Elon Musk

Yes, but he's pivoted to simply breaking it (because who cares, "X" will be the everything app), firing thousands of people, not paying whole countries' worth of other employees, and upending scores of other peoples' ability to promote their work. Didn't exactly learn his lesson.

It would be funny if Tim Cook replied to that Elon Musk tweet with something like "Sure, Elon, whatever. Now pay the $8, er I mean 30%"

this might be giving him too much credit, but 1) of course he knows 2) that is a tweet designed to go viral with the help of people who think he's stupid. trump was good at that.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, November 28, 2022 1:54 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

normally I'd say yeah but everything he's done since buying Twitter implies he really is that dumb

All these rich people know one another right? Are they laughing at him? Are they ignoring him?

NEW: Documents show why Apple pulling its Twitter ads is devastating for Elon Musk: In the first quarter of 2022, Apple was Twitter's top advertiser, accounting for nearly $50M in revenuehttps://t.co/h9TWjdwFoH

— Faiz Siddiqui (@faizsays) November 28, 2022

Ruh-roh

no pocky for kitty

meanwhile back in the streets:

A man and his son are in a car accident. The man is killed instantly. His son is rushed to the hospital. The surgeon says “I can’t operate on this patient, he is my son”. The car then crashes through the wall of the operating room, killing everyone. How is this possible? (Tesla)

— RiderToast, scab resident destroyer (@RiderToast) November 28, 2022

iiuc this is saying twitter's loans could be contingent on not doing something like "getting kicked out of the app store"? that would be funny.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, November 28, 2022 2:24 PM (four hours ago)

nah, bonds/loans are completely different from merger agreements. even under the merger agreement, apple kicking twitter off the app store now would be a muddled set of facts for an MAE - arguably elon's actions leading to all of twitter's major advertisers cutting spending would have been the MAE since that actually impacted revenue, an apple ban would be a bit late to the show. but those provisions of the merger agreement ceased to matter on october 28th. the bond indenture is concerned with a different purpose - it's designed not so much to make sure twitter operates in a business as usual way, as the merger agreement, but to preserve twitter's lenders position in the capital structure / claims on twitter's assets in case of insolvency, which elon tanking twitter's revenue doesn't really touch.

are loans like that contingent on *anything*?

i get that they're not contingent on the literal terms of the merger agreement, but are they likely to be contingent on terms like "self-inflicted MAE" or key man risk or whatever?

If a loan agreement is based on using stock as collateral it would certainly include provisions that cover what happens if the stock plummets in value.

contingent is maybe the wrong word, since musk already got the money. to answer your question though, loans like the ones twitter allow lenders to call an event of default (and demand their money back) if twitter does things that imperil the lenders claims on twitter's assets. for example, taking out more debt (which allows new lenders who are not the current lenders to have a claim), selling/transferring away assets (reduces the size of the asset pool available to satisfy the debt), sending money upstream to musk (reduces amount of money available to satisfy the debt).

in other words, the loans are about keeping money/assets from leaving out the door, but aren't concerned at all with making sure the company keeps money coming in the door. this allows the company to continue business as usual, in 99% of cases and which is what rational companies are interested in doing, but also allows for seppuku in public, which appears to be elon's strategy?

If a loan agreement is based on using stock as collateral it would certainly include provisions that cover what happens if the stock plummets in value.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Monday, November 28, 2022 7:01 PM (twelve minutes ago)

a loan that uses stock as collateral, or a margin loan, is not available to companies generally, but usually is available to individual lenders. elon was originally penciled in for a margin loan to buy tesla, but was able to drop that part of the financing package after convincing his buddies to chip in. if he had taken out a margin loan on his tesla shares as originally contemplated, this thread would be about 3x more fun, given where tesla's stock price has traded since oct. 28th.

Wonder if some banks are going to consider defining key, knowledgeable employees as assets for loan collateral purposes

like if Elon Musk had borrowed $13 billion to buy, say, a mining concern, based in part on a business case for future cashflows from the mine, and then after closing decided to detonate a dirty bomb inside the mine, a lender might reasonably default, right?

*declare him in default

also, re: MAC, a MAC is notoriously hard to establish in delaware. there has only been MAC in history, and it was big:

Then, during the post-signing period, Akorn experienced consecutive year-over-year declines in quarterly revenue. Akorn’s operating income was down 84, 89, 292, and 134 percent, respectively, in the four quarters after it signed the merger agreement. Akorn’s revenue was down 29, 29, 34, and 27 percent, and earnings per share were down 96, 105, 300, and 170 percent. Akorn’s stock price dropped from $32.13 per share before signing to between $5.00 and $12.00 per share after signing. Commenting on Akorn’s financial decline, Chancellor Stine remarked:

Akorn’s dramatic downturn in performance is durationally significant. It has already persisted for a full year and shows no sign of abating. More importantly, Akorn’s management team has provided reasons for the decline that can reasonably be expected to have durationally significant effects.

Not only had Akorn’s financial situation “dropped off a cliff,” Fresnius soon also learned of serious deficiencies in Akorn’s data integrity processes. Dramatically, these issues were first identified in an anonymous whistleblower letter. Upon review of the letter, Fresnius performed its own investigation. Fresnius discovered that Akorn was “in persistent, serious violation of FDA requirements” and had “a disastrous culture of noncompliance.” The investigation by Fresenius also uncovered the possible use of fabricated data in Akorn’s FDA submissions. Additionally, as soon as the parties signed the merger agreement, Akorn had canceled regular audits, assessments, and inspections of known problems.

