Elon Musk’s X is worth nearly 80% less than when he bought it, Fidelity estimates
Posted by polymute@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 109 comments
UltimateKane99@reddit
A value that means nothing to anyone except Musk, as it's only relevant if and only if he ever decides to sell X/Twitter, which he's made pretty clear he has no intention of doing as he doesn't trust anyone else to have the same goals as him.
dosedatwer@reddit
Oop. Turns out you were completely wrong about him selling it.
UltimateKane99@reddit
... How so? He sold it to himself.
dosedatwer@reddit
He sold it. Your sentence can end there.
UltimateKane99@reddit
... I feel like you have to COMPLETELY miss the point to make this argument.
He OWNS xAI. He just sold X/Twitter... To himself. This isn't him "selling it", this is him reorganizing it to make a profit and improve his control over the platform.
This would be like saying Google sold itself... To Alphabet, its parent company. Nothing changes, Musk still has exclusive control over the platform, but I bet Musk is making a pretty penny on the deal! So nothing about my argument is, in my estimation, wrong. He hasn't sold it to anyone else, obviously.
"Hey, he found a way to earn MORE money!" is not the own you think it is.
dosedatwer@reddit
He. Still. Sold. It.
UltimateKane99@reddit
I don't consider that a sale, because he still owns it. I consider that a billionaire getting richer off his own stuff.
dosedatwer@reddit
"I don't like that fact so I'm going to call it fake news".
UltimateKane99@reddit
It's not fake. He simply still controls it.
I clearly said "he's made pretty clear he has no intention of doing as he doesn't trust anyone else to have the same goals as him." Hilariously, the one loophole (if it can even be called that) to that "sale" is... to sell it to himself. Which he did. So everything I said, and why, still holds true.
This isn't hard to understand, but you appear to be trying for some "gotcha" that is irrelevant at best, and pedantic at worst. Not all "sales" are equal, and selling something from your left hand to your right hand would not fit a category of the term I meant, and you know it.
ShootmansNC@reddit
It was never worth 44 billion either, estimations at the time put it at 14 billion at best..
UltimateKane99@reddit
Yuuup. He wanted his megaphone to be under his control. Money wasn't an issue to get that.
EllisDee3@reddit
But he didn't really want it. He was just talking shit and accidentally locked himself into an agreement.
He was forced by the court to uphold an agreement he didn't intend to uphold.
Why does everyone forget this?
UltimateKane99@reddit
He didn't want to at that price. He's not dumb, it was clearly overvalued. But he did want it, or he wouldn't have made such a statement in the first place. He just shot his negotiating position in the foot.
But, really, none of this affects his views now. Now, it's his, and he will do with it whatever he wants to do. Thus, based on what we CAN tell from his statements, he's not even remotely inclined to sell.
apistograma@reddit
Eh, I'd say he really is
q1a2z3x4s5w6@reddit
There's plenty of testimonies from reputable people he's worked with stating otherwise. He's a very unlikable person but he's clearly not dumb and I think it makes you look dumb to state that.
You do realize that Elon fanboys and Elon haters are as equally cringe as each other, right? Most rational people understand that he's far from dumb but he's also far from the fucking messiah like some herald him to be. Stop being tribal.
TheTransistorMan@reddit
Reputable people he's paid to work with him, you mean.
Look, I'm not saying the guy is brain damaged, but he speaks like he's a 17 year old 4chan user.
BairdBenji@reddit
And how many billions have you earned in this lifetime?
TheTransistorMan@reddit
How sad is it that you necro a month-old comment to show everyone how far you can shove Elon musk's dick in your mouth?
q1a2z3x4s5w6@reddit
Even Bill Gates has praised Musk in the past for being a great innovator, hardly someone that likes Musk never mind being paid by him. I remember Neil deGrasse Tyson saying something also, again someone that has been very critical of Musk but doesn't lack the intellectual honestly to call a spade a spade 🤷♀️
You can find plenty more examples if you look
TheTransistorMan@reddit
Look, musk's either a con man or an idiot. I'm not going to split hairs about it and give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's not as brilliant as you want me to believe.
q1a2z3x4s5w6@reddit
Believe whatever you want to believe, I don't care what intellectually dishonest people think about anything really.
You don't like Elon Musk, got it.
TheTransistorMan@reddit
If we were talking about someone like Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates this conversation wouldn't be happening.
Apartheid Clyde over here gets his balls gargled by endless legions of fanboys for what reason exactly?
Why do you defend him? I don't understand what your angle is.
SamuelClemmens@reddit
The same but opposite reason you get so amped up about shitting on him. Like you're calling him "Apartheid Clyde", why?
