Elon Musk's tech allies miffed about Twitter subpoenas

Well-known venture capitalists included in the subpoena, according to the report, are Marc Andreessen, founder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz; former Facebook exec and CEO of Social Capital Chamath Palihapitiya; and David Sacks, the founding chief operating officer of PayPal and current general partner at Craft Ventures.

Drama with Musk's VC cronies is a distraction from looking at what path Twitter will take and if it really will morph into a Chinese style data mining super app.

Musk should focus on Neurolink and its neural mesh at it is being superseded by other companies already.

Iain Banks would be very disappointed in Musk again.

Well-known venture capitalists included in the subpoena, according to the report, are Marc Andreessen, founder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz

Interesting...Agrawal's wife is a partner at Andreesen Horowitz.

IMO, just get all the trials over and done with already Agrawal, you didn't want to sell to Musk, you then put in a poison pill to stop the sale, you then tried to have Musk on the board of TWTR so as to hamstrung him from dealings relating to TWTR, only to now going to court to force a sale to Musk. Given your track record, who is going to believe you?

IMO, just get all the trials over and done with already Agrawal, you didn't want to sell to Musk, you then put in a poison pill to stop the sale, you then tried to have Musk on the board of TWTR so as to hamstrung him from dealings relating to TWTR, only to now going to court to force a sale to Musk. Given your track record, who is going to believe you?

Mr. Musk did two things that have sealed his fate. Number one he waived due diligence before signing a contract to buy Twitter. Number two, the contract he signed committed him to what is called "specific performance". The clause says Twitter has the right to sue Musk to force him to go through with the deal, as long as he still has the debt financing in place, which remains the case. These are business mistakes on his part.

There is a "termination clause" that would theoretically allow either side of the deal to back out after paying a $1 billion termination fee, but that clause is limited to events like the SEC or FTC suing to stop the sale, or a major source of financing for the deal withdrawing. This is not the case.

Musk cites Twitter's claim that less than 5% of accounts are bots as untrue but offers no evidence to back his claim. Twitter granted him access to all of their data so his inability to prove otherwise is not going to get him very far in court.

The real problem for Mr. Musk is that he cannot come up with his half of the $44billion deal. He has borrowed heavily against his stock options to the point he has very limited ability to borrow more. He could sell his stock and indeed has done so, but this has driven the value of his stock down, and as the value of the stock falls so does the value of his stock options. If Tesla stock value falls too far the collateral behind those option loans could become less than the outstanding loan balance forcing the banks to call the loans.

The short story is Mr. Musk impulsively flapped his yap and now finds he cannot write the check to buy Twitter, so he looks for an excuse, any excuse to get out of the deal. Based on the case history of the Delaware Chancery Court Twitter will very likely win if this dispute goes to trial and be forced to buy Twitter. About the best Mr. Musk can expect now is to settle before trial for a sum of money between the $1 billion termination fee and the $44 billion purchase price.

https://africa.businessinsider.com/tech-insider/elon-musk-faces-a-legal-nightmare-and-a-potential-dollar1-billion-fee-as-he-tries-to/ckm4nsk?op=1

I’m still bemused by the idea that you can force someone to buy something.

Bemused or not, the judge in this case has legally forced a sale to go through in the past, and can do so again.

If that really can be done

It can - this judge has done it before.

I think the boss move would be to fire everyone and shut it down. He’d be doing us all a favor.

I agree that he'd be doing us a favor. But he'd also be throwing away a $40 billion investment, that wasn't all his. How much do you think people would do business with him after that?

Moves that people call "boss" are rarely ever what a competent boss would actually do.

More on the Musk-Twitter contract:

https://www.newser.com/story/322789/one-clause-in-contract-may-be-bad-news-for-musk.html

Well done Twitter !!..

@Desert Tortoise

take a look at Twitter's 8k filing, particlarly the forward looking statement.

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/2438f74a-dacf-4b4b-b3d2-6d507cee9721.pdf

"...loss of customers and employees;"

...and despite numerous request for data on bots, Musk team got nothing.

