It is absolutely the board's job to evaluate if Elon is able and actually willing to close the deal. That is their #1 mandate. If Elon can't close the deal, it will be more detrimental to shareholders than if the board rejected the offer (because now the board can't say that the stock is worth more than 54.2 as a standalone). They would be violating their fiduciary duty if they didn't evaluate the chance of actually closing. The board's job is to act in the best interest of the shareholders in the long run. If they feel the company can be worth more to shareholders as a standalone, that is enough of a reason. Shareholder lawsuits rarely go anywhere because its hard to prove that the board did not act in the interest of shareholders (look at Elon's purchase of Solar City or Yahoo's rejection of Microsoft).
Musk isn't a free speech absolutist. He has targetted journalists who he feels are unfavorable to Tesla. Musk only believes in his free speech, not yours.
Gotta say, this discourse right here on this thread is full of interesting viewpoints and logical rebuttals. Its a model of how civilized debate in a social media world should be! Well done boys.
There is no "if" on Elon securing the finances to purchase. He has $196 billion net worth. The only thing hes hunting right now are the right terms and what portion of his own liquid net worth he will use. Morgan Stanley is already back and securing these aspects. The board cannot just say they feel it will be worth more as a standalone without a viable revenue model to justify it. The share price has done nothing but decline for over a year with no new revenue models to raise their y/y growth, because they don't have one. The sale would be in the interest of shareholders because to decline with no buyer would cause a free fall should Elon, who has already signaled his willingness, would sell off $3 billion in shares, and so would everyone who bough based on his purchase and the potential of a buyout. He's talked shit about those he dislikes. That is wholly different than censoring people's ability to speak their minds on a platform. One has nothing to do with the other.
Baron runs his site like a platform should be run. Free speech and no censorship. If there is a person you personally have no interests in associating with you are free to block that person, but he doesn't operate in censoring ideas or thoughts from the entire community that he disagrees with. He relies on the free market of ideas to regulate itself. Good ideas will be pushed to the top by others while bad ones will ultimately fall flat. ET is better than the giant tech sites based on that alone.
But I do believe there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes. People are banned regularly, but I think he does first gives warnings and tries to work it out. Everyone now and then, there are reports of certain posters following other posters from message thread to message thread. I've been around long enough to see this, and luckily it is a very small percentage of posters, but Baron certainly does have to go quite a bit of housekeeping. Thank god this website is a niche market and not the size of twitter.
Yeah I've dealt with users like that, literally appearing in every thread you post like some weirdo. I just blocked them. The fact I have see people with completely different views on every subject be able to debate their side shows this site is a free market of ideas. On places like FB, Twitter, and Reddit certain views are banned so frequently it's made national headlines.
As much as i like Elon, sometimes, - The autopilot messed up, if you check the drivers channel. The guy even tried to deescalate the accident. Minor thing kinda. A.I couldn't see road pillars. Great discussion btw. Have to re-read it later on.
That had to do with a company employee and NDA's though. I may not agree with why a private company might terminate an employee, but I do agree with their right to do it that does not violate any civil rights protections (race, age, gender, etc). My state has a Right to Hire Right to Fire for any reason, same as the employee if they want to say, "Fuck off I quit," without notice or reason.