All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg - E76: Elon vs. Twitter

Episode Date: April 16, 2022

0:00 Jason's new skincare routine, Sacks' Good Friday portfolio update, Bestie intros 3:12 Breaking down Elon's offer to buy Twitter and take it private: poison pills, board responsibility and more 30...:50 Core issues of Elon vs. Twitter, analyzing reactions, breaking down Twitter's revenue per employee 43:10 Free speech and Twitter, predictions for how this saga ends, business film recommendations Follow the besties: https://twitter.com/chamath https://linktr.ee/calacanis https://twitter.com/DavidSacks https://twitter.com/friedberg Follow the pod: https://twitter.com/theallinpod https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://twitter.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://twitter.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1514564966564651008 https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/twitter-adopts-limited-duration-shareholder-rights-plan-enabling-all-shareholders-to-realize-full-value-of-company-301526627.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revlon,_Inc._v._MacAndrews_%26_Forbes_Holdings,_Inc. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922045641/tm2212748d1_sc13da.htm https://www.google.com/finance/quote/TWTR:NYSE https://twitter.com/DefiantLs/status/1514738236207337477 https://twitter.com/jeffjarvis/status/1514578609754812419 https://twitter.com/maxboot/status/1514570168730636290 https://www.google.com/finance/quote/SPY:NYSEARCA https://www.google.com/finance/quote/TSLA:NASDAQ https://twitter.com/DefiantLs/status/1514738236207337477 https://twitter.com/auronmacintyre/status/1514653963408318474 https://www.google.com/finance/quote/ATVI:NASDAQ

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 You got like moisturizer all over your face, are you moisturizing? I am, I'm just my skin is so dry, I just got over having food poisoning and I'm like, I do hydro, I'm gonna hold on, let me get this off camera off. Look at this guy, you got makeup on? It's not makeup, it's moisturizer, dip shit. But this is bad. Reason you look like the fucking crypt keeper and I look shy and young and shfelt, is because I do a little skin care routine, okay? Give me a fucking break.
Starting point is 00:00:22 Look at him, he turned off his camera because he's embarrassed about whatever he's doing. I'm not embarrassed, I just don't need you to tell him I have a sh**. He's a sh**. So, Axis and a fucking good mood. What? Just a lot of up 15 cents? Why are you so fucking happy, dummy?
Starting point is 00:00:34 Well, the markets are closed today, it's good Friday. So, my stock portfolio can't be down because the market's served closed. Yeah, thank Jesus. Praise Jesus. Yeah, it's a good Friday. If the market's a closed-mic portfolio can't go down. No. It's truly a good Friday if the markets at close look portfolio can't go down
Starting point is 00:00:49 It's truly a good Friday your portfolio will rise again and these be resurrected Now it days he works in DNA, but in the 90s, all he carried about was the MDMA, the Duke of DNA, the Titan of Tempe, shepherded off the soy boys, he turns water into wine and dollars into dimes. He's a full-o for cool-o. A Sultan of science himself, David Friedberg. Welcome. I have never done drugs just for the record, but go on. No, of course not.
Starting point is 00:01:28 Of course, none of your behavioral problems in high school had to do. Yeah, neither is Jason. No, absolutely not, not this morning. He's the VC who loves brain. He'll sell you the sleeves off your VSD. He's enthralled with green wall. He eats uppers for supper.
Starting point is 00:01:43 The rain man himself, David Sacks. All right, thank you. You're welcome green wall. He eats uppers for supper, the rain man himself, David Sacks. All right, thank you. You're welcome, Dad. All right, coming around the bend. That timepiece, what does it do? It reminds him of how much more money he has than you. Sweater is worth six times.
Starting point is 00:01:55 Laura Piana is above his line. You're super villain with that 1985 Sasakaia, he be chilling. There it is! Love Spacks, just like junkies love crack. He's your dictator, Shamoff Folly Hatter. That works. I'm like becoming the M&M of intros.
Starting point is 00:02:13 I mean, I'm rhyming shit. It's really solid, bro, I gotta say. I'm working shopping it, a shout out to Nick, and one person on Twitter of 100 gave anything. I'm moving into my spring sweater season. My spring sweater collection. Oh wait, hold on a second, I just got a call. Oh yeah, confirm, we know what he gives a fuck.
Starting point is 00:02:31 Oh, I can cry. He's the king of the enane. I don't think it's a name at all. This matters to exactly one person. No, the person selling you the sweaters. No, that sweaters. I think if you took a poll on Twitter, there's a lot of people who silently hate it, but love it. I think a lot more who hate it. Let's get to all the news, so much news going on.
Starting point is 00:02:57 All the news. Where should we start Jason? I'm trying to think about it. Was there any news topic this week? Because obviously the war in Ukraine has obviously got everybody in America. Oh, wait, no, I'm sorry. That's not important anymore.
Starting point is 00:03:10 We're on to the next thing. It's only one issue. You long put it in a bid to buy Twitter outright on Thursday and take the company private and to deal worth $43 billion. The most breaking news when we're taping this on Fridays, that 11 a.m. when we typically tape this, is that the board of directors, you know, the professional board
Starting point is 00:03:32 directors has decided they would like to get personally sued. I mean, this is the most insane thing. I woke up and read this and I was like, okay, they're creating a poison pin, I'm sorry, a poison pill. that's going to give Twitter's existing shareholders the ability to buy more shares if Elon hits 15% of the company at a discount. Shemaat explained the concept of a poison pill just generally speaking and then give us sure, because everybody knows what's going on. But like, here we are in this, I don't know if this is the seventh or eighth inning of
Starting point is 00:04:04 this saga or it's the second, but where like, here we are in this, I don't know if this is the seventh or eighth inning of this saga, or it's the second, but where do you think we are in this saga? And then what happens on Monday and describe a poison pill? A poison pill is basically a defensive maneuver that a board of directors uses to prevent a hostile takeover. And basically, the simple way it works is it allows the board to create enormous amounts of new shares and effectively dilute the potential hostile acquirer so that it becomes economically
Starting point is 00:04:35 unfeasible for them to get enough shares to get control. The way that they do that is that they basically give everybody except a person that crosses a certain ownership threshold. So it's used Twitter as an example. So the Twitter's poison pill basically says that if you get to 15%, you're essentially locked out from a right that then everybody else has that effectively allows them to buy another share of stock and I think it's a 50% discount. And so what it does is it creates an incentive to essentially almost double the fully diluted shares outstanding of the business. And what that does is it makes it almost impossible for the person with 15% to then go and acquire what's
Starting point is 00:05:18 necessary to get to 50%. There are different kinds of poison pills. There's things that you can do with debt. There's things that you can do with equity, but that's the thing that Twitter did. I think if anybody's interested in it, Nick, maybe you can just bring it up, but you can Google on Wikipedia. There's a phenomenal article called Revlon versus McCandru and Forbes. McCandru and Forbes was the holding company of this very prolific dealmaker in the 70s, 80s and 90s named Ronald Pearlman. And what happened was he was a CEO of a company called Pantry Pride.
