So "X" - nothing to see here. Elon's in control - Part XXX

Cordell

Riiiight. You may be surprised or maybe not, but strong leaders like him absolutely have to be at least some degree of pieces of sh1t. Like, they should be able to fire hundreds or thousands of people potentially sending them into poverty in order to preserve the wealth of the investors and the future of the company and not lose any sleep over it. This is how it works, like it or not. I know he's a horrible person, but it's not his personality that I admire.

joseywhales

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119327487#Comment_119327487

I think our definitions of leadership are different. For me it's inspiring people to follow you and getting the best out of those people and growing them to their maximum. A lot more than being capable of firing a bunch of people. The leader serves their followers.

Tony EH

*snigger*

"Strong leaders". 😄

Cordell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119327686#Comment_119327686

That's the romantic version, not the real one.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119327487#Comment_119327487

All the more damning Musk can't separate hard business decisions from attacking people on twitter within a personal capacity. Doesn't really speak well of him no matter how you try to spin a personal choice of àssholery.

"Strong leaders" know the difference. Weak leaders think there's only one way. Weak people attack others online.

kowloon

Money does afford people better opportunities, be it education, startup money or just a place to live and eat while you work, but there are other factors like nepotism and connections that aren't strictly money-related. That said, Cordell is right insofar as you have to be a pretty ruthless person in business to give you the edge because good business sometimes means screwing people over for profit. It's the reason sociopaths are so well represented at the top.

I think it's harder to lay off people when you have experience of struggling to put food on the table, but even easier still when you just don't care about other people.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119329803#Comment_119329803

None of that has anything to do with good leadership.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119329844#Comment_119329844

All depends on the definition of leadership you align with.

Is "Good leadership" success/victory at all costs or is does good leadership mean something more like creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable and are successful (and rewarded accordingly) ?

For me it's the latter but for some the victory is all that counts so the end always justifies the means.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119327487#Comment_119327487

Does 'strong leadership' include agreeing a price for a deal before you have enough information to set a sensible price?

Cordell

Strong leadership includes making mistakes and not hiding them or blindly go forward with them. He made a mistake, he's trying to back out of it.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119330680#Comment_119330680

Then he's got to pay the legal price for his mistake.

Cordell

He also have a duty to himself and his investors to fight to make that price as small as possible.

pixelburp

There's a whiff of Strong Dear Leader in places; Musk's success is overstated - hyped even - his Twitter debacle an indicator he's not the entrepreneurial Golden Child he might like us to believe in, vastly overvaluing the company. While his Las Vegas car tunnel its own pointer that he doesn't know when to back away from a "mistake". No no Elon, the world will be revolutionised by ... *checks notes* a singe-lane tunnel powered by Teslas.

Other billionaires have the nous to channel their middle-age crises on simple things like dick-shaped rockets and giant yachts - why can't Musk just be ordinary in his eccentricity?

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119330680#Comment_119330680

I would have thought that Strong leadership was admitting the mistake and moving on.

What Musk is doing is blaming everyone but himself for his decision to agree a stupid price (a stock price number associated with joke about weed) and agreeing to a deal without due diligence.

A combination of poor impulse control, arrogance and hubris is not a great combo for a "leader" to be honest.

Penn

It's also important to make clear he did not make a mistake, he made a choice. From reading the court filing from Twitter, the diligence checks were part of Musk's original offer, but when making his final offer, Musk made the choice to take that out of the contract to try push the deal over the line.

30. Having obtained these commitments, Musk announced in an April 21, 2022 securities filing that his offer was no longer conditioned on financing or subject to due diligence:

At the time of delivery, the Proposal was also subject to the completion of financing and business due diligence, but it is no longer subject to financing as a result of the Reporting Person’s receipt of the financing commitments . . . and is no longer subject to business due diligence.

Musk proclaimed himself prepared to begin negotiations “immediately,” and confirmed he was “exploring whether to commence a tender offer.”

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119330803#Comment_119330803

Who are 'his investors'?

Tesla has investors, I know - but who are the 'his investors' that you refer to?

