue that does not mean our system is any less susceptible to influence and even corruption. Combine that with the reality of how much power the PM has within our system. It far exceeds the POTUS. The PM determines who can run for his party on the membership. That alone stiffles any descent.   

Our PM does have a lot of power, but we also can't gerrymander ridings like the US, and we don't have that ridiculous electoral college thing. We also fortunately have more than binary options which leads to a more diverse political conversation.

 

I agree completely tho on the PM having too much say in who runs in a riding. But unless more people did what you did, thats never going to change. 

 

We've discussed this before, this is where I see secure online voting for candidate selection being the thing that helps to break this habit of most people not caring who represents them. 

 

 

[Boudrias]

3 minutes ago, JM_ said:

to me its interesting to compare Manning to Poilievre. Its not even close to the same kind of party.

 

Our PM does have a lot of power, but we also can't gerrymander ridings like the US, and we don't have that ridiculous electoral college thing. We also fortunately have more than binary options which leads to a more diverse political conversation.

 

I agree completely tho on the PM having too much say in who runs in a riding. But unless more people did what you did, thats never going to change. 

 

We've discussed this before, this is where I see secure online voting for candidate selection being the thing that helps to break this habit of most people not caring who represents them. 

 

 

Interesting comments.

 

I met Manning a number of times, have never met Poilievre. I thought Manning was well intentioned and that he was open to grass roots involvement. Over the passage of time I have wondered about that. In 1995 a party vote was taken as to whether Reform would move east into Ontario and the rest of the country. We were told the vote was 95% to move east. I was one of the 5%. My rationale at the time was that Reform should go provincial. 4 western provinces with Reform government would have created a united voice in Ottawa. At that time I thought grass roots involvement would ensure accountability and a genuine expression of responsible government generated by the people. My concern about Manning was that he disappeared into his think tank and IMO never exerted any obvious defense of the grass roots. Harper was his disciple and it was Harper who failed to create an effective communication with the membership and in fact disenfranchised much of their input. 

 

Citizen involvement in politics is difficult at the best of times. Those who do get involved can be loose cannons as their influence is exaggerated because there are so few people involved. How much time should a responsible citizen spend on how they are ruled? 1 hour a month? 2 hours? More involvement by more people would lessen the influence by radicals who cannot present logical positions. My idea of grass roots involvement was to slowly introduce people into the process and over time enpower their contributions. 

 

I am about 1/3 thru watching the last CPC leader debate. PP looks and sounds like a politician defending his lead. A lot of pandering. While I don't have a lot of use for Charest I did get an email from Mike Harris defending Charest's record. Roman Baber, I'll investigate him more. 

 

Electoral College: I have always supported this idea. To a degree it protects smaller states as does the Senate. The Founders had an inherent distrust of big government and wrote their Constitution to offer some protection.  

 

 

[JM_]

10 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

Interesting comments.

 

I met Manning a number of times, have never met Poilievre. I thought Manning was well intentioned and that he was open to grass roots involvement. Over the passage of time I have wondered about that. In 1995 a party vote was taken as to whether Reform would move east into Ontario and the rest of the country. We were told the vote was 95% to move east. I was one of the 5%. My rationale at the time was that Reform should go provincial. 4 western provinces with Reform government would have created a united voice in Ottawa. At that time I thought grass roots involvement would ensure accountability and a genuine expression of responsible government generated by the people. My concern about Manning was that he disappeared into his think tank and IMO never exerted any obvious defense of the grass roots. Harper was his disciple and it was Harper who failed to create an effective communication with the membership and in fact disenfranchised much of their input. 

That makes a lot of sense, Harper was more concerned with ensuring compliance within his party ranks, he knows the CPC base won't vote switch very often so he didn't really need to worry about them. AB provincially might be the outlier with support of Wild Rose but thats over now too. 

 

I liked Manning at the time, and I do think you were on to something with 4 provincial governments vs. going east. 

 

10 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

 

Citizen involvement in politics is difficult at the best of times. Those who do get involved can be loose cannons as their influence is exaggerated because there are so few people involved. How much time should a responsible citizen spend on how they are ruled? 1 hour a month? 2 hours? More involvement by more people would lessen the influence by radicals who cannot present logical positions. My idea of grass roots involvement was to slowly introduce people into the process and over time enpower their contributions. 

thats why online needs to happen imo. People don't have to spend much time, even just a few minutes of scrolling through a basic list of candidates, their backgrounds, what they say they stand for, would be enough for most people. 

 

10 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

 

I am about 1/3 thru watching the last CPC leader debate. PP looks and sounds like a politician defending his lead. A lot of pandering. While I don't have a lot of use for Charest I did get an email from Mike Harris defending Charest's record. Roman Baber, I'll investigate him more. 

IMO Charest has a much better chance of winning nationally, but I suspect its going to be a PP coronation. 

 

10 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

 

Electoral College: I have always supported this idea. To a degree it protects smaller states as does the Senate. The Founders had an inherent distrust of big government and wrote their Constitution to offer some protection.  

 

 

to me its giving smaller states too much power, and also has some scary implications for GOP friendly electors ignoring the will of the people. We'll see just how far states try to get away with that kind of thing in the next two elections. Small states already have outsized power in the US senate. 

 

The US system doesn't get rid of big government either. That thing is more bloated and rigged than any other democracy. 

 

[thedestroyerofworlds]

F around and find out.  Not going to be so easy to just back out there Elon.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/17/tech/twitter-board-elon-musk-reliable-sources/index.html

 

Twitter board says it will 'enforce the merger agreement' despite Elon Musk's latest move

[bishopshodan]

[nuckin_futz]

23 hours ago, thedestroyerofworlds said:

F around and find out.  Not going to be so easy to just back out there Elon.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/17/tech/twitter-board-elon-musk-reliable-sources/index.html

 

Twitter board says it will 'enforce the merger agreement' despite Elon Musk's latest move

Twitter says it won't renegotiate a deal price with Elon Musk

• Comments from executives to staff

The Twitter sideshow continues as Elon Musk frets with a case of buyer's remorse.

 

According to a report, executives told staff that the deal is proceeding as expected and that there's 'no such thing' as a deal being 'on hold' as Elon Musk stated. They said they will not renegotiate on price.

 

All the M&A people I follow argue that it's a very high hurdle for Elon Musk to get out of closing the deal, even if bots are much higher than stated. He waived due diligence and Twitter discloses that its bot estimates use 'significant judgement'.

 

There's lots of daylight between the current price of $37.03 and the deal price of $54.20 and that will make for an interesting trade. With tech being wrecked currently, it's safe to say that Elon could have picked it up much cheaper if he'd waited a few months.

 

 

****************

 

Like you said "F around and find out". Also it appears he cannot just walk away and cough up the $1 billion break up fee. As per the deal he has to have a valid reason to abandon the deal. Looks like "I f'd up" is not a valid reason.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

Speaking of SpaceX....

 

 

 

He clearly saw the above being revealed so he tries to get ahead of this story by tweeting this:

 

 

 

Fantastic salesman/marketing genius.  But still a douche as a human being.

 

[Gurn]

13 minutes ago, NewbieCanuckFan said:

  But still a douche as a human being.

Chaotic/neutral narcissist.

[NewbieCanuckFan]

 

A few weeks old now but something to consider.