Starting point is 00:05:54 And Pantry Pride made an unsolicited hostile takeover bid for Revlon, which made makeup. And basically, you know, there was like 40 to 45 bucks a share. The board instituted all these poison pills, the price kept escalating. Then a private equity firm stepped in, also tried to compete for the asset. All along the way, there was enough shenanigans that essentially what Ronald Promen did was Sue Revlon, which went to Delaware Court, and from it basically came the current framework of law that we use in this situation. And basically what it means is that board directors have these fiduciary obligations to
Starting point is 00:06:35 their shareholders. And in some cases, these are very broad fiduciary obligations, meaning do the right thing. But in some really narrow circumstances, all of that collapses and their sole focus is to get the best price. And what a director and a board of directors typically wants to do in a situation like this is not end up in that second bucket. They want to keep all their options available. They don't necessarily want to sell to one person. You know, they're probably going to assume they're going to get fired from the board. They want to stay on for different reasons, et cetera, et cetera.
Starting point is 00:07:07 And so right now, what Twitter and their advisors are trying to do is basically stay in that first bucket, have all of the options available to them and not be forced to run an auction. And I think what Elon will try to do is essentially use the public pressure that's going to build and the existing shareholders who own stock at 40 some odd dollars a chance to basically get you know a 20% payday by selling it to Elon for 54 bucks or 53 whatever the price was and The Twitter board now will have to justify how whatever they come up with Now we'll have to justify how whatever they come up with Is better than this because then if they don't and they're still exercising this broad fiduciary obligations You know one thing I'll tell you as a public company director
Starting point is 00:07:58 it is a horrendous process when you get sued and These guys will be in court for years and the the incremental pressure that this Twitter board has is that they can be held personally liable here. So I think it's getting very complicated, very good. Okay. On that note of personal liability, we have directors insurance. So, having that peer service doesn't have it doesn't have there been examples of this happening. Yeah, D&O insurance is kind of like D&O insurance is their director and officer insurance is a layer of protection that we all have as public company directors. We actually also have it as private company insurance. Yeah. But the amount of coverage changes. But what I'll tell you is, D&O coverage tends to be relatively nominal because the risk profile doesn't really include these kinds of tail events. And now what you're talking about is 10 to 15 billion dollars
Starting point is 00:08:48 of equity value that's going to either get created for existing shareholders or get taken away. And typically what courts will do is that they will look at the amount of money and they will start to think about, you know, compensatory and punitive damages as a function of how much money was was made or lost. And so you're talking about a realm of risk now for these directors that's well beyond what D&O insurance will cover. So-
Starting point is 00:09:13 If a loss of did happen, Schumoff, you have to find damages. So if the board found a better offer, great, but if this thing goes down on Monday, Elon sells the shares and it goes down to 30. Now you have the opposite effect, go ahead, Freiburg. So I'll say two things. One is in all these cases, by the way, the board is indemnified by the company. So the individual board members, I don't know if there's ever been a point in history
Starting point is 00:09:37 when an individual board member is at the payout of pocket for liability associated with their actions as a board member and as a fiduciary, except when they've done something to benefit themselves outside of the company. Now, in this case, the job of the board is to use their best judgment to do what they believe to be in the best interest of creating the most value possible for the shareholders. It's very simple when the stock price is at 30 and someone says I'll give you 50 bucks to say, oh, well, obviously getting 50 bucks is in the best interests of the shareholders.
Starting point is 00:10:11 Let's assume though that you're on that board and you know about some super secret plan that you believe in the next 30 days is going to get the stock price to 60. And your belief in that plan and your understanding of that plan gives you a good rationale for having a debate as a board that this deal doesn't make sense at 50. We should hold out until we finish our plan over the next 30 days, get the stock up to 60, and then we'll see if someone comes in and says, hey, I'll give you even more than 60. Could be something on the product roadmap, right?
Starting point is 00:10:40 This is the complicated point. It's not just about the current share price, and There was a history in the 80s and 90s, early 90s, when stocks would drop tremendously for market volatility reasons, or some bad news event, or someone quits the board, macro, and all of a sudden the stock price drops, and you have a hostile buyer that says, oh my god, this company looks super cheap. I'm going to come in and buy it while it's cheap, and I'll offer a ma premium to the current share price. The share price recently may have been much higher than the price that's being offered. And the board says, you know what,
Starting point is 00:11:11 we're going to get back to that share price because the market will pick up again. The things we're working on are going to grow us out of this hole. And so it's very hard for us to sit here. And I know that I want everyone here on the Zoom to suspend your alliance to Elon and belief that Elon will do a better job just for one second and just think about the board members. They've all been working on quarterly plans, strategic plans, et cetera, with the current CEO and as a board for Twitter that gives them a point of view that says, may give them
Starting point is 00:11:38 a point of view that says, hey, you know what, we can get back to 70 bucks a share. So remember, it was only a few months ago, Twitter stock was trading at 70. The stock price dropped with market compression, we've all experienced. And then Elon's come along and said, I'll offer you guys 54 bucks. And the board's like, wait, a few months ago, we were at 70.
Starting point is 00:11:54 We have all these great things we're working on. And so I'm just trying to paint the other side for everyone that this is not just like a clear cut obvious deal. It's their judgment at this point that they should get more for the stock, given where they think the company's headed and where the stock price will eventually get to. All right, going to you, SACs, you heard from Friedberg
Starting point is 00:12:11 to suspend disbelief that the greatest entrepreneur on the planet running two of the most important companies is not more qualified to run Twitter than the Curious. Yeah, I'm not gonna suspend my discipline. Go ahead, SACs. Let me make the case for the clear cut case here. Sorry, let me just say something. He could be better at running this company, but the share, okay, he will be better, Jason,
Starting point is 00:12:33 but the shareholders don't benefit from that because he buys the whole company for 50 they do. Hold on. Yeah. They're getting $54 of cash. They do not have any ownership in Twitter after Elon takes over. That's the deal that's on the table. So if I as a shareholder get $54 of cash, I don't care any ownership in Twitter after Elon takes over. That's the deal that's on the table. So if I as a shareholder get $54 as a cash, I don't care if Elon does
Starting point is 00:12:49 a better job running Twitter down the road because I have no interest. Suddenly, if one fact check on that, one fact check on that, he said he wants to bring along. But that's not in the deal. J. Cal, that's the thing he said that's not actually in the proposal, right? So as a board member, I have to look at the proposal on the table, which is I got to take $54 a cash for my shares and give up all the upside. Sacks looks like he's going to explode. Sure enough. Look, here's the reason why fiduciary duties exist. Let's explain where this concept comes from. There is fundamentally a principal agent problem. This is what it's known as
Starting point is 00:13:20 between stock holders and the people running the company. So in other words, the owners of the company are the stockholders. Okay, they appoint agents, managers, to run the company for them, but those managers can be conflicted. They have an incentive, not just to get the highest share price for the stockholders, but to pocket personally as many benefits as they can.
