Elon Musk and Twitter Reach Deal for Sale (2 Viewers)

[SaintForLife]

Elon Musk struck a deal on Monday to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion, in a victory by the world’s richest man to take over the influential social network frequented by world leaders, celebrities and cultural trendsetters.

Twitter agreed to sell itself to Mr. Musk for $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the company’s share price this month before he revealed he was the firm’s single largest shareholder. It would be the largest deal to take a company private — something Mr. Musk has said he will do with Twitter — in at least two decades, according to data compiled by Dealogic.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Mr. Musk said in a statement announcing the deal. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

The deal, which has been unanimously approved by Twitter’s board, is expected to close this year, subject to a vote of Twitter shareholders and certain regulatory approvals.

The blockbuster agreement caps what had seemed an improbable attempt by the famously mercurial Mr. Musk, 50, to buy the social media company — and immediately raises questions about what he will do with the platform and how his actions will affect online speech globally.

Elon Musk and Twitter Reach Deal for Sale

Twitter agreed to be taken over at $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the share price before it was revealed that Mr. Musk had been buying up the company’s stock.

www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org

If Musk does what he claims he wants to do it will be a big improvement and good for free speech.

 

[MT15]

He’s pathological. And he has so much money he’s actually dangerous to the rest of us. What a cluster.

 

[MT15]

The shirtty thing about the X investors is that they’re all writing it down as loss - offsetting profits. So the taxpayer is effectively funding 21% of their loss in X, at least the US ones.

I thought most of the money was from the Saudis? I‘m not sure there are a whole lot of US investors, other than Musk himself.

 

[superchuck500]

I thought most of the money was from the Saudis? I‘m not sure there are a whole lot of US investors, other than Musk himself.

The price was $44B. There’s quite a bit of US investment.

About $13B came from US banking - mainly BOA, Morgan Stanley, and Barclays. Another $7B is “private equity” that includes Oracle’s Larry Ellison (believed to be $2B and most of the rest from the Saudis).

Those amounts are secured only by X stock. And Musk funded the other $23B in various ways.

Explainer: How Elon Musk funded the $44 billion Twitter deal

Elon Musk on Thursday closed the $44 billion deal announced in April to take Twitter Inc private and took ownership of the influential social media platform by firing top executives immediately.

www.reuters.com

 

[MT15]

I will also be curious to see what Linda does with this situation.

 

[samiam5211]

I'm watching the Elon interview.

He just said that if twitter fails it will be because of an advertiser boycott. Advertisers are the only customer his company really has.

He's blaming the customers for his business failing. He's the Amy's Bakery for billionaires.

 

[Lapaz]

I will also be curious to see what Linda does with this situation.

I think X links shouldn't even be posted anymore. I wish that Threads would takeoff.

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

has Threads been released in all countries yet? i think when it's released in European Union and a lot of other countries maybe it'll take off more. Twitter is slowly driving people away and most will land on Threads since most already have Instagram..

 

[brandon]

He's the Amy's Bakery for billionaires.

Top-tier reference.

 

[Lapaz]

has Threads been released in all countries yet? i think when it's released in European Union and a lot of other countries maybe it'll take off more. Twitter is slowly driving people away and most will land on Threads since most already have Instagram..

Yes, and Threads has gotten the most downloads in India, but given India's population, that's not surprising. However, it is more popular than X. It is surprising that Threads is more popular in Brazil than the U.S.

Top 10 countries where Threads has woven the most users

In Threads’ first week, 33.5% of app downloads came from India, followed by Brazil (22.5%) and the US (16.1%), according to data.ai.

www.insiderintelligence.com

Countries with most X/Twitter users 2023 | Statista

Social network X/Twitter is particularly popular in the United States, and as of January 2023, the microblogging service had over 95 million users.

www.statista.com

 

[MT15]

Such a typical narcissist.

 

[MT15]

His brain is broken

 

[SaintForLife]

I appreciate that you have processed it with this much detail and I don't think you're being disingenuous or trolling - I think this is how you see it. But I do think you have taken quite a bit a latitude to move the question away from what the issue with Elon and X is. And you're fitting it into your view that this is all back to the battle for "censorship" on Twitter/X, which I find to be substantially misplaced and misconceived anyway, but that's another discussion.