Because he was born in South Africa and fled as a child refugee to avoid being drafted into the apartheid army? (17 year olds are children too so don't start trying to claim they aren't like you're a reddit version of P.Diddy)
That is one of the undeniably good things he did.
There is this bizarre trend in American politics to equate intelligence and morality. If someone is morally repugnant they must actually be stupid. You can be immoral and intelligent as sure as you can be dumb but moral, you can be the anti-Forrest Gump.
It is conspiracy theory level dumb to pretend Elon Musk is stupid. The only way he could be where he is without being smart is if he were so unbelievably and reliably lucky that it would prove the existence of God, maybe not a just god, but clearly God.
Just admit that being intelligent doesn't make you a good person and move on.
q1a2z3x4s5w6@reddit
I don't understand what yours is either. I'm not "defending" Musk because I like him, it's because I see people calling him an idiot as irrational and I think the truth is worth defending.
If I saw someone adamantly claiming that the sky was green i would push back on that as well, it's a falsehood given the evidence, it's not because I fucking love the blue sky. I have an aversion to people spreading (what i perceive as) obvious falsehoods. Sure some people are maybe just misinformed but there are many which seem to let their dislike of Musk get in the way of being honest with themselves and admitting that despite their personal dislike of Musk, he is evidently a smart person.
Look, I'm not trying to claim Musk is infallible or the smartest man alive because that too would be irrational but I can clearly see that he's a very capable and intelligent person given his accomplishments and there's a myriad of other capable and intelligent people that would also attest to that.
I kinda resent the fact that I'm "defending" Musk because people assume I think the sun shines out of his arse hole but the reality is I think he's a massive cringelord that should stop posting on social media so much. I can still admit that he's smart though because I'm not a moron (sorry) with a hate boner for him.
TheTransistorMan@reddit
Man, you just took time out of your day to write a full 5 paragraph essay about how you defending him is not really defending him.
I don't think I'm the one with the boner, man.
q1a2z3x4s5w6@reddit
Non-response, because you know I'm right. The cognitive dissonance is strong.
TheTransistorMan@reddit
Ok man, enjoy the flavor.
TheD1ctator@reddit
you really think becoming one of the richest people in the world is something an unintelligent person can do? there are plenty of people that come from money that haven't accomplished what he's done, even if he's a terrible person. I would push Elon into the street given the opportunity, but he's far smarter than most people. You can be a dick and be wrong about some things and still be intelligent.
Unecessary_Past_342@reddit
Unironically some of the smartest people on the internet
TheTransistorMan@reddit
But he's not a 17 year old 4chan user either way. He's a 50 something billionaire who roleplays as one publicly.
Unecessary_Past_342@reddit
Yeah his posting is cringe but types like those (high performance, high IQ) are also posting on 4chan, sometimes every day.
TheTransistorMan@reddit
That's fine, but it doesn't mean musk is.
DrewDown94@reddit
Remember when he told advertisers to go fuck themselves because they didn't want their products next to literal neo Nazis that were posting racial slurs? Instead of moderating the platform that he purchased for $44b (even though it was maybe worth half of that, but he paid a premium because of his own mistakes), he fancies himself as a "free speech absolutist." And then, he launched a lawsuit against said advertisers claiming collusion. Remember that? Want to take any bets about whether he wins that lawsuit?
Like, any rational person can look at the order or events and realize how stupid that is. There's no debate to be had.
q1a2z3x4s5w6@reddit
Larry Ellison is talking about you lol https://x.com/elon_docs/status/1842125179914207417
"You're saying Elon's an idiot. The guy's landing rockets! And who are you?
"Who are you? This guy's landing rockets. You know, he's landing rockets on robot drone rafts in the ocean. And you're saying he doesn't know what he's doing? You ever land a rocket?
You're telling me he's an idiot. I just want to know who you are so I know, why I should believe you, as opposed to my friend Elon?
And we're out here watching this rocket land, which I think is really cool, and you're there in front of your Apple Macintosh and typing up an article saying, Elon's an idiot."
TheOnly_Anti@reddit
Cringe.
q1a2z3x4s5w6@reddit
You call me cringe but not a liar, I can live with that.
JohnMcPineapple@reddit
You spend your days arguing in a fringe subreddit, make that comment after you made a few million revenue with your companies.
Maardten@reddit
Most of us didn't grow up with the kind of wealth Musk did. His families was worth about a 100 million dollars in 1980, when Elon was 9 years old.
Musk would very much like you to believe he is a self-made man, but that is obviously not the case.
Icy-Cry340@reddit
He had a privileged upbringing, but he didn’t inherit a fortune - as far as I’m concerned he’s a self made enough. And an asshole.