Starting point is 00:13:43 And the whole reason why Fuchsia D duty was invented is to prevent that agency problem. So, if the board members or the CEO of the company are just looking out for themselves and trying to pocket personal benefits, excessive compensation, or turning down an offer to sell the company for a much higher price, that would be a breach to their fiduciary duty because they're looking out for themselves. Parag knows that if Elon buys this company, he is out of a job. His head is on the chopping block. He is fired right away. Elon has made that clear. He said, in this letter on this SEC filing on Thursday, I have no confidence in the
Starting point is 00:14:18 company in the management of the company. If I'm unable to buy the whole thing and take it private, I will dump all my shares. That's all or nothing for him. So Parag is interested in preserving his job. If Elon wins this battle, Parag is going to have the shortest executive career since that Pope who got poisoned, okay, to borrow a line from Wall Street. So he is incentivized to fight this thing, whether it's in the interest of shareholders or not. Now, why is he the incentives of the border? I think they're the same. These are guys who love the power they derive from being on this board.
Starting point is 00:14:52 We know Twitter has enormous cultural power. These guys, they enjoy all the benefits. They probably do get some compensation being on the board, but they enjoy being in this very exclusive club that wields enormous power over our culture. And they have no incentive to give that up. And by the way, how much of the company do they really own? Not that much. If you look at the wealth of the people on Twitter's board
Starting point is 00:15:15 and we know all the people on Twitter's board, their wealth is significantly greater than whether Twitter stock sells for 60 or 70. So, and I think that we all know that these are all sophisticated actors. They are all high integrity people. We all personally know many of the people
Starting point is 00:15:31 on Twitter's board. I don't think that, you know, look, maybe there's a other variety of board. They're conflicted. It's got nothing to do with integrity. The fact of the matter is. You could say the same about any board, Sacks, that it's. No, because it's different, listen,
Starting point is 00:15:43 but we're on a board, okay, because I'm on plenty of boards. We own a huge percentage of the company. board, Sacks? No, because it's different. Listen, when we're on a board, okay, because I'm on plenty of boards, we own a huge percentage of the company. So when somebody makes a takeover offer to buy one of our companies, we are thinking like stockholders. We're fundamentally aligned. You have massive skin in the game. Yeah, massive skin in the game. These people on the board, what skin in the game do they have? Most of them are these directors who are just appointed, and it is, it's like a club a club these guys it's all big back scratching club these guys are all on a bunch of reports.
Starting point is 00:16:09 You think they're motivated by the influence of being a Twitter. Yes of course. Why do they exist? Why do they serve on these boards? Why do they serve on these boards? This is shaping up to be as a nexus of power and who controls the power. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Starting point is 00:16:22 no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Not on the much of Twitter, not on the much of Twitter. I do 100% agree with Sacks. I've always believed what I think Carl I can said or whoever it was that the board should be represented by the biggest shareholders. The folks who actually have skin in the game, the folks who actually care about the share price, you know, having some nominal number of shares issued to you
Starting point is 00:16:37 as a board member of a public company, showing up, you know, patting each other in the back. It's certainly generally speaking, leads to non-founder-led companies ultimately dying because there is no motivation and incentive and drive from anyone. Let me take the other side partially. I think you're mostly right. I would never join a public company board that I did not own a significant piece of. Right. And I have never.
Starting point is 00:17:02 Right. Now, the reason to be on a public company board is that unlike a private company, the single biggest advantage, there are many disadvantages of being public. But the single biggest advantage of being public is that you have a lower cost of capital. So if you have an ambitious company, an ambitious leader and an ambitious plan to build and compound value, you cannot do it privately forever. You must do it in the public markets because there's just an infinite amount of capital that's available and an infinite amount of ways in which you can raise capital relative to you being private.
Starting point is 00:17:38 So with that being said, when you are public, I think the best boards are the ones that are sort of 50-50 split between the biggest shareholders and people who are very much experts in a handful of things and I just want to be specific. In a help-up company board, you have to have a lot of focus these days on things like governance, audit, because you have to attest to these financial statements, right? Cybersecurity becomes a huge one because you have to disclose these risks. And so I think that it really behooves boards to have a few experts who can chair those committees. Compensation tends to be another one as David mentioned. That can be a real hot button. But there are experts you can find.
Starting point is 00:18:23 They're not going to own a large piece of a company, but they're going to do a really good job of managing those things. That minimizes risk for the business, so that then the rest of the board, which are the large shareholders, can really use their influence and strategic understanding of the business to build a huge equity value. When those things come together, you have great outcomes. But I really agree with you. If you stack the board and we've had this issue, public boards in America got perverted over the last sort of last few decades
Starting point is 00:18:56 to being these little badges of status that people would collect. And now we're starting to see a real pushback on what's called overboarding, right? Where these distinguished folks will pick up five, six, seven boards. All of a sudden, that's the fastest way to make three, four, five, six million dollars a year. How can you sit on five or six company, public company boards? It's impossible in add any value.
Starting point is 00:19:16 Exactly. Do you think those people get appointed to boards by standing up to the CEO? Right. No, the opposite. There is a good thing. There is a safe vote for the CEO. Let me ask you guys a question. What do you think is the right thing to do as companies that go public mature and their ownership based disperses? So, you know, in Europe and Asia, many companies go
Starting point is 00:19:36 public, families own them for a very long period of time, as you guys know, they remain significant owners, they don't sell off the shares. In the US, traditionally, as companies have gone public, the shares, the founders, the original investors, because we have a lot of venture capital in this country, historically compared to other countries. So those owners end up selling off their shares, and they get dispersed, and a long tail of owners end up owning the bulk of the shares, how do you think those companies can be best represented on the board given that there isn't concentrated ownership in public companies, generally mature public companies in the US like Twitter, the largest owner is Vanguard with 5 million other investments, and then Jack Dorsey, he only owns 2%. What do you guys think is
Starting point is 00:20:20 the right thing to how do you create good alignment with board members that could be better, you know, place and better suited here? Well, I think one of the ways that you do it is that when somebody wants to step up and acquire a concentrated position because they have a plan for the company, you don't stand the way and completely thwart that. Your job isn't to assess their plan
Starting point is 00:20:37 because your job is to assess the dollars you're getting paid today for your shareholders. And then whatever they're gonna do with it, it's their thing, but are you getting a fair price? Is it? Elon is willing to put massive skin in the game in order to basically fix this company and get the best value. We all agree, but that's not about the shareholders sex.
Starting point is 00:20:53 I agree with you. I think Elon should own and run 20. Well, let's evaluate. Let's evaluate this poison pill for a second. So Elon comes in, he starts buying up the stock. The premium he's proposing is something like a 50, something percent premium from when he started accumulating. 54%?
Starting point is 00:21:09 54% is like a 38% discount. But a 40% discount. From the time he basically made the offer, and by the way, the stock is going right back to that previous level if they turned down this proposal. Okay, so he's made them a good offer. Okay, now, I think it'd be acceptable for the board to say, okay, this offer is attractive, but we need to shop this.