I strongly disagree that the focus on X and Musk's posts by groups like Media Matters and the ADL is all about trying to force X to go back to the censorship that many on the left approve of. X and Rumble are the only social media companies that have stood up to the censorship.

There is plenty of antisemitism on Tiktok and Facebook. Why is there not a similar campaign against Tiktok and Facebook to try to pressure advertisers to stop advertising due to the antisemitism on their platforms?

The additional commentary the poster Eric is not terribly relevant - the question is the original exchange that Elon Musk agreed was "the absolute truth." It is Musk's comment/opinion that is relevant here, not Eric's apart from what Musk agreed. Your summary of that tweet, that Musk wholeheartedly agreed with is this:

The post was talking about how he didn't have any sympathy for Jewish populations, that use dialect hatred against whites, now realizing that large groups of minorities that they supported coming into their country don't like them. It seems like a stretch for you to claim that his post was somehow talking about a Jewish secret plan to replace whites.

His post was talking about the hypocrisy of some Jewish groups that complain about the hatred towards them when some of them do the same to whites. I don't see how you can claim that him pointing out that hypocrisy endorsed the idea that antisemitism in America is legitimate. It seems like a false claim of antisemitism to continue the left's campaign to hurt X and Musk because they lost their censorship machine in Twitter.

Why wouldnt it be good to see the entire conversation? Musks orginal post in that thread was somewhat vague and he clarified what he meant in the subsequent posts. I agree 100% with what he said when he said he was talking about groups like the ADL.

The ADL has turned into a partisan left wing organization that uses false accusations of antisemitism to either censor their political opponents or extract some kind of concession. The ADL is a new age Al Sharpton.

This is indeed a recitation of rhetoric that is classically antisemitic and fits precisely within my analysis on the two main ideas. First, it presumes there is a monolithic Jewish community in America that is "pushing dialectical hatred towards whites." Hatred is a very strong word, and dialectical hatred presumably refers to systematic and fully oppositional hatred.

You are reaching with your claim that it presumes there is a monolithic Jewish community that is pushing dialectical hatred towards whites. Musk's subsequent posts in that thread show he wasn't talking about a monolithic community. If you disagree, can you point out specifically what Musk said presumes anything about monolithic Jewish communities.

Just for arguments sake, let's assume what I've said about the ADL is true. Assuming it's true, would Musk's comment be accurate in relation to the ADL?

You seem to be agreeing with both Eric and Musk that this is true - your analysis accepts it as a legitimate claim. Of course it isn't true, there is no Jewish American bloc with the agenda of "dialectical hatred" of "whites" - there's no meaningful evidence of this at all, and I certainly haven't witnessed it.

I disagree with how you are framing the issue. You said monolithic before and now it's a bloc?

Would the ADL be considered a bloc or a monolithic group?

Claiming that Jews must be opposed/mistrusted/punished because they are advancing an agenda against whites is a classic antisemitic theme

I think you are reaching by going into the theoretical to try to make your point.

The orginal video was about people hiding behind internet anonymity by claiming Hitler was right. Using the ADL as an example...The ADL uses false charges of antisemitism often to get what they want.

Many of those claims of antisemitism are against white people who happen to be on the right politically. That also aligns with the Biden administration, the left and the media exaggerating white supremacy. If the ADL would've complained about that Hitler was right video and someone then criticized the ADL due to their exaggerating white supremacy would that be antisemitism?

. . . it serves to justify rhetoric and action against Jews, but it isn't a factual construct. A certain segment of "whites" in America may perceive that "Jews" or "Jewish communities" espouse "dialectical hatred" of whites but I think the most rational and factual conclusion about that idea is that it is false and has origins in antisemitism. It's a classic antisemitic theme and this is rather obvious to the rest of the Twitter/X landscape and in and of itself, is problematic - and negative response from the business community for the owner and self-proclaimed most-important poster on the site to be fully concurring with the idea that Jews push "dialectical hatred" toward whites is wholly justified.

You are in the theoretical again and I disagree. It has origins? You have to tried to link what Musk said to classic antisemitic tropes by trying to tie it to origins. To me that's just a vague accusation.

Do you admit there are false accusations of antisemitism, racism, white supremacy?

Do you think any Jewish people or Jewish groups(not a monolithic Jewish community) have ever pushed dialectical hate toward any groups?

