In four years Musk will be bored to death with Twitter and will sell it to private equity and the Saudis for $5 billion. At that point it will be mostly a platform for porn creators and crypto pumping, the only two verticals where Twitter seems to be actually growing lately.
Meh, Morgan Stanley has had bigger losses. How much of it is actually their money anyway? My guess is the losses will be passed down to the individuals who gave MS the $$$. Morgan probably bundled it all up, made a nice fee, and passed it on to Musk.
> Morgan probably bundled it all up, made a nice fee, and passed it on to Musk.
It has not. The debt was conditional on the acquisition of Twitter by Musk, so Morgan Stanley could not sell it before the acquisition was completed. But the debt was necessary for the acquisition, so the acquisition could not be completed without the debt money. Therefore, they had to happen at the same time, with M&S fronting the money.
Of course the terms of the debt, and the price of the acquisition, had to be both defined for everything to move forward, so they were finalized months ago.
When Musk signed a contract with Morgan Stanley, money was cheap, so the debt has very low interest. When the debt has actually been issued, a few days ago, money had become more expensive; Morgan Stanley won't find anyone to buy it as-is. To sell it they will have to discount it quite deeply, losing a bunch of money; otherwise they'll be stuck with it.
The crown prince already owned a large stake of twitter, and decided to maintain ownership stake after the buyout. They are still a shareholder, like before, not a loan holder.
No it doesn't, that table (from [0]) lists equity investors, not lenders.
> Each Equity Investor listed in the following table has committed to contribute to Parent, at or immediately prior to the closing of the Merger and subject to the conditions set forth in the Co-Investor Equity Commitment Letters, cash in the amount set forth opposite such Equity Investor’s name in the following table in order to fund a portion of the Merger Consideration contemplated by the Merger Agreement. Certain Equity Investors have retained an option to satisfy such Equity Investor’s equity commitment with shares of Common Stock held by such Equity Investor (valued at $54.20 per share).
If you click the link to the actual SEC filing, it says otherwise. Alwaleed put stock, not cash towards the purchase and will "retain an equity investment in Twitter following completion of the Merger"
> At that point it will be mostly a platform for porn creators and crypto pumping, the only two verticals where Twitter seems to be actually growing lately.
Like justin.tv/twitch, they might do well to identify the pivot.
temperamentally he is mercurial and polarizing which is the opposite of what Twitter needs.
maybe he can turn Twitter into a super-app on the console of every Tesla. a plan is not in evidence other than throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. 'move fast and break things' might really unlock opportunities, or destroy trust.
Zuck was unusually good at fake apologies while continuing to data-rape and strip-mine users, but trust is a problem for Facebook and will be exponentially worse for Musk.
it could indeed turn into MuskChan. if he is really going to turn a blue check into something anyone can buy without providing ID it's just a matter of time before impersonation scams multiply.
it will be an incredible distraction from challenges at his other ventures. Saudis and pedophiles are going to use it to abduct people. what is he going to do when people/nations go nuts about something on Twitter and take it out on Tesla?
I'm also skeptical of the weird turnabout between 'get me out of this deal at any cost' and rushing to pay up in full. either a side deal with e.g. Saudis or there was something existential about to come out in discovery.
Do you really think it will be four years? Considering his attention span, and the rapidity with which Twitter is already deteriorating, I suspect it will be much less than that.
Yeah he’s only seen like a handful of new space rocket designs through from conception to profitability, and he only created one major car company before moving onto other things. He can never stick to anything.
I agree that "short attention span" doesn't seem like it belongs on Musk's very long list of negative qualities, but a reminder: he was not an initial founder of Tesla, he bought in a year later and claimed to be a founder until he was sued and reached an agreement[0].
That is a fair point. I just am not sure his recent behaviour actually suggests he’s got a short attention span. I suspect he’s wanted to take over Twitter for a long time and is now rushing to carry out changes that he’s long planned. He might be acting too excitedly, he might screw it up by going too fast and rough with the changes, but I don’t see that as indicating a short attention span. Maybe impatience.
I know this is cliche to say... but I have been reading this comment for the past 10 years. Maybe one year it will be true but it has a terrible track record.
I was assured Tesla would be "dead" by 2018 and in the 2000s you would get comments about how re-usable rockets were just impossible.
For the record, I think twitter is a different beast but at the end of the day, I think life will go on.
