Mastodawn

Persnickety Dec 24, 2022

And the way I read this.... When Twitter goes bankrupt (and it will), the banks, as creditors, will have bought it for $13b, a $31b discount on what Musk and his foolish friends and fellow shareholders paid for it. $13b is about the right price...or was.
WaPo headline: Here’s who helped Elon Musk buy Twitter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/24/elon-musk-twitter-funders/

Here’s who helped Elon Musk buy Twitter

Elon Musk didn't buy Twitter on his own. From Qatar to Jack Dorsey and Binance, meet the people who helped fund the acquisition.

The Washington Post

Jeff Jarvis Dec 24, 2022

How did Alden take over much/most of the American newspaper industry? By buying its cheap and bad debt.

SKFordyce Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis Exactly. Our local paper (The Reading Eagle) dug itself into a very deep financial hole when they purchased a large commercial printing press. Eight (or so) years later bought by MediaNews Group, as have all the other area newspapers. Not good.

This Minute Matters Dec 24, 2022

Twitter has unbounded opportunity.

Limbaugh proved there's plenty of money available just by abusing and misleading Republicans.

Social media hasn't even been invented yet when people can't find the people and experience they're looking for instantly.

Tr*mp showed that people's values and beliefs can be changed on a dime. Twitter only fails if Musk runs out of money before he leverages one of these opportunities, or, of course, if he continues to help destroy civilization.

sd.peters Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis, for anyone interested but can't afford a subscription: https://wapo.st/3VpiQjE

"As part of the deal, anyone who invested $250 million or more gets special access to confidential company information."

No mention of investors I didn't already know about, e.g., from other regimes Musk cozies up to and are working against democratic societies & govt. IMO going bankrupt isn't going to hurt these people. They struck gold, buying access to social graphs & data.

Here’s who helped Elon Musk buy Twitter

Elon Musk didn't buy Twitter on his own. From Qatar to Jack Dorsey and Binance, meet the people who helped fund the acquisition.

The Washington Post

This Minute Matters Dec 24, 2022

@petersd @jeffjarvis

Yeah, that's concerning. A lot of governments might want that information for intelligence recruiting/targeting purposes. Illegitimate slave governments might want it to strengthen the chains on their people.

/C\a/r\l/o\s/Dec 24, 2022

@petersd @jeffjarvis @ThisMinuteMatters They definitely do.

“This case revealed that foreign governments, here, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) will bribe insiders to obtain the user information that is collected and stored by our Silicon Valley social media companies,” said U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-twitter-employee-sentenced-42-months-federal-prison-acting-foreign-agent

Former Twitter Employee Sentenced to 42 Months in Federal Prison for Acting as a Foreign Agent

A California man was sentenced yesterday to 42 months in federal prison for his role in accessing, monitoring and conveying confidential and sensitive information that could be used to identify and locate Twitter users of interest to the Saudi Royal Family.

Maura Dec 24, 2022

I wonder if the Saudis thought they could manipulate American politics through Twitter. Instead they are losing everything.

Matt Chambers Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis It's a good article and I agree with your analysis.

Richard Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis What happens to people who borrow a billion from the Saudis and set it on fire? Will the bone saws come out of the briefcase again?

Samir (moved)Dec 24, 2022

@richard_merren @jeffjarvis
I am sorry, but someone being Saudi national doesn't make them a bad person!
I really don't understand why it's OK to say this on social media. (And this is not just you personally, a lot of others do it too!)
Has it been any other race or nationality, there would be an outrage!

For reference, the person whom we are talking about here, was in fact imprisoned by MBS, and is one of the people trying to make the country more liberal and democratic

/C\a/r\l/o\s/Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis @albattran @richard_merren Unfortunately, he and Kingdom Holding are now a puppets of Crown Prince Bonesaw—or he’ll find himself locked up again. This is how Putin does it too.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/12/saudis-wielding-veto-power-over-prince-alwaleed-kingdom-holdings.html

Saudis reportedly wielding veto power over top investor Prince Alwaleed and Kingdom Holdings

The Saudi government now has final say on investment decisions at Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's Kingdom Holdings, the Wall Street Journal reports.

CNBC

Samir (moved)Dec 24, 2022

@worm @jeffjarvis @richard_merren
He has publicly stated that this particular article is false
But the issue existed even before his detention, people used the same language and not just about him but about a lot of other Arabs too!
It's very sad how this is tolerated, and just nobody cares.

/C\a/r\l/o\s/Dec 24, 2022

@richard_merren @jeffjarvis @albattran It’s definitely a fair point that we shouldn’t paint an entire group of people to have the qualities of the Saudi or other regimes, but I think in this case, it was really those regime figures that were referenced, not ordinary Saudis.

MBS had a man dismembered for criticizing him. I don’t believe for an instant that bin Talal feels free to just disregard MBS’s “requests.”

Samir (moved)Dec 24, 2022

@worm
I understand but I grew up in a dictatorship, and I was definitely not free from the "requests" of the dictator, and effectively you are saying that by inference, I was also tainted.

That's pretty much victim blaming!

Phillip Hallam-Baker Dec 24, 2022

@richard_merren @jeffjarvis This whole Twitter thing is starting to look like a Russian/Saudi disinformation operation to utterly discredit the primary advocate for battery electric vehicles.

If you look at Musk’s current inner circle, it is filled with people who have been simping for Putin for a decade like Taibbi and Sacks. Notice how Musk’s pick Weiss was elbowed out.

Musk would have been an obvious target for intelligence regardless, SpaceX has mondo military technology, so does Tesla. Musk’s ego and his use of recreational pharmaceuticals would make him an easy mark.

Russia and Saudi intelligence have worked together on multiple projects, not least Donald Trump. Manafort didn’t need any sort of introduction from Saud as claimed, his partner Roger Stone persuaded Trump to run in the first place. The official explanation is clearly nonsense. Manafort want to Saud to negotiate a new transfer agreement as the Saudis had originally provided the kompromat on Trump to Russia (the pee tape was a silly cover story for the real source).

Assassinating Musk wouldn’t halt the transition to electric cars, they had to utterly discredit Musk. So they gave him the idea of dumping $20 billion in stock using the pretense of buying Twitter. Then he found out too late that the $1 billion breakup fee wasn’t the exit option he thought.

quay Dec 24, 2022

would not the creditors get whatever’s left of Twitter but also large chunks of Tesla as well given that Tesla shares collateralized the Twitter loans?

Bholten Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis is it possible Musk buys the debt himself for pennies in the dollar? Then he removed the 1B/year debt from Twitter and gives him room to restructure?

Rich Sharples Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis Vanguard, Musk, Morgan Stanley, Blackrock, and State Street are the top 5 investors. I suspect a Musk bloc (Ellison, Dorsey, A16z, Alwaleed) could still assert majority control if it came to a fight over ownership or direction. I don’t k ow if it will come to bone saws, but t will likely get very ugly.

Phillip Hallam-Baker Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis The banks have recourse to Musk personally, the loans are secured on Tesla stock. Hence Musk selling to reduce the risk of personal bankruptcy.

Musk will be forced to sell Twitter in the end. Probably to Microsoft who will bid $420million.

Gauchohaulic Dec 24, 2022

@jeffjarvis So basically, Twitter is following the pathway that Yahoo took towards irrelevance? Ultimately fated to be swallowed up by a telecom/tech/multinational conglomerate and get lost and forgotten?
Sounds about right to me.

@jeffjarvis
@rolle

Paywall article. Please add CW so people don't give free clicks.

Jeff Jarvis Dec 24, 2022

@roelfrenkema @rolle You can see that it's a Washington Post link regardless.