Buying Twitter made Musk "king of the sandbox," allowing him to promote free speech, but not at the cost of his own ego.
  • 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

  • Sludgehammer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    84·
    10 months ago

    I think he was trying to get out of Twitter and wanted to do a real life version of his Dogecoin pump and dumps. You know, talk a big game, hype up how the stock is gonna go to the moon after he brings his genius to bare on the company, then dump the stock and pull out of the deal. However, during the hype phase he managed to say some legally binding things and suddenly found himself forced to honor what he thought was going to be empty hype.

    • underisk@lemmy.mlEnglish
      22·
      10 months ago

      He did more than say legally binding things. He signed a contract. That had a clause in it to prevent him from backing out, because the management at Twitter fully expected him to try it. I think he had made several gestures at buying before to try and get some kind of influence over how it was being run, so they drew up the contract to make him put up or shut up.

      • Quadhammer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        10 months ago

        Makes you wonder what the og twitters guys are doing now besides drinking mai tais on the beach

    • PoliticalAgitator@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      10 months ago

      I’m also convinced the entire purchase was an accident but I think he was doing the usual far-right “try and shame people for standing up to nazis”.

    • arc@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      10 months ago

      It’s worse than that. The usual way of buying a company is a memorandum of understanding followed by due diligence, followed by signing a contract and then the actual completion. Elon went straight to signing the contract and then had big old shit fit when the Twitter board held him to the terms of the contract and the penalties for pulling out.