Upon these findings, Fresnius attempted to terminate the merger agreement. Akorn argued that the merger agreement should be specifically enforced. Fresnius counterclaimed, seeking a ruling that it properly terminated the merger agreement. The rest, as they say, is history.

The court determined that the unexpected and nonstop drop in Akorn’s business performance constituted a “general MAE” (that is, the company itself had suffered an MAE), and that because Akorn’s representations of regulatory compliance were not true and correct, the deviation between the as-represented condition and its actual condition would also result in an MAE.

so far nobody's leaked how much revenue twitter has lost so far, but i bet it'd give the above a run for the money. after all, twitter did $5B in revenue in 2021, $4.5B of which was from advertising. unfortunately, musk's own goals are happening after musk actually closed the deal, when the MAC stopped mattering. twitter did a pretty good job of making sure money kept on coming in the door while it was waiting for musk to close the deal so it avoided the MAC!

Wonder if some banks are going to consider defining key, knowledgeable employees as assets for loan collateral purposes

― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Monday, November 28, 2022 7:22 PM (two minutes ago)

the problem is, you can't really sell an employee in the bankruptcy auction process for cash to settle a debt... not yet anyway. maybe a bank will find a way?

we already call them human capital!

Yeah I guess calling an employee a bankruptcy asset is less relevant than proposing that Elon has in fact caused damage to Twitter's primary asset (Twitter) by firing over half of the people who made it work and making 1/3 of the rest quit

hence the dirty bomb analogy

idk if I were lending money to someone to buy a software company I would make them covenant to offer experienced technical staff sizable retention incentives

This is what’s so infuriating about Mr. Epic Reddit Man. He all but announces he’s ripping people off by naming it “Godot” — you can just see him tittering to himself — and still people are too dense to catch on because they’re content to simply bask in his imaginary glow.
― Chris L, Monday, November 28, 2022 2:26 PM (five hours ago)

i mean, this literally is

https://i.ibb.co/M27DZ8t/image.png

also didn't musk admit that the hyperloop was lobbed over the wall for the express purpose of defeating california's high speed rail proposal? seems like the boring company is the same stratagem. the playbook is old - see ford/gm convincing cities to pave over light rail and train in the 40s/50s in favor of the auto-mobile and a car for every family. the car needs to be destroyed!

agree

idk if I were lending money to someone to buy a software company I would make them covenant to offer experienced technical staff sizable retention incentives

― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Monday, November 28, 2022 7:34 PM (seventeen minutes ago)

it's often the case that companies get bought so the buyer can fire staff and pocket more money for themselves, and that's the whole incentive for buying the company. it's the private equity leveraged buyout playbook. that usually takes course over several months/years though, a controlled burn with plenty of backstops, not in just a few weeks like here!

Do the banks actually get paid in the end tho when your Guitar Centers or Toys R Uses finally go under

i'm not an expert there but my understanding is that by the time a company is finally circling the drain, a lot of its debt will have been sold and resold until it ends up in the hands of distressed debt investors, who chiefly specialize in bringing guns to a knife fight.

the fact that elon's underwriting banks here still hold the debt is extremely unusual and is more a factor of how drastically the macro debt markets have deteriorated since the deal was struck back in march rather than anything elon did. but of course, elon's actions haven't helped matters at all.

Oh yeah good point I forgot that part of this colossal fuck-up

Guitar Center has been "circling the drain" for going on 20 years now

Elon fanfic is hilarious

It would be insane if it turns out @elonmusk had a long game of buying Twitter- knowing apple & Android would drop him- to launch a secret phone he had made two years ago, making his $44B Twitter investment into a $300B phone company..

— Jason “Storm Chaser” Nelson (@Storm4Congress) November 28, 2022

lol wtf, how would massively overpaying for twitter have any relevance to building a phone?

4d chess, maaaaaan

44b chess

fanboys should just write a horny Miami bass paean to Musk at this point, cos that's about the level of their obsession atm

"we like the cars that go boom"

A lot of people were like that with Trump too. I seem to recall Mr. Dilbert saying all the Putin stuff was just to earn his trust so he could stab him in the back later

lol sleeve

Same energy as Elon and Tesla

“I will not accept that it’s a highly dangerous road”
From ITN archives. pic.twitter.com/snILgnwvPi

— Stephen R Jones 🇺🇦 (@Meliden) November 28, 2022

Hmmmmmmmmhttps://t.co/6ELisTqFcq pic.twitter.com/mDIP31Y0Eg

— Ryan Mac 🙃 (@RMac18) November 29, 2022

ok!

Elon Musk said that Twitter will unveil three verification badge colors: blue, gold, and gray. Blue will be reserved for individuals (both those paying for Twitter Blue and verified individuals of interest), gold for companies, and gray for government. https://t.co/LxlVrq9IPm pic.twitter.com/xBMDA3rR64

— IGN (@IGN) November 29, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw

where's the brown badge

I expect to be assigned a yellow six-pointed star

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqomZQMZQCQ

Sorry meant to post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LmvAUmvLA4

Musk also said that all verified accounts will be "manually authenticated" before the check appears on the profile.

hows he planning to do this since he fired everyone

he didn't say how long it would take

6-7 month wait time

you tweet at him and ask for verification and he runs it past catturd2