Starting point is 00:21:30 We're gonna run a process, and we're gonna see who else is out there, and if there's nobody better, then why wouldn't we take this? There's one thing that's left over that you didn't mention. The thing that's left over, you're right, they absolutely have a responsibility to shop in and find the best price. But what's left over is their judgment
Starting point is 00:21:47 that the company's going to get above that level. They have the ability and the right to do that and the responsibility to do that as a board. This happens all the time. And the board can look at the deal and they can say, you know what? We believe that this business in the future is gonna be worth a lot more
Starting point is 00:22:02 than what we're being offered for cash today. The problem they have some inside information. Okay for cash today. The problem with that argument is that this is what activist firms use all the time in reverse. The inverse of the argument is more powerful. You've been a director with purview into all these confidential plans that has effectively caused this company to tread water for five years, why should we believe you now? And that argument is way more credible than actually you can really trust us this time. Because if you look at the tenure of all these folks, you know, the last sea change
Starting point is 00:22:37 that happened on the Twitter board was when Elliot pushed to add, I think, two or three directs. Yeah. But in the absence of that, I think David is largely right. These are status games. And when status games ultimately play out over years, they either play out in the stock price when one way or the other. And in this case, what's true is that this is a languishing stock that has largely been going sideways.
Starting point is 00:23:00 Independent of anything that's been happening. And what about the fact, Timoth, that less than 90 days ago, it was trading at $70. Oh, you mean during the COVID bump? Yeah, everybody was betting stocks. I mean, let's get history. But Friedberg, it was $69. Guys, incidentally on Jack Muddon.
Starting point is 00:23:16 I'm not arguing. You have to give some context. January 3rd, 2014, the stock was trading at $69. The fact that it got a ridiculous bump like the entire market did during the Robin Hood stonks, hey, day, during COVID means nothing. I find it. That was market paid at zero performance.
Starting point is 00:23:36 Exactly. That's exactly what I was gonna say. This, if you could actually point to some alpha, meaning there was a strategic misstep or something that happened that was fixable, a better example would be, let's just say that there was a, let's just say that, that Twitter instead was not a technology company, but a pharma company, but this example would be easier to understand. The stock is at $69 and you get some interim results from your phase three trial.
Starting point is 00:24:04 People misread it and the stock tanks. Meanwhile, the stock market broadly speaking is at the same level. You could say, well, that negative alpha can actually be fixed because of our strategic plan. But what SACS just said is more true in this case. In this case, what's irrefutable is that there's been a broad base drawdown in the markets. There is nothing that you can point to that says this is something inside of Twitter's control
Starting point is 00:24:30 to get the stock back to $69. Meaning, $69, three months ago is actually $38 or $40 today. We're at an apples to apples even comparison. So from there, the real question is, this 20 or 30% premium to this, can you actually show a plan? I think the right thing for Twitter's board to do just to be very precise is the following. They have to take Elon's offer and they have to create a go shop. I will go and try to get a better price. They won't be able to.
Starting point is 00:25:03 And the reason they won't be able to is not a single person who is capable of stepping up with $43 billion would ever get it through regulatory muster. Not going to happen in my opinion. And anybody with the $43 billion who could buy it will never take it on. Meaning could concast show up? Sure. Could Disney show up? They'll never even look at it. No, they're not the people for whom this asset is strategic apple Facebook Google can bite dance. I'm never Amazon could never get it done. So in a con no, Brenno I think that's probably right to mouth, but there is a chance So I just want to finish I finished so from who so hold on just let me figure out finish about yeah, and that's that so so I think basically
Starting point is 00:25:43 It's like Elon, thank you. We're going to create a go shop. We'll try to find the best offer. I don't think any offer comes in. But then I think what they can do, freeberg, is if there is this magical plan to shoot rainbows out their ass, they should actually put that to a shareholder vote and let people decide. And I think that's a really fair thing to do that also allows them the credibility
Starting point is 00:26:05 in the air cover to say, look, we actually have been working on a plan. We think that that will create an amazing amount of shareholder value. And we just want shareholders to be able to see that compare it to Elon's offer and decide for themselves. Who's the white knight if anybody heard calm cast? We know that big tech can't do it because Elena Con and then we'll go on to the next topic and the next nuance here. Saks, do you have anybody, a financial player, anybody who is a dark horse in your mind? Somebody, you know, I think it could be Disney. Jack is on the board of Disney.
Starting point is 00:26:36 There's a lot of relationships. Sorry, they tried to buy it. Bob, I your said he bailed on it. Listen, I think there's a lot of companies that could be interested in Twitter. And I think you create the period to shop at to see. And by the way, listen, I think this administration does not want to see Twitter become a free speech company again. And so the political wins will blow towards letting, I think Twitter be acquired by a big
Starting point is 00:27:01 tech company, even if it means big tech it's bigger. So I think that I think they will put Lena con on pause to allow Google to buy this company if that's what it comes down to. You're kidding me. Your conspiracy theory is that I was going to come. I'm going to say you take a hundred to one odds against that. I'm saying it comes down to it. I'm saying.
Starting point is 00:27:21 We're saying Biden's going to whisper in Lena Conzier, put your thumb on the scale and let Google buy this thing. I'm just saying that the dams can own it, the lips can still own it. I'm saying if it was a choice, if it was a choice between what David is saying is my enemy's enemy is my friend. And so instead of having Elon's stated goal, I guess what David is saying is instead of having Elon's stated goal of having a free speech platform at scale exist on the internet, which they may believe is even the bigger threat to political power, they'd rather it go into the hands of companies that will act we
Starting point is 00:27:53 asked to them at least on the margins. But you think Biden would tell Lena Khan to put her thumb on the scale? It's the lesser of two evils. You believe that conspiracy? From their point of view. I do not personally, but I am not. But I'm just trying to believe this nonsense or not. I feel like I'm on the end of the video, but go on here.
Starting point is 00:28:09 Listen. Yeah, where's my tin? Where's my tin from? By the way, I just want, I just, just to go back. What is this all about? I just sent you guys, hold on one second. I just sent you guys the revenue chart for Twitter. It may not be that impressive relative to Enterprise.
Starting point is 00:28:22 Software companies and others. But I want to be really clear, I am not arguing against this deal. I'm trying to give you guys the perspectives that we all have a really kind of honest dialogue about this. Why this board may actually stand on their own two feet and win with shareholders by saying, you know what? Look, our revenue's been going up. We're continuing to grow revenue. We're continuing to grow usage on the platform. We've got all these products that we're working on. There's a real reason that we're going to make more than $54 a share over the next
Starting point is 00:28:52 12 to 18 months as we start to deliver this year's numbers and we start to deliver these product features that we've all been sharing and talking about in the progress we've been seeing. And that's the, that's honestly, I think the most likely kind of middle ground here is that this board has enough to stand on by looking at the fact that it doesn't matter the stock's gone up and down. What matters is that they've been in their minds steadily improving the business and continuing to improve the business. And it is an iconic asset that the market should own, not a single person.
