1) I think it's a little weird everyone is treating this as a done deal. I'm not saying it's definitely a stunt, but he backs out of plans and partnerships constantly, even halfway through.
2) To the extent he's got a real motivation beyond receiving attention, I think you have to take personal vendettas seriously. He's clearly let his preoccupation with Tesla's short-sellers affect his decisions (though it's hard to argue he's done anything "wrong" given that 270 number, Jesus). It doesn't seem outrageous to me that being able to roll out his fantasy ban list is worth a few bil in the calculus.
3) In some sense he's a perfect person for the job because his management style closely matches the vein of power users' complaints: rabid focus on bullshit minutiae. It's hard to imagine a CEO who would be more receptive to taking ideas like "don't let eggs reply to me" seriously.
$12.5B of the $46.5B Twitter purchase is being financed by a loan against Elon's Tesla shares. His interest rate is SOFR + 3% on the loan (comes out to ~4% annually currently). So he has to pay $500 million per year in *cash* as interest just to keep his loan. There's also an additional $13B in bank loans (these will be on Twitter's balance sheet not Elon's) at a roughly 5.5% interest rate. Ballpark $700 - $800 mill.
Keep in mind Twitter is cash flow negative before debt (they have huge infrastructure expenses). This is an LBO (leveraged buyout) btw.. I'm guessing Elon will help run/fix Twitter up for 3-5 years then IPO . Remaining $21B in cash probably coming from Elon + friends.
If he backs out he has to pay over $1 billion as a breakup fee.
To be clear, you're saying my first point is wrong (it's not a stunt/he can't back out) because he's already put his money where his mouth is? If so, I'd believe you!
But it's still weird to me that the reporting isn't framed more around his history of lying or changing his mind about stuff (e.g. "Here's how we know that Elon Musk is ACTUALLY serious about buying Twitter"). He's already lied about securing funding to take a company private!
A couple thoughts:
1) I think it's a little weird everyone is treating this as a done deal. I'm not saying it's definitely a stunt, but he backs out of plans and partnerships constantly, even halfway through.
2) To the extent he's got a real motivation beyond receiving attention, I think you have to take personal vendettas seriously. He's clearly let his preoccupation with Tesla's short-sellers affect his decisions (though it's hard to argue he's done anything "wrong" given that 270 number, Jesus). It doesn't seem outrageous to me that being able to roll out his fantasy ban list is worth a few bil in the calculus.
3) In some sense he's a perfect person for the job because his management style closely matches the vein of power users' complaints: rabid focus on bullshit minutiae. It's hard to imagine a CEO who would be more receptive to taking ideas like "don't let eggs reply to me" seriously.
M&A banker here, a lot of what you wrote is completely incorrect.
Just circling back here to point out that I was right lol
like what?
$12.5B of the $46.5B Twitter purchase is being financed by a loan against Elon's Tesla shares. His interest rate is SOFR + 3% on the loan (comes out to ~4% annually currently). So he has to pay $500 million per year in *cash* as interest just to keep his loan. There's also an additional $13B in bank loans (these will be on Twitter's balance sheet not Elon's) at a roughly 5.5% interest rate. Ballpark $700 - $800 mill.
Keep in mind Twitter is cash flow negative before debt (they have huge infrastructure expenses). This is an LBO (leveraged buyout) btw.. I'm guessing Elon will help run/fix Twitter up for 3-5 years then IPO . Remaining $21B in cash probably coming from Elon + friends.
If he backs out he has to pay over $1 billion as a breakup fee.
To be clear, you're saying my first point is wrong (it's not a stunt/he can't back out) because he's already put his money where his mouth is? If so, I'd believe you!
But it's still weird to me that the reporting isn't framed more around his history of lying or changing his mind about stuff (e.g. "Here's how we know that Elon Musk is ACTUALLY serious about buying Twitter"). He's already lied about securing funding to take a company private!