And the second paragraph is, to your point I will admit, not express in its advocacy of the Jewish conspiracy to replace whites but it does indeed convey that point - it is built on that foundational idea.

It doesn't say anything about replacing white and any attempt to try to claim it does isnt accurate.

As you said the idea is that the "large groups of minorities" that "they" (the Jews) supported "flooding" into America don't like Jews. Again, this presumes that there is a monolithic bloc of Jewish policy support to flood America with large groups of minorities.

Once again they didn't say anything about a monolithic block of Jews.

If this isn't Replacement Theory 101, what else is it? Of course this is false, and classically anti-semitic. Jews as a single demographic make up 2.2 percent of the United States and they aren't monolithic about immigration - nor is is remotely realistic that they wield control over U.S. immigration policy which they, then, manipulate to "flood" America with minorities. The only people who believe that this is a rational, demonstrably true idea are those who believe that there is a Jewish agenda (i.e. conspiracy) to harm their standing in America by diminishing their relative social power . . . this is also known as replacement theory. He doesn't have to expressly say it - the whole premise is the foundational construct of replacement theory. And it is both false and classically antisemitic.

I don't agree that there is equivalency between the view that immigration will improve the relative democratic power of Democrats and their policy agenda, and the right-based idea that immigration will dilute the social power of White Christians. One is a democratic (lower case) calculation and the other is based on racial/religious zero-sum games about social values. But I don't think your point is entirely misplaced as long as it is couched in discussion about immigration policy and not some great race war . . . because that leads to precisely the problem here: a supposition that there is a Jewish agenda to flood the United States with minorities because there is Jewish hatred of whites and this minority hoard is how the Jews dilute/replace white Christian dominance in America. Because that is false and it is just another manifestation of a long-running anti-semitic theme that anti-semites use to justify their rhetoric and even leads to violence against Jews.

The media and the left accused Tucker Carlson of espousing the Great Replacement Theory when he used similar language that the Democrats have long used to highlight demographic changes due to immigration and how that will help them politically.

Who claimed that there was a Jewish conspiracy on immigration? How can you try to link that with saying that the immigrants that they supported coming in the country don't like them?

He doesn't have to expressly say it? Once again you are trying to link classic antisemitism to what was talked about even though it didn't say what you are trying to link it to

As to your last point about "Hitler was right", I just don't see your point. The original tweet was indeed calling out those who say "Hitler was right" but hiding behind drive-by tweets made anonymously - instead, he called for those who share that sentiment to state their case and be public about it. It's not surprising at all that the person who made this accusation is Jewish, but it certainly isn't essential, you shouldn't have to be Jewish to oppose antisemitic rhetoric

But the point is that Eric responded to that , "okay, I'll take you up on that - here's what I think" . . . even if you remove the Hitler reference, it is still a response to the request for those who think that antisemitic or at least anti-Jewish opinions are legitimate should state them and defend them rather than with drive-by anonymous posts. So yes, saying that the tweet is a defense of a certain line of thinking that is critical of Jews in America is legitimate. But then, as demonstrated, the ideas conveyed are classic anti-semitic themes that presume (1) a monolithic Jewish community with power to manipulate policy and social action to their agenda, that (2) have genuine "hatred" of whites, and (3) act to flood America with minorities implicitly to advance their hatred of whites by replacing or at least diluting them.

It's absolutely antisemitic, and Elon Musk described it as "absolute truth."

You made it seem like poster that Musk responded to was agreeing with the video that Hitler was right. That wasn't the case.


1) nobody said anything about a monolithic group
2) you are acting as if they claimed all Jews hate whites. They were talking about specific groups
3) nobody said anything Jews acting to flood America with minorities. They said that immigrants that they supported coming in don't like them.

 

[SaintForLife]

The price was $44B. There’s quite a bit of US investment.

About $13B came from US banking - mainly BOA, Morgan Stanley, and Barclays. Another $7B is “private equity” that includes Oracle’s Larry Ellison (believed to be $2B and most of the rest from the Saudis).

Those amounts are secured only by X stock. And Musk funded the other $23B in various ways.