Starting point is 00:29:18 And yada yada. And I think that's going to be part of the case. The main thing to make two points. First, the problem with freeberg's argument is that there's no limiting principle to this. Any board and any time could always claim that they've seen the magical plan, and therefore they can reject the bid. You're right, by the way.
Starting point is 00:29:34 That's the problem with it. And, and particularly in this case, we have to look at the track record of this management team, which is barely exists, but also this culture at Twitter, okay? This is a company that's language for years. The culture, look, this culture, a decade. This culture has been so enabbed that in response
Starting point is 00:29:55 to Elon's takeover offer, they gave all the employees a day of rest because- Oh, no, that's a reoccurring monthly thing. They haven't even covered it. No, they've done what they were doing. They were always so stressed out. Is it the other way around? The employees are so stressed out. They were so stressed out.
Starting point is 00:30:06 They told them to stay at home and take it easy. Okay. This is a- So you don't know the emotional labor it takes to deal with this. This team is weak. Okay. Soft. And it's soft.
Starting point is 00:30:20 Okay. And Elon would give the whole company an anima and fix this thing and that is why they don't want I'm taking over you are you are and I'm right but but that's right and I'm a question and I'm not this is why this is why you should not let this board and this CEO invokes a magical plan that they don't have that they never came up with and they would never come up with because it's just a big excuse so they're not out of a
Starting point is 00:30:43 job okay but now let me go, wait a minute. I never got chance to make the second point. Let me respond to the tinfoil hat thing. So listen, what is this story really about? It's about free speech. It's what it's about for Elon. He said in this takeover, and then at the speech they gave it to Ed,
Starting point is 00:31:00 that listen, this is not about economics for me. Twitter needs to be the open town square. It is the marketplace for ideas. We're gonna make it a free speech platform. We're gonna open source the algorithm. So people know when they're being canceled, they know why they were taken down. Is that algorithmic?
Starting point is 00:31:15 Was that a human intervention? This is what it's about for you. It's also what it's about. Hold on, it's also what it's about for all the elites, for everyone observing this, for everyone who's criticizing it. Listen, look at the, look at the reactions. We haven't talked at all about the hysterical reactions to all of this news that happened.
Starting point is 00:31:34 I mean, there was a fantastic tweet here. Well, business insider said that Elon Musk's attempt to buy Twitter represents a chilling new threat. Billionaire trolls taking over social media. This is one problem. Back in 2013, business insiders headline was billionaire Jeff Bezos washing post by Mark is a fascinating cultural transition in America. So these guys are completely hypocritical.
Starting point is 00:31:58 When it's a billionaire that they like, they praise it. When it's a billionaire sporting free speech, they oppose it. That's what's going on. You had Jeff Jarvis with this insane... Professor Jeff Jarvis? Yes. Saying today on Twitter feels like the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the twilight of YMAR Germany. I mean, somehow these people think that the re-institution, the restoration of free speech is somehow like the end of YMAR Germany. And then I think probably the best example was this tweet by Max Boot, where he says that
Starting point is 00:32:31 for democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, i.e. censorship, not less. So in the warped mind of all of these elites and the media, the corporate media, they think that for democracy to survive, they need more censorship. It's crazy. The worst thing the Democrats ever did is give the Republican party free speech. That was our issue.
Starting point is 00:32:52 How we gave it to you guys is just insane, Dave. By the way, this is your bias in evaluating this deal. I wanna point that out. You talk about the board's bias, but you do have a bias on, and that's not really the question at hand. The question at hand is 54 dollars the fair price to pay for this company. No, I know, that's it.
Starting point is 00:33:08 That is also about free speech. There is another issue here. It's not a motivation, it's core. That's not, that's not, sorry. I agree, it's not about the deal, but that is why Elon's buying the company. I agree, I agree, I agree. He's not doing the pruning out that we all criticize the board and we all criticize them for not taking the deal.
Starting point is 00:33:23 We're motivated generally because we want to see the deal happen, we want to see Elon do it. I want to be very clear, a couple of things. First of all, the stock is basically the same price it was in December of 2013. Right. Okay, so what happened in the market during that time? It went absolutely up and to the right in a violent manner.
Starting point is 00:33:43 Right. So if you had a strategy to not grow and you deployed it, could you actually achieve this performance? So I'm just saying that's just an objective fact that we have to keep in mind. Yes, that's true. Whatever has happened has collectively not worked. And it is systematic, meaning the underperformance is not a quarter, it's not in a month, but whatever has happened here collectively inside this business has not been working for nearly a decade. Okay, so just getting all the
Starting point is 00:34:11 emotion out, that's a fact. Right. Okay, and so at some point people will say, well, the devil, I don't know, is better than the devil I do know, because devil I do know is destroying money for me at a horrific rate, which if you look at how the S&P is compounded since 2013 versus now, I mean, my gosh, if you had done a spread trade of long the S&P in short Twitter, you would have made a fortune. How about long Tesla short Twitter? Well, I'm just trying to give the general market, now I'm just trying to give you the general market math, right?
Starting point is 00:34:40 Forget any individual. Right. And look, freeberg is not just ideological here. I think we all agree on the correct economic thing to have happen here, which is that the Twitter board should run a process. They should see if there's a better bid out there. If there is, you play for the bigger bid, make Elon come up on the price. Okay. But if there's not a better bid, Elon's offer is
Starting point is 00:35:00 the best deal on the table. I think you take it. That's what economically should happen. But it's not gonna happen. And the reason it's not gonna happen is not because of superior economics or a magical plan. It's gonna be cause the board members on this country club they call a board, their interest is to stay on that board, perogs interest, to stay at CEO.
Starting point is 00:35:18 And all the elite observers and the media, all the people denouncing Twitter. I'm gonna give you guys one number. One censorship to remain in place. That is what's going on. Give me one second. I wanna ask one question. Okay, for a bit.
Starting point is 00:35:29 You have a lot of Bitcoin. You have a bit of Bitcoin. Some. Bitcoin's trading like four. Bitcoin's trading like 40,000. If I said I'm gonna buy out all your Bitcoin for 45,000, will you take it? Well, that's a different situation
Starting point is 00:35:42 because you can't make an offer for that. And by the way, there's no more. Here's the difference. There's no principle agent problem in that context. I know. It's a fairly decentralized current. But you have a point of view on Bitcoin. I know.
Starting point is 00:35:56 Forget about the structure. I'm coming to you and I'm saying, hey, SACs, I want to buy all your Bitcoin for $45,000. What's your answer? It's trading 40. That's not a share of stock. So then put it to a vote. Yeah, I'm trading. answer? It's trading 40. That's not a share of stock. So then put it to a vote. Yeah, I'm trading, then put it to a vote.
Starting point is 00:36:08 Right, let every single shareholder decide, then put it to a vote and we'll see. Yeah, and by the way, Freiburg, there's no limits on your ability to go on the open market and buy Bitcoin. So if you do want to try and acquire 100% of Bitcoin, go on the open market and acquire it. I mean, there's no limits.
