this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Twitter was trading around $40 at the time he made the offer for $54 per share. At the current value, that equals $15 per share. The last time Twitter was trading at that value was 2017.
These are all rough numbers based on some graphs I looked over quickly.
If you want to play devils advocate on this topic you should understand what you're talking about.
What? I'm not really sure what you're trying to disprove here. We seem to be in agreement that the buyout sum didn't match the trading price*.
*The price before Musk started manipulating it with his showboating.
I don't think you understand how someone takes a company private such as Musk.
No company is going to agree to a buyout lower than the trading pricing. The shareholders would reject the offer.
Even if we pick the $40 value for the public price, musk has erased over 60% of the value.
Do you understand the math behind your devil advocacy? Because from where I sit your argument can be summed up as: "well acktually it only dropped 60%"
except that's not true. The people who backed Musks buyout lost the full 77% -- they can't go to their shareholders and claimed, "well actually we overpaid so we really only lost..." because that's not how any of this works.
Why do you keep calling my comments "devil advocacy"? I'm not making theoretical arguments for the sake of debate. I'm saying that in real, actual numbers, Twitter was not worth $44 billion. That figure was purely invented by musk to show off. That he had to pay out is just karmic justice, not the objective valuation of Twitter.
And I'm not saying whoever put up that money isn't losing tremendously, either. They definitely have, and that's my point. Whether it was musk or someone he went begging to, it was an equally dumb decision since, again, Twitter wasn't worth that much.
Also, since you seen like you may know, afaik the "71% drop" is purely from one investment company, Fidelity, right? Are they a reliable authority in this? The only other time I've heard of them was during the Reddit drama last summer, so to me they mostly come off as latching onto Internet drama rather than providing sound investment advice. Do they have a good track record to earn this level of credit the news is giving them?
If I sell someone a banana for $20, that banana is worth $20. Someone else may disagree with the value but that does not change the fact that in that moment the banana was valued at $20.
It means the person that bought it is a fool, nothing more.
You lack the information or understanding as to why it was given that value. You are the fool.
Feel free to prove me wrong with concrete numbers that back up your assertion with the true value.
I am confident you are not an investment analyst.
I'm the fool for saying a banana isn't worth $20? That's a weird line to draw. And I never claimed to be anyone here. I'm just pointing things out. Like this - musk literally had 4.20 in the cost "for the lulz". Nobody's convincing me that man had any idea of the "true" value of Twitter when he proposed his bid.
The banana is an example.
Your inability to understand how a banana could actually be worth $20 further illustrates my argument that you do not understand economics.
Your example had zero context. I'm supposed to just infer all the meaning for you? Come on now. If you don't wanna put in the effort, just don't bother in the first place. Don't blame other people for your actions.
it would be accurate to say Musk assigned the value of $44B to Twitter by paying that much for it because that’s how capitalism works. He instantly inflated the price by paying far over its previous market value in a stupid showboating maneuver, and has, in doing so (as well as his subsequent antics) totally screwed himself and his investors by causing it to lose 71% of that value.
Correct.