In Musk's termination letter, there was also reference to access to the data room restricted. You would think it's in Twitter shareholder's interest to seal the deal, and provide Musk team with all the info they needed.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922078413/tm2220599d1_ex99-p.htm

"...as long as he still has the debt financing in place.."

Finance is not a condition of sale so should be irrelevant. Look at the filing.

The media loves to hate Musk because he has ruffled so many powerful feathers (Birkshire, Automakers, VCs...) AND Tesla doesn't advertise, but he wants Twitter and I can't imagine that 'the market' would make a difference in the relative value of TSLA vs TWTR (Twitter's contention).

Also, given TSLA has outperformed TWTR, in the relevant period, Agrawal's argument is void. IMO, time for a different strategy by the TWTR board before Agrawal destroy even more value.

I’m still bemused by the idea that you can force someone to buy something.

Nobody forced Mr Musk to sign a contract binding himself to the purchase of Twitter. He chose to do that. Once he signed that contract, however, he put himself on the hook to complete the deal as written. It does not matter that he did no planning before making the rash decision to sign that contract. But once he signed it, the terms of the contract become legally enforceable.

Finance is not a condition of sale so should be irrelevant. Look at the filing.

Actually it is. It is a condition of the termination clause of the contract. Per the contract it is one of the few things that can happen to permit the buyer to withdraw after paying the $1 billion termination fee.

...and despite numerous request for data on bots, Musk team got nothing.

Waving the bs flag on that claim. Read.

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/elon-musks-team-asks-for-more-data-to-complete-assessment-of-twitter-bots/626073/

I couldn't care less whether Musk buys Twitter or not. I enjoy the business side of it, and it's interesting to see if Musk's mouth will get him into trouble or not.

Some our posters here are downright fanatical of him though. Interesting that he has become part of the culture wars.

Yep I bought 500 shares of Tesla at $634 dollars a share a few weeks ago due to all the liberal mockery of Musk here over his Twitter feud.

Thanks a lot!

Blacklabel Today  01:46 pm JST

Yep I bought 500 shares of Tesla at $634 dollars a share a few weeks ago due to all the liberal mockery of Musk here over his Twitter feud. 

I’ll take things that didn’t happen for$1000 thanks Alex.

nope, I posted it when I did it.

it happened. its actually happened many times as Telsa goes up and down between $600 and $1100.

thanks Elon!

Actually it is

Below is the exact wording from TWTR's filing.

"There are no financing conditions to the closing of the transaction".

It is ONE contract, the fact TWTR mentioned finance is purely for information, neither Musk nor TWTR can use finance to end the contract.

Waving the bs flag on that claim. Read.

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/elon-musks-team-asks-for-more-data-to-complete-assessment-of-twitter-bots/626073/

you should read your own link, from it:

"It’s not clear whether that means that Twitter has provided everything that its API systems can provide, but that could mean that Musk’s team can now access"

Did you read the Musk letter? Clearly stated access to the data was restricted.

"Additionally, those APIs contained an artificial “cap” on the number of queries that Mr. Musk and his team can run regardless of the rate limit—an issue that initially prevented Mr. Musk and his advisors from completing an analysis of the data in any reasonable period of time. Mr. Musk raised this issue as soon as he became aware of it, in the first paragraph of the June 29 Letter: “we have just been informed by our data experts that Twitter has placed an artificial cap on the number of searches our experts can perform with this data, which is now preventing Mr. Musk and his team from doing their analysis.” That cap was not removed until July 6, after Mr. Musk demanded its removal for a second time"

I think if you were a contract lawyer, you would very quickly form the view that all TWTR has done since day 1 is obstruct, obstruct and obstruct.

BTW, I have share in an ETF that holds TWTR and I'm as p'ed off the deal couldn't complete as anyone, but clearly Agrawal is not looking after shareholders, he's looking after his own job.