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119331636#Comment_119331636

He went looking for outside funding initially - There are a few hedge funds and I think that Larry Ellison committed some money as well.

Musk can't afford the $44B on his own - Most of his wealth is locked into Tesla stock that he can't really sell.

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119331636#Comment_119331636

He was only putting up about 45% of the purchase price himself. The rest was coming from a combination of bank loans and private investors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk

"On April 20, Musk disclosed that he had secured financing provided by a group of banks led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, Société Générale, Mizuho Bank, and BNP Paribas, for a potential tender offer to acquire the company.[26][27] The funding included $7 billion of senior secured bank loans; $6 billion in subordinated debt; $6.25 billion in bank loans to Musk personally, secured by $62.5 billion of his Tesla stock; $20 billion in cash equity from Musk, to be provided by sales of Tesla stock and other assets; and $7.1 billion in equity from 19 independent investors"

TheValeyard

Is Musk just trolling the world at this stage?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119331677#Comment_119331677

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119331691#Comment_119331691

I wonder if they were all dumb enough to commit to the price without doing due diligence too? I doubt it, tbh.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119331829#Comment_119331829

Basically, and the worst part is the world's (social) media keeps falling for it; Musk's brainfarts generate clicks and views so of course, Elon Musk Eats Sandwich will earn a headline and viral traction. It's tedious.

Cordell

It's tedious just because you guys are constantly chasing up his brainfarts, you must love their smell :)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332456#Comment_119332456

The bang of sour grapes and projection off this.

Thankfully only have to use twitter for pen test research, and was looking forward to him buying it and making my job easier.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119331636#Comment_119331636

I suppose an investment in Tesla is an investment in Musk seeing as the company's value has as much to do with Musk's persona as it does with making cars. The car company alone is struggling to keep up with the big names. Every time Musk does something stupid he erodes his own reputation and by extension that of Tesla. But the mistake here is his own, afaik anyone else putting money behind the bid owes nothing if the deal is broken, it's all on Musk personally.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333305#Comment_119333305

Tesla are on the downward slope to be honest.

The Volume manufacturers will just swamp them - they already are truth be told.

I'm sure they'll continue as a small volume "niche" car maker , but any idea of them dominating the future car market is well and truly busted.

The Tesla Stock price is never getting back to the crazy valuations that made Musk the richest man in the world for a while. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to a see someone like Nissan buying them out in a couple of years as a way to establish a premium brand in the future Electric world.

Penn

The biggest thing Tesla have going for them is the fact they're not electric cars; they're Tesla's. Same way you had iPhones, and you had smartphones. Yes, they're one in the same, but the name carries significance in terms of branding and recognition.

The issue is that Tesla appears to be running out of road. More negative issues with the vehicles keep cropping up (significant issues with their self-drive function, door handles, having to reboot the car if the software freezes when parked), and while Steve Jobs was always fairly popular, Musk's name is becoming more toxic. As more car manufacturers catch up to the majority of what Tesla's do (while maybe not including some of the features which are more troublesome), Tesla might not be able to keep as much of a lead as they once had.

Also the Tesla Cybertruck is the ugliest f*cking thing I've ever seen.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333612#Comment_119333612

Also the Tesla Cybertruck is the ugliest f*cking thing I've ever seen.

It really, truly is. It is astonishing the design ever made it that far. The ball bearing incident icing on the cake. Especially when the various road cars made pains to look like normal, stylish sedans.

Agree with the rest as well. Tesla stole a march, and arguably dragged electric cars screaming into the mainstream - it's easily forgotten just how pathetic and bubble-car ugly electric cars were before then. Their reputation being that of a niche for eccentrics and hippies.

Tesla normalised the concept but in opening the door, are now getting trampled by the rest of the automotive industry, all 100 years of cumulative power and money. Their response was to design the àss ugliest truck in a genre not exactly known for aesthetics in the first place.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333305#Comment_119333305

If that's the case, then the Tesla board have a duty to rein him in, get him to STFU and stop doing stupid stuff on the market. That's their duty to shareholders.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119333687#Comment_119333687

I think the only thing that has happened to him thus far is the trouble he got into with the SEC over his tweets about taking Tesla private.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334206#Comment_119334206

That's a pretty big thing for a quoted company

brokenangel

I am no fan of Musk, believe me

But why would anyone take over twitter. When he said he was taking over it was a huge problem identified about bot accounts. He asked for it to be cleared up and they have totally failed.

