Elon Musk

they should just put a big bowl of cash by the door and you take some when you leave every day

Time to invent that phone!

he’s gotta put a camera in a hammer before that, sorry first come first served

this man is very silly, who knows if apple has actually threatened twitter with removal from the app store but if they did they did they certainly said why

they should just put a big bowl of cash by the door and you take some when you leave every day

Negotiating in public, always a good tactic. He doesn't seem to fully understand that nobody has to be on Twitter.

xp eh, it wouldn't be the first time. apple has history of either giving inscrutable reasons, or refusing to give reasons for rejections.

ironically prte-musk twitter did a much better job of designing an enforcable moderation policy and enacting it in a way that people understood than apple has ever done.

they didnt reject twitter tho, musks story is they called him up and threatened to do it and when he asked why they laughed and hung up, doesnt make much sense the whole point of a threat is to extract a concession

musk's story is a couple of engagement bait tweets that ask more questions than they answer

theyre nonsense

I kind of love the idea of some Apple execs calling him on speakerphone and being like "Nyaaaah, we're gonna kick you out of our app store! How you like THEM Apples? Hahahahaha!"

*muffled speakerphone laughter, fumbled hangup*

I mean Tim Apple just took a hatchet to Facebook’s entire bottom line and crying foul didn’t really change the outcome. But sure let’s try to fuck around and find out.

— Jason Goldman (@goldman) November 28, 2022

lol otm

based on the timeline what id guess happened is musk starts bitching about apple cutting back on advertising, someone asks him if apple has threatened twitters spot in the app store, they have not but it seems like a good thing to bitch about so musk says yes and then proceeded to bitch about it

which doesnt mean apple couldnt reach the conclusion that twitter is under moderated at some point, but seems unlikely that were there yet

nothing brings back the day to day numbing banal dumbness of the trump years harder than "tim apple"

Next version of iOS blocks all advertising on the Twitter app regardless of whether you use it or not

So getting kicked off the App Store probably would actually be a MAE under the merger agreement? Lol. Lmao.

— Quantian (@quantian1) November 28, 2022

Now we get to see if the bond indentures were drafted as carefully as Twitter’s contracts were.

— Quantian (@quantian1) November 28, 2022

iiuc this is saying twitter's loans could be contingent on not doing something like "getting kicked out of the app store"? that would be funny.

nothing brings back the day to day numbing banal dumbness of the trump years harder than "tim apple"

― Clay, Monday, November 28, 2022 2:20 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lmao tim apple goes in the greatest hits for sure

"All Boring had to do was bring its machine (named Godot) and start digging, former Maryland officials said. But months, and then years, passed. Maryland was waiting for Godot." pic.twitter.com/XOGQqeY9AS

— Eliot Brown (@eliotwb) November 28, 2022

And Marilyn LockHEED

Did you know Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their App Store? https://t.co/LGkPZ4EYcz

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022

did Elon seriously pay $44,000,000,000 for Twitter without knowing this

shh its a secret

this might be giving him too much credit, but 1) of course he knows 2) that is a tweet designed to go viral with the help of people who think he's stupid. trump was good at that.

He will be talking himself into pulling the iOS app entirely by the end of the day

ALL HANDS ON DECK MEMO:

ALL TEAMS IMMEDIATELY REQUIRED TO DESIGN NEW OPERATING SYSTEM AND APP STORE, TO LAUNCH FOR CHRISTMAS ROLLOUT. APP STORE MUST BE EXTRA BASED, WAY COOLER THAN APPLE'S. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH READIN THIS YOU HAVE 15 MINUTES TO SEND ME SOME CODE.

lol yes

The dangerous thing about this guy is he thinks there is nothing that can happen to him he can't bully/buy his way out of, and so far he hasn't really been proven wrong.

He was notably unable to bully his way out of spending way too much money to acquire Twitter, Inc!

Yes, but he's pivoted to simply breaking it (because who cares, "X" will be the everything app), firing thousands of people, not paying whole countries' worth of other employees, and upending scores of other peoples' ability to promote their work. Didn't exactly learn his lesson.

It would be funny if Tim Cook replied to that Elon Musk tweet with something like "Sure, Elon, whatever. Now pay the $8, er I mean 30%"

this might be giving him too much credit, but 1) of course he knows 2) that is a tweet designed to go viral with the help of people who think he's stupid. trump was good at that.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, November 28, 2022 1:54 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

normally I'd say yeah but everything he's done since buying Twitter implies he really is that dumb

All these rich people know one another right? Are they laughing at him? Are they ignoring him?