Between breaking a legal contract, getting his VC backers served and boffing other Tech moguls' wives (not to mention having his employees bear his children - That would be a one-way ticket out of any competently run organization), Elon is going to find people don't want to do business with him anymore.

His particular brand of D-baggary is already driving away (pardon the pun) potential customers.

@Nemo

Between.....blah blah blah

Seriously, do you think there's any substance to any of the claim you have or haven't read about Musk?

The media is against him, because he doesn't pay advertisers...old playbook used by the likes of the Murdoch empire.

Kicking Tesla out of the ESG index whilst keeping weapons and fossil energy companies on it? By the same ratings company that gave the world the GFC. LOL....

Biden holds a meeting of EV makers and refuse to invite Tesla... LOL

Raving on about BYD self driving tech when it's geofenced to one city whilst Tesla is AI driven and is not geofenced. LOL

When it comes to Musk, you have to read, read and assess yourself, else you're going to loose money hand over fist like TWTR shareholders will be in this instance.

Incandescentwithrage

Today 09:32 am JST

I’m still bemused by the idea that you can force someone to buy something.

> If that really can be done,I think the boss move would be to fire everyone and shut it down. He’d be doing us all a favor

Have you never bought a car, house, air-conditioning unit, etc..

Once you sign the contract to buy a house, changing your mind is not an easy thing! This is a business deal we here Elon Musk vs Twitter and gives the false impression it is Mr. Musk VS Twitter corporation.

One man against a great big business. But it seems hard to believe that Musk made the offer as an individual and not a corporation worth billions of dollars.

So remove the facade of Musk being a person and twitter a corporation.

This is as if Alphabet corp was Fighting with Meta two behemoth going after eachother

Musk further secured $7.1 billion in funding the next day, including from Oracle Corporation co-founder Larry Ellison, Saudi prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, along with sovereign wealth fund Qatar Holding.

And more than just the above.

These guys are acting like "why us?

A little searching will reveal all were contacted to help invest or were investing.

I wonder why something as important as these guys all or most were investors in the buyout plan.

Between breaking a legal contract, getting his VC backers served and boffing other Tech moguls' wives (not to mention having his employees bear his children - That would be a one-way ticket out of any competently run organization), Elon is going to find people don't want to do business with him anymore.

At his net worth, people will always want to do business with him.

The media is against him, because he doesn't pay advertisers...old playbook used by the likes of the Murdoch empire.

Sure sure, I mean they are so against him the above article conveniently "forgot" to mention all the served a subpoena are Elon Musk' business partners in the buyout plan.

Funny how that was left out of the article, one would think it important to mention.

In reality the MSM hate Twitter far more than Musk, most were happy to see Musk take it over and turn it into some place to post conspiracy theories, etc.. chasing away the regular people away and MSM hoping back to them.

MSM love Musk he is great for crazy headlines.

Twitter on the otherhand is their biggest enemy along with Facebook, etc ...

nope, I posted it when I did it. 

it happened.

Lol case closed.

Musk is an idiot with an uncontrollable mouth!!!

At his net worth, people will always want to do business with him.

I understand the sentiment but I am not so sure.

When you cannot trust the person you do business with, does it really matter how much money they (claim) to have?

Or as Paul says aptly:

Musk is an idiot with an uncontrollable mouth!!!

Indeed.

I would add that he is very likely a narcissistic sociopath. Maybe that is why so many Trump fans love him.

Everyone mentioned in the article are complete asses. Credit only to them for using money to make money. Exception is Andreessen who created Mosaic which did indeed change the world, once again a huge innovation funded by the government. Good to see them all hit the wall supporting the incredible stupidity of Musk making a novelty purchase of something he is totally clueless about and furthermore did not even bother to do his homework before committing $44 billion. Only the insane and/or incredibly rich are that stupid.

and boffing other Tech moguls' wives

How do you always get the fake news but always conveniently miss the later story where everyone involved verifies it’s fake?

over reliance on liberal mainstream news?