I dont know to be certain. I can speculate. Could be one of a few reasons. Could be to cement his own legacy. Could be to give a big fuck you to the elites. Could be he dislikes cancel culture and the hardcore Left. Could be he's conquered one arena, becoming the richest man, and wants to conquer another, a philosophical realm. Could be a culmination of all of the above. Or maybe it could be like what Alfred said on The Dark Knight:
Pretty much total dominance in the political aspect. Neither FB nor Reddit beats Twitter. This is why the Left is fighting to keep him from taking over, because without the ability to ban, suppress, and censor your political opponents it becomes a free for all. Look at the suppression of the Hunter laptop pre-election. Twitter even suspended New York Post. Theyve most recently suspended Sac Bee for calling a trans woman a man, and Tucker Carlson for pointing out it was a biological fact. When you have the power to suppress the ideas and speech of your political opponents you hold all the power. Google and Twitter are currently the most dangerous in that respect, as Google gives only positive search results in news for liberals and negative search results in news for conservatives. A recent study was conducted, by a liberal no less, that discovered Google's manipulative search results swayed upwards of 3.5 million users in the 2020 election.
Unless he has 46 billion in cash or ironclad term sheets from lenders, his financing isn’t secured. Even if he did, he may not be willing to close on the transaction. Even if he was willing, other entities may not be willing to allow him (his contract with Tesla for example). These are things the board needs to vet before they commit to the transaction. Have you ever done a corporate transaction before? I’ve done 5 and been a final contender for about 5 others. This is common for shareholders or their representatives to vet. Bids are rejected all the time by boards and the stocks fall and eventually recover or don’t. The boards rarely give a shit about short term traders or arbitrageurs. building a model to justify the future price is easy. It would be incumbent on the shareholders suing the board to prove the board did not act in the interests of the shareholders. The burden is on the shareholders (which would make you think why they were shareholders in the first place if they didn’t think the stock was worth a lot more than it is now). I’m wondering if you are rooting for Elon because of politics. Free speech has nothing to do with this transaction.
I'm rooting for Elon because he will bring something different to the table. I don't care what his motivations are - only that he brings change.
Knew this wasn't gonna go well. That initial b/o news sounded hostile af The premium wasn't exactly that high. It was possible TWTR could've hit $54+ within a year without Musk.
I think ultimately that's it for Musk - and everyone else that appreciates the free society we've attempted to create in the US. It's that free speech has slid way too far in one direction and it's starting to have very real consequences. And so much of the public is blind to what's really happening and just following along. You have lots of folks sitting at home going "well that couldn't have been true because I have MSNBC on all day and they never said a word about that." Decades ago... the news was really news and fact based and it was reported. Today it's a narrative and carefully selected based on circumstances. I think Elon feels that we need some balance with all of the lopsided delivery platforms.