Starting point is 00:36:24 I mean, people are trying to build big positions exactly so go do mean, there's also some limits. I mean, there's some people trying to build big positions because that leads to good do that. But there are huge limits. I just want to put it on. Hold on, there are big limits on the ability of Elon to go on the open market and just keep buying up all of Twitter. And now with this poison pill, now this poison pill, they've stopped it.
Starting point is 00:36:38 Do you agree with the poison pill free, Bargit? Jake Al Hangout, I want to explain why that is because this is really important from a corporate governance perspective. So people understand what you're saying is right. But the job of the board is to look out for the interests of all shareholders, particularly minority shareholders, people that own a small stake in the company. So if someone came along, let's say a private equity firm owned 60% of a public company,
Starting point is 00:36:59 the board can't just act in the interest of the private equity firm. They have to protect the smaller shareholders. And so their job is to say is they're upside for the smaller shareholders that their vote should matter more. And that's why we have a board to have that judgment debate and to decide. And I'm not arguing against you as much as I'm explaining what goes on in the lawyers' meetings with the board. This is what they're telling us.
Starting point is 00:37:20 I think basically your job is to look out for all shareholders. So Elon can go out and buy a bunch of shares. But if he doesn't have 30% of the shares, the board has to represent the interest for those 30%. Right, but I think what also works, and what normally good boards will do, and I don't know whether Twitter will or will not do this, but I'm assuming these are,
Starting point is 00:37:39 you know, they'll do the right thing here, because we do know most of them. They should probably get a fairness opinion. I'm sure Goldman is doing evaluation as we speak. But again, when you factor in what's happened to this stock over the last decade, and when you factor in the market beta today, it's, I think you're going to have a very hard case to make that there is a path to an outcome that's a lot bigger in an obvious way here. And I don't think that that's going to pass a lot of mustard.
Starting point is 00:38:13 And so the problem that this board will have is justifying the alternative of not taking this. I think it's going to be harder than you think. Yeah. And I think it's going to create an enormous amount of backlash where there's probably a lot of shareholders that would probably want to get out. You have to understand why are Vanguard
Starting point is 00:38:33 and all these guys owning Twitter? They have to own it through these ETFs that they've created in real life. That's right. That's right. They don't necessarily have a future one. They don't have a point of view on the company, right? I agree. And so they're out to just basically,
Starting point is 00:38:46 so when you really boil it down, how many concerned interested shareholders are there? Well, Elon is clearly the largest there, you know, and then after that, it's probably only 30 or 40% of the total outstanding equity. I bet Jack has a really, I bet Jack is the lintpin and what's gonna happen here. You know, his point of view on
Starting point is 00:39:10 This transaction and whether or not Elon should be the steward of this business going forward and whether this is a fair price for him It's going to sway a big part of how this process is going to go Jack owns 2% Elon owns over 9% Yeah, but my point my point is I think Jack's going to be a big opinion setter in that board discussion And they're I think they're some pothico and they're friendly so Just to give you guys a number to react to here, 2021 revenue is five billion. They have eight thousand employees back of the envelope, six hundred twenty five thousand dollars per employee in revenue. Just looking at Google, which is the greatest business ever created, perhaps in terms of efficiency, as we've talked about, they have a hundred thirty five thousand employees in revenue is two hundred fifty
Starting point is 00:39:42 seven billion, which puts them at two, puts them at close to two million per employee. How many people sacks on an operational basis does this business actually need to run efficiently? 8,000? Yeah, you could fire half those people or more that be absolutely no impact the business. In fact, they probably run better because right now they probably got too many means happening with too many people. We all know this. That company, so culturally has been broken for a long time. Elon comes to you and says, you're my guy. You did Yammer. You're in charge. Would you run it? What? When you take this, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Starting point is 00:40:15 I'm gonna be seeing now guys. Come on. No, wrong. You take the job for 10%. No, I wouldn't. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,. I'm sick of it. What if, what if you're fun, Scott? I don't like doing the real work. Wait, hold on, hold on. I think this is time where we can share that.
Starting point is 00:40:34 That's too old. I think it was six years ago, five years ago, I did approach Twitter with another large investor, but it was more of a friendly activist thing. And David was our nominated CEO to work that place apart. Breaking news must come in. But now after that meeting, which was a little heated, the VP of engineering and CTO quit
Starting point is 00:40:56 the next day. I remember. That was funny. Just that concept of reporting into Sachs, they quit. They rage quit at the moment. They made this point. The startups are like the NBA. I mean, you get to a certain age.
Starting point is 00:41:08 You're just, you know, you're too old. I mean, you're the coach. You know, you'd be full of Jackson just. I'm a fool. I'm a fool. It's flattering, but I'm done. I'm done operating. I'm so sick at all.
Starting point is 00:41:17 Wow. Exactly. Who do you think? Pro-tastic. I go on Zoom calls a couple of times a day. It's a great life. Yeah. I mean, you know, I can't run it. He's got a lot going on. Who do you think should be the actual CEO of the day to day?
Starting point is 00:41:25 See other. Well, I think Elon would figure I think he would go in and figure it out. I mean, he is obviously an extremely but who would be the guy who would be on the ground? Well, he's got a lot of people he can probably plug in. You know, that my understanding of the way that things work at the Tesla and and the job. No, SpaceX is he's got some terrific young talent who he appoints these sort of project manager or product manager positions Yeah, and they and he's got like 20 of them reporting to him and they run the company doing a whole sequence of projects
Starting point is 00:41:56 Right, right, so he has like a bench a deep like Elon is the new GE backmer when GE when all the talent used to go there Yeah, he's got so much incredible talent on his bench. He could parachute in some amazing operators there and clean up that place. Well, let me tell you something incredible. The AI team on that self-driving team, which I've met and I've seen their work, like, you know, in private,
Starting point is 00:42:16 and it's so impressive that if he took one of the AI people working on self-driving and dropped them into Twitter, one, they would solve the bot problem, the spam problem in 30 days with one. And if God forbid he sent three, they would solve it in the weekend. The fact that they can't solve spam and bots
Starting point is 00:42:36 and other Michigan are going on at that company is crazy. Right, he would fix that. By the way, there would be less sort of, there would be less problematic content, there would be less problematic content on that site with Elon running it. Why? Yes, there would be less harassment. There would be less harassment because he'd get rid of all the bots. He'd impose on our specific requirements.
