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What do you think motivates Elon Musk to do some of the weird things he does? He has a lot of tweets that feel like /r/iamverysmart material, like saying chess is a simple game and now that we have computers games like Polytopia are way better. Or how he tried to buy twitter, then back out of it after already signing a contract saying he would leading twitter to sue him to force him to buy. Or offering his analysis of the Ukraine-Russian war on twitter, which even if you would agree the broad strokes of his suggestion were good, Twitter's really not a good platform to share nuanced geopolitical analysis to try to encourage peace.
Is he just doing stuff for attention? Does he think he's genuinely making a world a better place with those actions? Does he have some sort of social media manager planning this stuff to keep his name in the news and stock price high? Is he just bored and tweeting/making impulse purchases to pass the time, like what everyone else does just on a much larger scale? For the life of me I don't know why he does what he does.
There's a "Drunken Boxer" Style that works very well for prominent businessmen and celebrities... Think Trump, Kanye, and Elon...
Th "Drunken Boxer" either isn't drunk, or is a martial artist who's vastly less drunk than he looks, but he feigns drunkenness to the point of almost falling over to get his opponents to lower their guard, or taunt, and create openings...
You have and/or feign instability, have a crack team backing you up, and then you wind up coming out of situations with way more than you should have ever been able to realistically negotiate out of it... because none of your adversaries could actually gauge what your intentions where, couldn't assess what were the points where they should have pushed or played hardball... and then you get insane openings where none of the republican frontrunners will challenge Trump (the main frontrunner) because they all assume its a publicity stunt and won't waste ammunitition on a guy who won't be there in a month, or Hillary directing all her media allies to pump him because she thinks he's a joke and is worried she might have to debate Rand Paul on policy.
Insane openings no other businessman or candidate would get, but that is just handed to him because he's both thought a fool, and those smart enough to realize he's not a complete fool still have no idea what he actually wants and whether or not they should be trying to deny it to him.
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Now of course you can attribute too much 4d chess to this... how much is trump just being boisterous and good at playing the media + dumb luck... might Kanye actually just be bipolar... etc. But these people have teams behind them who aren't insane even if the front man might be, and you'll get this dynamic just out of that...
Elon is by far the most likely of these figures to do it consciously. He's the most successful businessman of them, has been a successful businessman for decades, and pours tons into his media game, despite being the one with the least need for media presence... he isn't a politician or celebrity. He's a tech/car CEO. Can you even name the CEO of Toyota from memory? How about Salesforce or Raytheon?
And yet he's out their playing crazy on TV when he could be relaxing with his money and taking a break from the office.
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You notice you don't know if he even wants to own twitter? None of us do. That's a very powerful negotiating position.
The way I see it there's 2 -3 possibilities.
Elon put himself in this position with billions of his dollars on the line, that's a calculated move... all of this was almost certainly gone over by teams of people before he announced and was likewise poured over for weeks and months before even the preliminary stuff was signed.
So there's 3 possibilities:
A) He wants Twitter and is trying to avoid having the purchase blocked. B) He doesn't want twitter but wanted to create a "mask off" political story where he could play victim of censorship and institutional corruption C) Either outcome is agreeable to him, and he's oscillating back and forth to see how much damage/profit he can get out of it.
Whenever he gets close to getting twitter suddenly a major institution Twitter itself, the media, SEC, Biden security state make an announcement to try and block it... but when he signals he doesn't want twitter all those same institutions try to force the sale out of anger/recognition of an enemy, to try and punish him/extract resources out of him... Well if he's had his ducks in a row from the start and they're just being reactive, (which is likely since he's initiated the whole affair and had the best lawyers looking at it the whole time (whereas the people discussing a security review, or the twitter team are at most reacting within weeks)
Then its very likely every time he 180s and all these institutions shift 180 as well to try to make him pay, punish him, set an example... There's a very good chance his negotiating power increases on both ends.
For example the security review would probably give him an off-ramp if the market shifts and he doesn't want to buy, but doesn't want to pay the 1 billion damages he didn't back out, state department blocked him (how scandalous) or every legal trick the twitter team uses to try and hurt him in the trial for backing out ... '"Your honour we're even willing to assist him with the loan a 500 million value we don't have to"' Oh really!?
Its very likely his negotiating position is improving every twist this takes if he's done it right and planned it out well... which given he and his lawyers initiated it and his budget exceeds almost every other actor... probably.
Sometimes rich guys are dumb and impulsive, like a lot of people.
The drunken boxer stuff… I worked in the M&A industry for a decade. Watching Musk sign away his right to due diligence, then try and worm out of the deal, citing concerns that would have normally been addressed during due diligence, watching the share price drop with the rest of the market while Musk is locked in at the top, and now a judge (most-likely) dragging the sale across the finish line, has been some lovely schadenfreude. A-plus, chef’s kiss stuff.
Also, your info on the Feds blocking the deal is wrong. Musk is on the hook to resolve any objections, while Twitter can continue to demand their bag. Musk wanted to be Billy Big Balls and come in with a big, big offer containing terms Twitter’s board couldn’t refuse. And, they didn’t.
Large Twitter shareholders right now: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9Rd-FfKdcc8
Yeah this is what gets me. The "drunken boxer" strategy sounds the most likely and elegant, except for the fact that as far as I understand business deals, there's no actual possible advantage to actually be gained here from Musk's behaviour.
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