Even Ireland, which is a tiny country on the edge of Europe with no power in the grand scheme of things, has a flood of bot accounts to push a political agenda.

Why would you take on that bullsh**t when you can sell cars to people who think they are buying the next "apple"

y0ssar1an22

at least the amount of bots and fake accounts/followers should come out. if its worse than the 5% they claim, it'll ruin the platform.

and if worse then the 5% they claim, it'll lead to a huge lawsuit by investors that were mislead.

all in all, tis a win for free speech.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334584#Comment_119334584

The problem is there is no platform out there that's not up to its eyes in bots, not anything close to the size of Twitter anyway. So nothing will change.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334762#Comment_119334762

They can ban accounts on the Right yet cant find bots. does not compute. 🤔

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334762#Comment_119334762

so just let it carry on? musk wants to make everything public source.

i reckon jack dorsey knew exactly what was going on hence his willingness to cash out

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119330393#Comment_119330393

Victory at all costs can sometimes end in a spectacular defeat.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334771#Comment_119334771

I don't think it matters what they want, bot accounts exist in large numbers as long as it's easy to make an account. The alternative is to require proof of identity or some other barrier to entry and then you might control most of the bots but you drive away genuine users too.

Half the accounts on this forum are reg or sock-puppet accounts, given its size Twitter or any other large social media platform is crawling with every type of account on top of those with no agenda.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334775#Comment_119334775

I love to see **** people brought down, but I don't believe in karma. Arseholes thrive at the top of the food chain.

xxxxxxl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334811#Comment_119334811

bots are not people why can't we get the basics right. The people accounts are generally trolls.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334584#Comment_119334584

How can investors sue themselves. Yes if something was hidden in the accounts recently then newer investors could but this effects virtually all investors so suing is not an option

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334556#Comment_119334556

Why would any one bit for a company especially a company the size of Twitter with due diligence. Normally executives arrive in with an army of accountants, and auditors and spend days or even weeks going through the books.

Anybody that fails to do that is a twit. Musk problem is after he bid the price of tech stock fell.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119334813#Comment_119334813

Im fully aware of that, thats why i made the distinction in my post. But fake accounts and bots are part of the same problem, all that differs is the bots have automated the bullshit.

Quin_Dub

For any platform the challenge is to find the balance between security and ease of access.

In terms of bots , not all of them are bad per se - Lots of companies use them to help engagement by having a bot scanning looking for people talking about their company/products and engaging with them to help before handing off to a human.

Block those and you get less companies using the site , leading to less visits and less advertising

Could you block all bots?

Probably , but to do so would require you to put up significant barriers to access - like validating ID before access is allowed etc.

The more complicated and time consuming you make the sign-up process , the less likely people are to use the site.

Finding that balance is extremely hard and in general companies will choose easier initial access over heavy account vetting as volume of visits is critical to their business model.

brokenangel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119336872#Comment_119336872

The biggest issue is around politics on Twitter. Why don't they make the political party responsible for the actions of their online supporters etc.

Instead you have parties promoting supporters to run multiple accounts and to abuse people online.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119337207#Comment_119337207

That’s like trying to make parties responsible for what their members say in the pub or on the street. Impossible to enforce.

Penn

Judge doesn't allow Musk's motion to delay the trial. Twitter V Musk trial set for October.

pixelburp

Be nice if this trial somehow ruined Twitter. I genuinely struggle to find enough positives in the thing to outweigh just how rancid it has made online - and offline - life these days.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119363235#Comment_119363235

Agreed , the best outcome for this trial is that Musk is forced to pay a very large chunk of cash as compensation for backing out of the deal and Twitter is so badly damaged by the whole shambles that it just withers and dies.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119363366#Comment_119363366

Let them fight.gif Would be nice to see Facebook go down the shitter too.

BigRighysteria

Delete