Twitter C/D

Also - giving them strike prices that appear to be wildly over valued might do just that. If Twitter is indeed worth less than half the purchase price (a fairly uncontroversial estimate), those stock grants are going to be worth far less if they convert to cash at some point, and this means the income tax paid on the $45 price might potentially offset a massive amount of the actual income gained from the resulting value converted, especially for large amounts. Yikes.

Just to reiterate more clearly, employees will owe income tax on their grants at the $45 valuation offered, regardless of how much money they can get out of the equity when it's eventually liquid. So if the income tax you pay on the grant exceeds the value of the equity later on (say it dips to $10 a share for an IPO or a sale), you might actually lose money exercising said equity. Reverse startup indeed.

working until its just elon in a garage

xp Unless they're subject to a "substantial risk of forfeiture," which (colloquially) everything associated with Musk is.

the equity would be offered at $45 a share in the form of restricted stock units, which employees can earn over time.

If I were trying to reverse engineer Musk's thinking based solely on the $45/share detail, I would say he believes that by pegging the shares to a wild overvaluation he will create incentives for his workers to strive heroically and increase their productivity so much they bring Twitter, er, I mean X, back up to where he can dump it on the market without incurring massive losses. You know, his usual 'galaxy brain' worms.

if/when these RSUs vest the employees will pay real taxes on them, so they have real 'value'.

i assume he's handling stock comp and liquidity events exactly as it is handled at spacex.

now obviously he's the CTO, so this is all above his pay grade. but maybe that's what his boss is doing.

problem there is that a spacex-type liquidity event would require investors to agree with the value of this $19 billion valuation - maybe he can arrange a share sale to elon fanboys who will buy at any price

You make them sound like suckers.

$19 billion seems generous. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/30/technology/x-twitter-19-billion-dollars.html

― Allen (etaeoe), Monday, October 30, 2023 5:43 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

generous is right.

snap is worth 1/3 what it was in spring 2022. twitter is subject to the same secular forces. we used to predict twitter's earnings by looking at snap's the week before. their stock prices moved in lockstep. so best case twitter has lost the same fraction of its value as snap, and is worth 1/3 its spring valuation.

but twitter has also lost effectively all its revenue via the nazi stuff. on a good day it's maaaaybe worth 1/6 its spring 2022 value. if you thing musk paid what it was worth that implies it's worth like 7bn. if you think he overpaid (he thinks so himself) it's worth less than 5bn.

as a business its worth zero now tho im sure it has some assets that could be sold

that sink for instance

Fidelity Investments is claiming it's in the $15B range now. Still seems high, but they have a $300M stake in the original deal

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/9jUgoyCI0biXF_dJMnYlUM8iYiE=/232x0:3965x2800/1200x900/media/img/mt/2017/10/RTX1RDRD/original.jpg

it's worth 0 owned by musk but part of the valuation is the idea that if he sold it to someone who veered hard and course corrected it could partially recover. depends to what extent you think elon caused the decline (and if so whether it's reversible) or if it was already inevitable before he bought. also trump's second presidency will be good for twitter (and media generally)

yeah idk once the death spiral starts its hard to stop (why they call it a death spiral)

i do think he caused it fwiw

Of course he did. No one could do this by accident.

opening twitter for one second

The chant at Liverpool Street as many have pointed out is indeed not "intifada" but "ceasefire now" . Apologies.

— Simon Schama (@simon_schama) November 1, 2023

it's Free Parking all over again

Apologies.

You can tell that came straight from his heart. it is practically a mirror image of it.

This account may enter a period of inactivity as I am being indicted for securities fraud at 4PM tomorrow. Stay tuned for further updates.

— crazy ass moments in nu metal history (@numetal_moment) October 31, 2023

new revenue streams

Emails obtained by Forbes reveal that a team within the company, known as the @Handle Team, has begun work on a handle marketplace for the purchase of account names left unused by the people who originally registered them. In at least some cases, X/Twitter has emailed solicitations to potential buyers requesting a flat fee of $50,000 to initiate a purchase.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2023/11/03/elon-musk-x-has-started-selling-off-old-twitter-handles

i wonder if he gave $50k to the guy who had @X originally

Twitter 'For You' currently showing me one single post, Corbyn at the rally. has been like this all day.

thats the only post for you

throw all the other twitters back on the shelf

now replaced by a single tweet from Owen Jones, also at the rally.

Cringe levels off the charts with this entire venture

Nice to meet you Grok. So, you're funny, super curious, and a little spicy sometimes too? That's my kind of friend. Old BFFs move aside. https://t.co/ewlzaEUEhR

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) November 5, 2023

Yay pic.twitter.com/VYj9LqdEP9

— curiousnewton (@curiousnewton) November 5, 2023

wow owned

if i was worried about revenue streams i would simply not make my product so toxic that no serious business wants to be associated with it

the world is clamoring for a more racist ai

As Musk has sacked teams that would've responded there is a lot of Palestinian content on twitter
---

Walid Mahmoud 
@WalidMahmodRouk
Israeli official: We are facing a problem with pro-Palestinian content on Telegram and X.
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have responded to 92% of our requests to remove palestinan content since the start of the Aggression on Gaza

interesting

Apparently, Elon has never read either The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or Stranger in a Strange Land.

prob not a big book guy

there's a reason he's so salty about wikipedia -- it's where he spends all his time

no shade towards Hitchhiker's Guide but I fear that Elon would become even more annoying if he read it

Otm

That would be a singularity of annoyance.

I imagine he'd try to become Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged

So now all my "Notifications" are about random tweets I've never interacted with.

hey maybe you want to know about them

check out this tweet

because you liked that tweet, we're recommending this other tweet. evening? sorted!

Classic.

Greedy CEO who pretends like he’s self made. In reality, just a clown & fraud. Always has been, always will be. Quit the tough guy act in these senate hearings. You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy. #LittleManSyndrome pic.twitter.com/JNvT7IsA6m

— Sean M. O'Brien (@TeamsterSOB) June 21, 2023

lol get him

oof

Exclusive: Apple is pausing all advertising on X, formerly Twitterhttps://t.co/RV69yHZHIi

— Ina Fried (@inafried) November 17, 2023

I'd like to see someone actually say they will pull advertising completely and never return, rather than these 'pauses'