Explainer: How Elon Musk funded the $44 billion Twitter deal

Elon Musk on Thursday closed the $44 billion deal announced in April to take Twitter Inc private and took ownership of the influential social media platform by firing top executives immediately.

www.reuters.com

I agree with Musk. If people want to try to blackmail him to censor posts the left don't want seen, they should fork off.

What would yall do if someone was trying to financially blackmail you?

If course I can't speak for Musk, but the 44 billion to dismantle the left's censorship apparatus in Twitter was definitely worth it. Apparently many on the left don't believe in the 1st ammendment.

 

[SaintForLife]

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

If course I can't speak for Musk, but the 44 billion to dismantle the left's censorship apparatus in Twitter was definitely worth it. Apparently many on the left don't believe in the 1st ammendment.

if Twitter shut down tomorrow, the world would be a better place, and majority of people wouldn't lose a wink of sleep.
and can you tell me how companies pulling advertising has anything to do with the 1st Admendment?
do you think every company that banned Bud light should be held to this 1st Admendment alternate fact that you seem to have? what about the groups who are going after Target, should they be held accountable under this new 1st Admendment?
unless you think the 1st Admendment says something about no repercussions after saying anything you want..
them pulling advertising from Twitter isn't gonna hurt them one bit. id like to know how many major corps crawled back to him since the first initial exodus

 

[MT15]

After reading every word of that - I do applaud SFL finally putting his own words out there. It’s just too bad he doesn’t make the points he thinks he’s making.

Just a quick example: words have meanings and some words convey the same message as other words. Just because the word “monolithic” wasn’t used in the tweets that were criticized doesn’t mean they weren‘t discussing American Jews as a single entity. They clearly were. The fact that they walked it back later doesn’t change the meaning they conveyed in their original tweets. Also a hint: “monolithic” and “bloc” used in this instance are synonyms. They were also clearly referencing replacment conspiracy, which is about white citizens. There is no need to spell that out, that is what the replacement conspiracy is about by definition.

Also, there is simply no understanding evidenced of censorship, blackmail, capitalism, or the First Amendment. Corporations and individuals have First Amendment rights as well, and one of those rights concerns association. They have the right to determine what their brands are associated with. Twitter has no right to their association. It isn’t blackmail to disassociate with Twitter. That is laughable.

 

[LA - L.A.]

I agree with Musk. If people want to try to blackmail him to censor posts the left don't want seen, they should fork off.

What would yall do if someone was trying to financially blackmail you?

• Advertisers told Elon their terms for continuing to pay Twitter for advertising on Twitter.
• Their terms were to not have their ads appear next to Nazi and White Supremacy posts. Their terms were not "remove all Nazi and White Supremacy posts from Twitter."
• Elon refused or couldn't meet their terms.
• The advertisers chose to stop paying for advertising on Twitter.

Please point out at what point advertisers tried to blackmail Elon into censoring posts the left don't want seen.

 

[superchuck500]

I agree with Musk. If people want to try to blackmail him to censor posts the left don't want seen, they should fork off.

What would yall do if someone was trying to financially blackmail you?

If course I can't speak for Musk, but the 44 billion to dismantle the left's censorship apparatus in Twitter was definitely worth it. Apparently many on the left don't believe in the 1st ammendment.

That's not blackmail. In fact, I think framing it as blackmail is quite stupid - and I'm not sure if Musk believes it's blackmail or is just using that take as rhetoric, it's not clear. I hope you don't actually believe that it's blackmail . . . because it's just plain inaccurate, at like a ninth-grade level.

Fundamentally, to blackmail someone involves a threat of some kind in order to receive a benefit from the victim that the blackmailer wants. A brand deciding that it will no longer place advertising on X because it has determined that there is brand risk there due to poor content moderation on the site and the site's owner posting (for what appears to be purely for his own fun or ego gratification) controversial comments isn't blackmail. They're not demanding a benefit from Musk - they don't have some deep need to advertise on X. It's simply a brand-association determination and it's entirely logical and within what is clearly ordinary business prerogative.

Even before last month, advertising on X was below half of total placement at the time Musk bought it - and Twitter always had problems working ads into the site, monetization was a struggle. For these brands to pull away from X isn't a big deal for them - they aren't yearning to get back on X, especially not now. It was never a big part of their ad spend.

That isn't blackmail - calling it blackmail is stupid . . . it's whining on a false premise.