Starting point is 00:42:54 Who's doing the brigading? It's all these bot armies. The problem is they don't want the bots to go because the only sign of life in that business is spammers and you know, all these fake accounts being created. So they're just scared to take that 20% hit. But the site would be cleaner without it but look Jason I really think that part of the problem with our conversation today is that we're viewing this whole Elonverse Twitter thing. Purely in economic and to some degree operational terms when really I think this is also an ideological and cultural battle or struggle. Alright we'll go to that. Let's do it. And this is why it's really captured the imagination of the public. Look, what is the, if you were to sort of zoom out 30,000 foot view, the big struggle of
Starting point is 00:43:34 our time politically and culturally is populist versus elitist, okay? That's the big battle that's happening. Elon is one of the rare billionaires who sort of anti-elitists. He pokes fun at their pities all the time. This is why they call him a troll. Okay. He wants to restore free speech. Somehow the elites are now on the side of censorship. Like Max Boots said, they believe that in order to protect democracy, they need more censorship. What they really mean is to protect their control over democracy. They need censorship. Why? Because they're greatly outnumbered. There's more populace than a litus. So if the more
Starting point is 00:44:10 Democratic this country becomes the more they are going to lose power and be kicked out. That is why they are so fiercely resisting the restoration of Twitter as a free speech platform. It means the end of their cultural power. The Axios headline encapsulates that to a T. I gave you guys the link, Nick, you can show it. The world's richest man, someone who used to be compared to Marvel's Iron Man, is increasingly behaving like a movie supervillain, commanding seemingly unlimited resources with which to finance his mischief making. I mean, what a, like, are you really, are you serious? This is the same guy that's doing more on climate change.
Starting point is 00:44:54 It has been doing it 20 years ago when it wasn't popular and satellites, but I said this before and space travel. And I said this before, but I just want to say it again, I think if he does get a control of Twitter and there is a strong, reliable moral force for free speech, I think that's actually going to be his biggest contribution to society because independent of all these other things, you know, we want sort of this political philosophy
Starting point is 00:45:23 of democracy and capitalism to roughly work together. And I think it sits on top of this fundamental idea that you can say what you think without retribution. And it's only there you can actually seek out different opinions and try different ideas and say things and most importantly make mistakes. And right now we have such a high cost for making mistakes that it just shuts so many people down and out. And if he does that, that's actually a really big deal, I think, global. You know what that Axios headline could have such a month that could have said Elon Musk
Starting point is 00:45:57 spends significant portion of his fortune to restore trust in public square by open sourcing. But you can't. Open sourced on open sourcing, the API, and allowing transparent moderation. No, Jason, that's what he said in his TED Talk. Jason, they can't because they lose power if Elon wins and gets controllers to it. Right, exactly. Look, the corporate journey,
Starting point is 00:46:21 the corporate journalists like Axios, they don't make a lot of money. What they have is some degree of status, but more importantly, they have influence. That's why they do those jobs. The fact that matter, and their influence is enhanced when other people don't have the right to speak. The reason why Elon is a super villain in their eyes is because he's going to give the people their right to free speech back.
Starting point is 00:46:43 That is what this is really about. They are adamantly opposed to that. people they're right to free speech back. That is what this is really about. And they are adamantly opposed to that. Now, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, every member of the press would have defended the First Amendment. They saw FEMA speech, FEMA the press as synonymous and fundamental to our republic. Today, they don't believe that anymore. History has been inverted. Glenn Greenwald actually had a great paragraph about this. If I could just, I know just in front of the screen wall. Look, I mean, I'm a Glenn Greenwald fan had a great paragraph about this. If I could just, I know just in front of the screen wall. Look, I mean, I'm a,
Starting point is 00:47:08 you are a fan of a minute. But what he said is that somehow these elites, they've somehow inverted history. So now they believe that it is not censorship that is the favorite tool of fascist tyrants and authoritarian. Even though every fascist and despot in history, you censorship is a key means for me to any power, but they instead believe that it is free speech, free discourse,
Starting point is 00:47:30 and free thought that are the instruments of oppression. So that is what it is about, but the irony is that these elites now believe in the use of authoritarian tactics to preserve their cultural power. That's about all the same place. I think they're conflating harassment on a platform or hearing opinions they don't like with, you know, like actual censorship. There's gonna be harassment, sadly, in the world,
Starting point is 00:47:54 and you can build tools to mitigate that. I mean, one of the things I don't understand, you know, I don't know if you know this feature they added last year or so, where you can say only your followers can reply. You know, all these people who are complaining about harassment, I never see end of them say, my followers can reply. If they did, they would never have anybody reply who they didn't want to reply.
Starting point is 00:48:13 The problem would be solved. Okay. Lots more to come on this topic. I want to just get final mention. That was a long topic for us. Wow. Well, I mean, it is, it is the perfect topic for us because you have freedom of speech, you have markets, you have governance. I mean, it's just everything
Starting point is 00:48:29 entrepreneurship. I just want to end with, we're here 30 days from now. What is your majority case? What is your majority probability here of what happens? Give it a second. What is the stock trading at and who's running the company in 30 days? Sacks your first. Here's what's going to happen. This goes back to my tinfoil theory. I think one of two things is going to happen. Okay. First of all, Elon is going to be thwarted by these folks. He's not going to get control of this company. They're the vested interests in stopping him by the board, by the new CEO, and by the corporate media, and the political elites is too great.
Starting point is 00:49:08 They will find a way to stop him. Okay. And one of two things is going to happen. Either the poison pill will win, and Twitter's stock will be down in the dumps 30 days from now. It'll be the same price it was when he lost it. Thirty five around that price. It's going to be back in the dumps, and to Chemos Point, all these board members
Starting point is 00:49:27 are gonna be sued justifiably so, because they did not pursue the best deal of the company, or there's one other possibility, that they will find a buyer for Twitter, and the way they will defeat Elon will be to find another buyer, at the same or greater price, and they will place Twitter in the hands
Starting point is 00:49:46 of another company who they regard as culturally safer because that company buys into the regime of censorship. And it might be Disney, it might even be Google. I'm telling you, I think that if Google were the company to step up, the administration would ultimately support that deal rather than Elon getting the company. And I think they would tell. Okay, tell everyone out on the con.
Starting point is 00:50:10 To stand down in that instance, let it go through. Okay, Lena Con, you have. And we will find out, and I'm telling you in 30 days, we will find out how rigged this game is and how deep the corruption goes because they will do anything to stop Elon from requiring this company.
Starting point is 00:50:24 Even if it means violating their fiduciary duty or violating antitrust law. Okay. They got it, Alex Jones. Let's go free, Bert. I mean, I am not at all this. What is the majority case in 30 days? I'm not as conspiratorial as SACs. I don't think that this is about-
Starting point is 00:50:40 I agree with you first part, SACs, you know. Protect- I think that we have a board of rational actors. I really do. I think that they're a board of rational actors. I really do. I think that they're gonna do what they think is in the best interests of shareholders in terms of price per share. I think that's how they're gonna operate. They're all super smart, super ethical,
Starting point is 00:50:53 high integrity people on that board. Right now, would I like to see Elon own an operate Twitter? Personally, yes, I would. Why? Well, I think he's gonna be a better operator. I think he's gonna make that product better. I think he's gonna make the business better. I think it's gonna make that product better. I think he's gonna make the business better.
Starting point is 00:51:05 I think it's gonna be, he's gonna have a much more rational view on moderation that I think has been lost over the last couple of years. And I think he'll innovate in ways that we haven't seen in that business in many years. So I'd be excited for him to own that business as a user of Twitter, that's awesome. But I don't think that, I think the board's gonna act
Starting point is 00:51:21 rashly, they're gonna try and find the best price. They're gonna reject his offer. I don't think he's gonna up the offer significantly at the point they get it done. They're gonna go out and run a long strategic process. Three months from now, we're still gonna be running that process. That process is not gonna be done.
