The billionaire had last year tried to back out of his $44 billion offer to buy what was then Twitter, but financed the deal by borrowing $13 billion from a consortium of banks. (…)
Musk may be looking to reduce those payments by ensuring X isn’t worth very much, Bloomberg commentator Matt Levine posited in January.
I don’t see how that’s a viable strategy. If my house drops in value I don’t get to pay less on my mortgage.
You destroy your house, one of many you own. The bank sees this and tries to sell the loan because the collateral for that loan is looking more shaky every day.
Banks dont like risk.
You being a wealthy guy, buy that loan through one of your companies at half price. Result: you win. You just payed 6b for 13b and have no more monthly payments.
Yes. The house is destroyed in the process. But you don’t care, you bought it in a temporary lapse of judgement anyway. Fuck that house.
Maybe you can still sell the ground the house was built on and recoup some more. That would be awesome.
Its a hell of a bankshot for this to have been the ‘plan’.
I think most everyone is missing the point and who was backing these deals.
Musk buying twitter was done to empower rightwing culture warriors and to keep the modern alt-right movement relevant.
It was never about making money, its about influencing elections.
Yeah it was bought for the sole purpose of hurting people he doesn’t like and helping his political side attempt to gain further power while hindering his political opponents’ abilities to organize. And in his mind, ideally make some money in the process
In that sense it was, and still is, a great investments.
An election is worth far far far more than the price they paid.
I feel like that’s a side effect, where it’s being done because now he owns twitter and can.
Originally, I’m pretty sure the reasoning was less convoluted - it was just a pump and dump stock scheme. Which he has a history of doing. He bought a bunch of twitter stock, he posted memes about buying twitter, a bunch of his idiot supporters correspondingly bought twitter stock, which drove up the price.
Then he tried to back out of buying it, he got sued and the SEC got involved. Because he’d had an ongoing vendetta with the SEC they helped force him into buying it.
Then he was stuck being required to purchase an asset which was known to be nearly impossible to get a profit out of, with big loans from multiple parties.
I mean that’s a story. Its not the one I believe, and I don’t think my reasoning is that convoluted. Elon had to sell something to his backers and the argument that controlling these platforms is how you control the social fabric of the US is what I would have done for a pitch.
Like, he probably should have figured out Trumps contractual obligations to Truth social. Should we lay down a gentleman’s bet on Twitter acquiring Truth social in the next 12 months? If he can deliver an election for the Saudis, it will have been well worth it from their perspective.
I dont believe that.
Buying twitter was his ego getting the better of him. Once he came to his senses he tried every which way to get out of the deal. But he couldn’t. He had to buy it.
Hanlon tought us: Never account to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Buying twitter was never really thought trough. It was a joke, a meme. Something never meant to be taken seriously. He was sure he could alter the deal. But he couldn’t. Instead he instead of Lando was left with the clown’s shoes, unicycle and ballerina outfit.
Ever since he’s trying to recuperate something, anything. And nothing seems to work, everything he does only backfires. It seems he’s embracing the backfire now. Musk being musk, that isn’t something he does without a plan.
The question is… What’s the plan. And this explanation seems plausible.
And by the way: he’s still just doing this for shit and giggles. He’s having fun, first and foremost. He’s giving us all the finger. Look at that guy during that interview. Everything he says and does is very deliberate. He enjoys his trolling.
To him this isn’t real money. He can piss it through the toilet and it would never ever result in any consequence whatsoever for him.
He can lose 90% of his worth and would still be insanely impossibly rich.
I think its great that we disagree, but I also think Hanlon would be surprised by the extant degree of malice out there. Shits piling up.
Look at where the original funding came from and who is pouring money into keeping Xitter afloat. It’s about propaganda published by bots.
https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musks-twitter-takeover-faces-backlash-over-saudi-financing-1755606
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/28/how-elon-musk-financed-his-twitter-takeover
https://fortune.com/2023/09/06/elon-musk-x-what-is-twitter-worth/amp/
I think the media has a tough time recognizing mental illness in a robber baron.
There’s good evidence that being very wealthy is bad for your mental health
I think it’s the other way around. I think you have to have a personality disorder to get to the ultra wealthy point.