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Elon Musk Bought Twitter to Settle His Jet-Tracking Beef, New Book Claims (gizmodo.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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Elon Musk purchased shares of Twitter after unsuccessfully petitioning the CEO to remove a Twitter account tracking his private jet.
Musk's personal gripes played a key role in his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
Musk banned the account after promising not to, highlighting his prioritization of getting his way over free speech.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/ttBv9

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[–] Red_October 248 points 10 months ago (19 children)

Yeah, no. Musk bought Twitter because he HAD to. He very publicly made comments about buying Twitter at absolute meme-stock prices, but didn't disclose that he already owned a LOT of Twitter stock. So, when his comments predictably increased the price of Twitter stock, he had two choices: Either it was just talk, and he was BLATANTLY guilty of stock manipulation and the Feds put a target on his back, or he acts like he totally meant it.

So he went with option two, acted like he was serious and wanted to buy twitter. Then he tried everything he could think of to kill the deal, accusing Twitter of all sorts of wrongdoing and lies, but Twitter was more careful than that. They got their shit right, and Musk couldn't back out. So he bought Twitter, rather than go to prison.

The fact that he could also kill the tracking twitter account was completely incidental. Musk is an idiot, but even he isn't that stupid. Musk initially offered $5,000 to the account holder to stop, and then balked at the return offer for $50,000. Now, I may not be a billionaire tech-bro, but I'm pretty sure that spending $50,000 to achieve a goal is preferable to spending $44,000,000,000. He's dumb, but he's not that dumb.

[–] neclimdul 1 points 10 months ago

Also the part where Twitter has invested in s tier lawyers and brought and iron clad contract that heavily favored them. Which being an entitled idiot he agreed to. So when he tried to back out he literally couldn't afford the penalties because he didn't have enough cash and getting it would loose him control of his companies.

Definitely not him being dumb and entitled. Surely it was a petty $50k grudge.

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