Starting point is 00:51:33 No one's gonna have a real answer. Elon's gonna trail off and do something else. And this whole thing will kind of fade into the subject. And stop cooperating where in three months? 35 bucks a share, 30 bucks a share. What is the majority case here? 30 days, 90 days from now. I think the 30 days is we're kind of still be here. I don't think much is going to get figured out in the next 30 days. Yeah. In
Starting point is 00:51:57 the next 90 days, I don't think you're going to see a better offer. I don't think anybody wants to buy this dumpster fire. Because you have to understand this dumpster fire is twofold, right? On the one hand, you have a whole user, usage, bot, spam, harassment problem. And then you have an internal issue around culture and monetization and all of this other stuff. And so, you have to be really prepared to step in and deal with both of these two issues in a really definitive way. I think that that, I'm not sure that corporate boards
Starting point is 00:52:28 and companies and CEOs have a stomach for all of that. So, I don't think there's a better bidder, but I think within 90 days, they're gonna probably first try to reject it. I'm not sure that that's in the best fiduciary interests of shareholders. In fact, I don't think it is. And I think to reject it would be more a sign of ego than a sign of logic. And then I think they are going to get sued and they're going to be embroiled in lawsuits
Starting point is 00:52:59 for years. So no sale happens to stock languages again, stalemate, disaster. Well, I think by saying it, look, I mean, if you look at the stock, like a simple stock market analyst would say, whenever there's a merger announced, right, at like X price, right, like look at Microsoft and Activision, that's a better example. You know, Microsoft announced that the stock was at like, you know, $57.58 a share. Microsoft says we're going to buy Activision, I think it's for $95 a share, right? And if you notice the stock hasn't gone to 95 now typically merger ARB Merger arbitrage what happens is that the stock goes to one or two dollars of the acquisition price right away
Starting point is 00:53:35 Almost immediately or it goes to within five or ten dollars or five or ten percent and then it bleeds towards the M&A price as The deal gets closer to certainty So when there's a big gap, what the market is voting is that the deal's not gonna happen. And so when you look at the gap, Microsoft Activision, it kinda says it's gonna take a long time and there's a risk that it doesn't happen. Similarly, if you look at this Twitter thing,
Starting point is 00:54:00 why didn't it go to 53 bucks a share? It's because a lot of people think that the board's not going to do the right thing. It agreed. The fix is in. That's so conspiratorial. Exactly. Obviously, do you listen to Alex Jones? The fix is happening in plain sight, freeberg.
Starting point is 00:54:15 Jamal, just set it. Why is the price both $4? I hear it. Listen, when a deal is going to go through, the price goes right up to, like, below that price. The price is well below. I think the reason the price isn't going up is there is no buyer who wants a asset. It's going to be years to come. No, no, no, no, no, no, Jason, Jason. I don't think there's a buyer who wants it.
Starting point is 00:54:33 Even if you thought that there was another buyer that was going to come at a higher price, the money good thing to do is for people to basically buy that equity to basically bleed into the acquisition price. No, I get all that. Yeah. And so the fact that it didn't move at all, in my opinion, is a concerted belief that board is going to reject the offer. Got it. Even if there was another offer. And what they didn't want to do is buy the stock at 50, have the thing all of a sudden
Starting point is 00:55:01 get announced as, you know, we're not going to take it, Elon dumps the shares, all the people that bought the stock at 50, hoping it'll go to 54, would all of a sudden get announced as you know we're not going to take it Elon dumps the shares all the people that bought the socket 50 hoping it'll go to 54 would all of a sudden lose a lot of money because the stock would instead be a 34 so the fact that the stock basically didn't move is essentially the market's way of voting this is a head fake we you should take the offer the board's not going to and the stock's going to tank back to its other, it's, it's original price. My prediction is the board tries to fight it, stock collapses, nobody thinks it's going to get done. You'll own lowers his offer and he wins it by the end of the year and gives him a lower offer.
Starting point is 00:55:38 You didn't like kick it before? Always with the optimizer. Now we're going 49. That's very Michael Corleone. Yeah. Now the office 49 and it goes down two dollars every quarter until you guys. We ask the end. It's trading at 30. I lower my offer. Jason, if you want to, if you want to just finish with this little coat of the, the, the Revlon
Starting point is 00:55:56 story, it was actually kind of cool. Forcedman little comes in to try to basically give like a white knight bid. And what Ronald Perlman did was basically say, I'm just gonna, you know, top tick every bid. He was pretty baller. He's like, I'm gonna top tick every bid. So, Forrestman would be at 51. And then, you know, Perlman would be at 51.50. No, we're going to 54.55.
Starting point is 00:56:19 You know, and so he was all poked. And he exhausted Forrestman little. And eventually they're just through their hands up. They said, we can't do this anymore. Yeah, I wanna make a couple of movie recommendations, So he was opposed and he exhausted forced him little and eventually they're just through their hands up. They said, we can't, we can't do this anymore. Yeah, I want to, I want to make a couple of movie recommendations real quick because I, I tweeted a couple of things. Barbarians at the gate.
Starting point is 00:56:31 There's barbarians at the gate in Wall Street and you know, I tweet these things and they get no likes. So I think people just don't watch old movies. Just watch them. They came out the 1980s Wall Street movie club. It's one of the all time great movies. All time greats. Probably the best movie of business has ever been made. Oliver Stern, right? You're saying Wall Street is yes. Wall Street movie club. It's one of the all time great movies. Star Trek. Oh, I'm great. Probably the best movie of business
Starting point is 00:56:45 has ever been made. Oliver Stern, right? You're saying Wall Street is, yes. Wall Street is. Margin's a great... I really like Margin Club, but yeah, I like great. Barbarian's The Gate was... Better book, when Margin Club did.
Starting point is 00:56:54 Yeah, it was a TV movie with James Gardner. It was good. I think he makes worth watching too. The book is excellent. The book is excellent. The book is next level. I gotta go eat that. Oh, everybody, love you, Basti.
Starting point is 00:57:03 Love you guys. Bye, bye. Back at to go eat on everybody. Love you, Basti. Love you guys. Back at you. No, we won't. Hey, everybody. We decided to split this epic episode into two parts. One, two parts. So we can get you all the Elon Twitter discussion out as soon as possible for your Friday night viewing pleasure.
Starting point is 00:57:18 Stay tuned for episodes 76.5. This part two coming out in just a few hours. We're going to talk about the global food crisis China's plan for food storage geopolitics including the French election and we got a bunch of all-in-summit talk Everything's heating up so stick with us Brain man David Sack We open-source it to the fans and they've just got crazy with it. Lumby West, I just queen up, you know what?
Starting point is 00:57:51 I'm going on a beach! What, because they're all just like this like sexual tension that they just need to release their power. What your feet, what your feet. What your feet. What do you need to get my cheese on now. I'm doing all it!

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