NEW: Documents show why Apple pulling its Twitter ads is devastating for Elon Musk: In the first quarter of 2022, Apple was Twitter's top advertiser, accounting for nearly $50M in revenuehttps://t.co/h9TWjdwFoH

— Faiz Siddiqui (@faizsays) November 28, 2022

Ruh-roh

no pocky for kitty

meanwhile back in the streets:

A man and his son are in a car accident. The man is killed instantly. His son is rushed to the hospital. The surgeon says “I can’t operate on this patient, he is my son”. The car then crashes through the wall of the operating room, killing everyone. How is this possible? (Tesla)

— RiderToast, scab resident destroyer (@RiderToast) November 28, 2022

iiuc this is saying twitter's loans could be contingent on not doing something like "getting kicked out of the app store"? that would be funny.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, November 28, 2022 2:24 PM (four hours ago)

nah, bonds/loans are completely different from merger agreements. even under the merger agreement, apple kicking twitter off the app store now would be a muddled set of facts for an MAE - arguably elon's actions leading to all of twitter's major advertisers cutting spending would have been the MAE since that actually impacted revenue, an apple ban would be a bit late to the show. but those provisions of the merger agreement ceased to matter on october 28th. the bond indenture is concerned with a different purpose - it's designed not so much to make sure twitter operates in a business as usual way, as the merger agreement, but to preserve twitter's lenders position in the capital structure / claims on twitter's assets in case of insolvency, which elon tanking twitter's revenue doesn't really touch.

are loans like that contingent on *anything*?

i get that they're not contingent on the literal terms of the merger agreement, but are they likely to be contingent on terms like "self-inflicted MAE" or key man risk or whatever?

If a loan agreement is based on using stock as collateral it would certainly include provisions that cover what happens if the stock plummets in value.

contingent is maybe the wrong word, since musk already got the money. to answer your question though, loans like the ones twitter allow lenders to call an event of default (and demand their money back) if twitter does things that imperil the lenders claims on twitter's assets. for example, taking out more debt (which allows new lenders who are not the current lenders to have a claim), selling/transferring away assets (reduces the size of the asset pool available to satisfy the debt), sending money upstream to musk (reduces amount of money available to satisfy the debt).

in other words, the loans are about keeping money/assets from leaving out the door, but aren't concerned at all with making sure the company keeps money coming in the door. this allows the company to continue business as usual, in 99% of cases and which is what rational companies are interested in doing, but also allows for seppuku in public, which appears to be elon's strategy?

If a loan agreement is based on using stock as collateral it would certainly include provisions that cover what happens if the stock plummets in value.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Monday, November 28, 2022 7:01 PM (twelve minutes ago)

a loan that uses stock as collateral, or a margin loan, is not available to companies generally, but usually is available to individual lenders. elon was originally penciled in for a margin loan to buy tesla, but was able to drop that part of the financing package after convincing his buddies to chip in. if he had taken out a margin loan on his tesla shares as originally contemplated, this thread would be about 3x more fun, given where tesla's stock price has traded since oct. 28th.

Wonder if some banks are going to consider defining key, knowledgeable employees as assets for loan collateral purposes

like if Elon Musk had borrowed $13 billion to buy, say, a mining concern, based in part on a business case for future cashflows from the mine, and then after closing decided to detonate a dirty bomb inside the mine, a lender might reasonably default, right?

*declare him in default

also, re: MAC, a MAC is notoriously hard to establish in delaware. there has only been MAC in history, and it was big:

Then, during the post-signing period, Akorn experienced consecutive year-over-year declines in quarterly revenue. Akorn’s operating income was down 84, 89, 292, and 134 percent, respectively, in the four quarters after it signed the merger agreement. Akorn’s revenue was down 29, 29, 34, and 27 percent, and earnings per share were down 96, 105, 300, and 170 percent. Akorn’s stock price dropped from $32.13 per share before signing to between $5.00 and $12.00 per share after signing. Commenting on Akorn’s financial decline, Chancellor Stine remarked:

Akorn’s dramatic downturn in performance is durationally significant. It has already persisted for a full year and shows no sign of abating. More importantly, Akorn’s management team has provided reasons for the decline that can reasonably be expected to have durationally significant effects.

Not only had Akorn’s financial situation “dropped off a cliff,” Fresnius soon also learned of serious deficiencies in Akorn’s data integrity processes. Dramatically, these issues were first identified in an anonymous whistleblower letter. Upon review of the letter, Fresnius performed its own investigation. Fresnius discovered that Akorn was “in persistent, serious violation of FDA requirements” and had “a disastrous culture of noncompliance.” The investigation by Fresenius also uncovered the possible use of fabricated data in Akorn’s FDA submissions. Additionally, as soon as the parties signed the merger agreement, Akorn had canceled regular audits, assessments, and inspections of known problems.

Upon these findings, Fresnius attempted to terminate the merger agreement. Akorn argued that the merger agreement should be specifically enforced. Fresnius counterclaimed, seeking a ruling that it properly terminated the merger agreement. The rest, as they say, is history.

The court determined that the unexpected and nonstop drop in Akorn’s business performance constituted a “general MAE” (that is, the company itself had suffered an MAE), and that because Akorn’s representations of regulatory compliance were not true and correct, the deviation between the as-represented condition and its actual condition would also result in an MAE.

so far nobody's leaked how much revenue twitter has lost so far, but i bet it'd give the above a run for the money. after all, twitter did $5B in revenue in 2021, $4.5B of which was from advertising. unfortunately, musk's own goals are happening after musk actually closed the deal, when the MAC stopped mattering. twitter did a pretty good job of making sure money kept on coming in the door while it was waiting for musk to close the deal so it avoided the MAC!

Wonder if some banks are going to consider defining key, knowledgeable employees as assets for loan collateral purposes

― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Monday, November 28, 2022 7:22 PM (two minutes ago)

the problem is, you can't really sell an employee in the bankruptcy auction process for cash to settle a debt... not yet anyway. maybe a bank will find a way?

we already call them human capital!