Elon Musk is proposing to buy Twitter for the original offer price of $54.20 a share, likely avoiding a legal fight over the contentious acquisition.
Jef Feeley and Ed Hammond for Bloomberg News:
Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. Shares in Twitter climbed as much as 18% on the news, and is now halted.
Musk’s proposal to match the original deal terms means Twitter is facing a future under the leadership of a mercurial billionaire who has spent months publicly criticizing its management and questioning its value. It also means that his claims — about how many of Twitter’s users are bots, for instance — are not likely to be scrutinized in a courtroom.
Musk had been trying for months to back out of his contract to acquire Twitter, signed in April. Musk began showing signs of buyer’s remorse shortly after the deal was announced, alleging that Twitter had misled him about the size of its user base and the prevalence of automated accounts known as bots.
Musk formally quit the accord in July and Twitter sued him in Delaware Chancery Court to force him to go forward with the purchase… Musk’s legal team was getting the sense that the case was not going well…
MacDailyNews Take: Twitter can be made valuable, worth far in excess of $54.20 per share, if the platform is returned to an open “town square” marketplace of ideas, sans heavy-handed, one-sided censorship, shadow-banning, etc.
Don't be a bit sorry.https://t.co/UMDhc7hFar
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) March 7, 2022
As we wrote back in April, “Broken long ago, Twitter is a slanted, myopic joke as it is currently run.”
Hopefully Musk will be an agent of change for a platform that should, at this point, be considered a public utility that allows for all viewpoints to be openly discussed.
Elon Musk is a doer.
The doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker and doer in one person. – Steve Jobs
Art and music, design and performance, opinion, fiction, provocation, are what we work to enable. That fills us with such a sense of pride as well as a deep sense of responsibility because we know that these freedoms require protection; not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us, the ones that unnerve and even displease us. They’re the ones that need protection the most. Unpopular speech, unpopular art, and unpopular ideas; speech that questions the people in power.
It’s no accident that these freedoms are enshrined and protected in the First Amendment. They’re the foundation of so many of our rights. We means we all have a stake, and a role, in defending them. This is a responsibility that Apple takes very seriously… We work to defend these freedoms enabling people around the world to speak up. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, accepting the Newseum’s 2017 Free Expression Award on April 18, 2017
The Internet has become as important as anything man has ever created. But those freedoms are being chipped away. Please, I beg you, open your senses to the will of the people to keep the Internet as free as possible… I don’t want to feel that whichever content supplier had the best government connections or paid the most money determined what I can watch and for how much. This is the monopolistic approach and not representative of a truly free market in the case of today’s Internet. – Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak for The Atlantic, December 21, 2010
A few more quotes:
• Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. ― Benjamin Franklin
• To view the opposition as dangerous is to misunderstand the basic concepts of democracy. To oppress the opposition is to assault the very foundation of democracy. ― Aung San Suu Kyi
• Because if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost. ― Neil Gaiman
• Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. – Potter Stewart
• Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. ― United Nations
• If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. ― George Washington
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I can’t believe there were folks that thought Musk would be a good CEO for Apple.
Yes, you’re absolutely right. Not even a slim chance he would be a “good CEO.” Instead, on Day One he would be the GREATEST and most creative CEO in the Apple history, SECOND only to the great one Steve Jobs…
Elon Musk does more in one day than Tim Cook does in a year.
Elon Musk has more vision than Tim Cook since Tim Cook has no vision.
Elon Musk has more charisma than Tim Cook since Tim Cook has no charisma.
If what you wrote was factual, then please sell your Apple stock and go all in on Tesla.
To a sane person, it’s very entertaining to see Musk choose to throw away $44 billion on a loser company rather than testify in a deposition for the lawsuit he instigated to back out of his ill-formed takeover plan. So much for the vision and charisma angles.
We all know now how much extra curricular activity with paid-off mistresses Musk conducts during his oh-so-grueling days. https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_1%2C$multiply_0.8163%2C$ratio_1.777778%2C$width_980%2C$x_92%2C$y_111/t_crop_custom/q_86%2Cf_auto/t_smh_no_label_social_wm/l_text:PT%20Sans_41_bold_italic:%20from%20%2Cg_south_west%2Cy_84%2Cx_288%2Cco_rgb:0a1633/l_text:PT%20Sans_41_bold:%20%20%2Cg_south_west%2Cy_90%2Cx_375%2Cco_rgb:0a1633/l_text:AbrilTitling-Bold.ttf_83:%202017%20%2Cg_south_west%2Cy_15%2Cx_274%2Cco_rgb:0a1633/eed406d72af2384b0d58edd9903e55cb36a1768c
Amen!…
Match Elon to a top notch CFO, COO and true freedom of speech advocacy and it would be hard to go wrong per a broad technology business.
As an inventor, entrepreneur and “creative,” he needs moorings for strong money-making results, imo.
“Free speech advocate”? Hardly. Maybe speech that you agree with, but he’s no fan of free and open expression. Just ask those trying to unionize his factories or complain about sexual and racist actions there. Or just wait until people start criticizing one of his companies, and see how fast Musk’s Twitter pulls those tweets down.
Yeah, like Twitter now is a “Free speech advocate” — NOT!
NO. Musk is a free speech advocate, always has been. Your ridiculous crystal ball gazing is not fact. More a prediction Musk will turn into a CENSOR like the Leftists in Big Tech working with the Biden administration to remove views they do not agree with…
Sadly the words sexist and racist are just the croutons on victim word salad these days. Unionization is not free an open expression.
And with the way they toss those words around, it is clearly a tossed word salad….
Just in: Who made the salad? Caesar Musk made the salad…
“Complain…” now, proof law has been broken? These days, a vast portion of unionizing energy is from bedwetters and internally disgruntled.
Wtf is “open expression” when employed by someone? I want a longer lunch, to work from home and a living wage for emptying the french fry basket? Of course there’s a need for proper employee work conditions, but these days, the majority of the energy results from selfish discontent.
If he buys it and makes it a real platform for free speech, I’ll rejoin it.
I’ve always stayed away. But agree with you, MacRaven. Sign me up!…
My handle has been ‘permanently banned’ by Shitter.
Maybe I’ll go back as NowerNone…….
-wait!
He’s a douche
I’d rather he buy CNN and … just imagine…
NY Times (then) “blatantly Pro American and anti-communist.” Now, pro-American can be deemed dangerous and possibly domestic terrorist. Communism is growing in #’s and the US president thinks making American great again is one of the country’s most significant threats. F’g a.
Long vid, but v good.
Elon is a loser. If he takes Twitter over users will leave in droves
We accept your terms of surrender.
Why aren’t you on Trooth Social?
The same free speech advocate that pays women he sexually assaults to keep their mouth shut? Oh yeah, that idiot. The one that said his rocket was supposed to blow up. A walking turd like trump and putin