Champagne_of_piss@reddit
What are you trying to say here,
'You're not allowed to call someone dumb if you're poorer than them', or 'Elon musk must be smart because he's rich'?
discographyA@reddit
I am well off and this circulate with other rich people with net worths starting in the 8-figure range. Is it okay for me to point on Elon Musk is dumb as dog shit, a lot of other rich people are too and the people who simp for him for free are the dumbest of all?
apistograma@reddit
You decide to defend a billionaire that wouldn't care if you died, and resort to personal attacks when he's criticized.
Why?
ima_coder@reddit
You're the one that stepped in with the personal attacks in a thread you weren't even part of. I think you secretly love him.
Apistgrama and Musk sittin's in a tree. F-u-c-k-i-n-g... First comes love....
apistograma@reddit
Your comment a bit out there tbh
ima_coder@reddit
I'm not the one obsessively thinking about Musk.
PersistentWorld@reddit
He's clearly very dumb. Take three seconds to read his Tweets.
WaltKerman@reddit
Because he did want it and was using backing out as a negotiating tactic.
ButterscotchFancy912@reddit
Yes He was drunk / ketimined
"Elon Musk details his prescription ketamine use, says investors should want him to ‘keep taking it"
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/tech/elon-musk-ketamine-use-don-lemon-interview/index.html
UltimateKane99@reddit
We're not forgetting, I just dispute that he didn't want it. From what I can tell, he wanted it, just not at that price.
X/Twitter didn't HAVE to sell to him, but he locked himself into a price that he had to follow through on.
Dapper_Monk@reddit
They didn't want to sell to him but because of the absurd offer he made, they HAD to. It was out of fiduciary obligation to shareholders.
UltimateKane99@reddit
That's... not how hostile takeovers work, no?
Theres no requirement for a board to accept any offer that is made so long as it's over some amount. They could have continued the poison pill strategy they enacted immediately after Musk's offer to buy Twitter, but everything I've read is that they chose to reverse course because it was better for them to take the (massive) payout when Musk made his offer rather than fight. Where did you hear they were forced to accept it?
By your definition, a company could literally just write a number some percentage over the valuation of another company, and the offer itself would automatically force the board to accept it. While fiduciary duty is important, it's not all-powerful, and the board can reject an offer if they feel it's not in the company and shareholder's best interests.
If I'm missing something, please, elaborate. I'll admit it's not my field of expertise, but I've never heard of a board's hands being tied like that.
Dapper_Monk@reddit
They had to sell out of obligation to their shareholders. They could'nt possibly get a better offer even with projected future earnings/user base growth. Musk did threaten a hostile takeover but didn't actually go for that strategy. You said Twitter didn't have to sell. They did, because they have fiduciary responsibilities.
This is the most reputable source I can find on the whole thing:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/technology/twitter-board-elon-musk.html
Also, note that Musk never made an alternative offer. He only tried to back out, citing bots. He had already been aware of Twitter's bot problem. The chancery court would have likely forced him to buy at the promised price but he backed out of the court case before discovery and took the L. So idk where you get the notion that he wanted it at a different price.
IAmTaka_VG@reddit
Twitter did have to sell. There was no way investors would have let them decline it. Musk overpaid by like 4x its value.
UltimateKane99@reddit
The board was enacting a poison pill strategy to prevent the hostile takeover. They chose not to continue with it and sell instead.
Musk definitely overpaid, but saying Twitter was forced to sell is weird. A company doesn't have to sell if someone throws a big enough number at them, there are options to prevent such a hostile takeover. It's just usually in their shareholder's best interest not to fight it.
Dapper_Monk@reddit
Court didn't force him. He was sued and backed down before discovery could happen. the writing was on the wall anyway
Z3t4@reddit
He wanred to troll and delaware forced him to stand up to his bullshit offer, so he had to buy.
Mist expensive trolling ever, and keeps getting more expensive all the time.
tkyjonathan@reddit
He wanted free speech to be a thing in society again.
lAljax@reddit
That's what he paid for right?
ShootmansNC@reddit
He paid 44 billion because he signed a contract saying he would. Then he got cold feet and tried out weasel out of the deal, Twitter took him to court and he was forced to pay that much.
Snaz5@reddit
It’s fucked up that he paid 44 billion: 3x its value, and essentially it didn’t affect him at all. Money is fucked.
ShootmansNC@reddit
It's fucked up that there were rich people willing to invest in his fool's errand. Another justification to eat the rich, if we didn't already have enough.
millais_malaise@reddit
Which is why Twitter was going to fight him so hard to get him to buy it at that price.
ShootmansNC@reddit
It was funny as shit that he signed a contract saying he was going to pay that much without checking.
gahgeer-is-back@reddit
lol dude Musk didn’t get the money to buy Twitter out of Ali Baba’s cave. He got it from many investors who will ask him soon about profits and how he used their money.
I think Musk will sell it as soon as the US elections are done.
orangotai@reddit
why the hell would he sell it at this price?? he uses it to promote both his ideology & other businesses
UltimateKane99@reddit
... When has he ever given that view? The guy likes having his own platform. You really think he would give that up?
gahgeer-is-back@reddit
I don’t think any rich person is stupid enough to raise $47bn to buy something because he likes it. Elon Musk isn’t stupid or crazy.
UltimateKane99@reddit
No, but X/Twitter is also a megaphone like nothing else, and one he's addicted to.
If money were all he cared about, he'd go public with SpaceX, which has something like a $210 billion valuation, and he has a huge share of that.
gahgeer-is-back@reddit
What megaphone? He doesn’t have a political ambition or a political ideology. Few years ago he was a Democrat and a “moderate”. Now he’s a right-wing republican. His “megaphone” works onl, or so he believes, after he made the algorithm push his tweets down our throats all day every day.
He didn’t buy Twitter with his own money. You need to realise this.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/investors-musks-x-acquisition-revealed-court-documents-rcna167813
UltimateKane99@reddit
Let's not play the "who needs to understand what" game here. I'm as aware of Elon's financial status as I need to be for this conversation.
All that's important is that Elon has given no indications he's willing to sell X/Twitter, he clearly enjoys the power the platform provides him, and his valuation from all his other companies FAR exceed the cost of his purchase here.
The guy has what he wants: control. Even if X/Twitter went bankrupt tomorrow, he'd still be sitting pretty on hundreds of billions of dollars of controlling shares in his other companies.
Everything else is icing on the cake to him.
gahgeer-is-back@reddit
You’re still insisting on using the word power. Are we talking about the same person who went out to cry in public because advertisers boycotted his platform? What power are you talking about?
zabajk@reddit
he absolutely has political ambitions, either directly or by proxy .
Trump even offered him some kind of place in his administration, nothing like this happens by accident .
Icy-Cry340@reddit
Good point about SpaceX tbh.
Nothxm8@reddit
You sure about that?
gahgeer-is-back@reddit
Yes. the reason he went full on maga is because he knew right-wingers in their perpetual state of victimhood and hopes of the rise of the fourth reich won’t spare a penny to spend including buying a blue tick on a platform from which they were otherwise hounded and expelled.
He knows what he’s doing.
zabajk@reddit
the mistake is believing musk only cares about money, his whole career shows this is not the case.
zabajk@reddit
rich people with political ambitions do and that's clearly what musk bought twitter for.
He basically bought his own very influential media platform
dimsum2121@reddit
Elon musk didn't mean to buy Twitter. He was forced under court order to go through with the deal.
Hertigan@reddit
I don’t think he’s stupid nor crazy, but the man has infinite money.
I think he knows that even if he vaporizes 44B on the spot, his great great grandchildren will still all be loaded. All 1000 of them
They won’t because the world is going to shit, but that’s another conversation
Lysek8@reddit
You remember he was forced by court to buy it because he was just talking BS and accidentally locked himself into an agreement no?
UltimateKane99@reddit
He was forced to buy it at that price, which, even then people could see it was grossly overvalued.
But I don't think he's interested in giving it up now. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty certain he likes being the boss there.
Zipz@reddit
Ok go on….
How much of it did he pay and how much was invested by others ?
Dudeinairport@reddit
He’s on the hook for a lot of money. He financed a large portion of the purchase, to the tune of 1 Billion of interest yearly. Revenue is down like 84%, so he’s going to have to find that interest elsewhere.
It won’t be long before he has to start selling his Tesla stock just to pay the interest. I’m not an expert, but if the stock price dips too much I believe his creditors can make a margin call which basically forces him to pay back the loan ASAP. He’d have to sell even more shares, which would already have a lower stock price because he flooded the market with shares in the first place.
Twitter is the time bomb that’ll end him.
And to the argument “but he’s worth 200 billion”: He doesn’t have that in the bank. Most of that wealth is his Tesla shares. He’s not sitting on a pile of liquid billions.
lAljax@reddit
I think it's from Tesla stock as collateral.
Graywulff@reddit
I think he wanted to kill unionization efforts.
discographyA@reddit
It matters to the banks who lent them money and their regulators. They were meant to syndicate and resell the debt after taking it on and not have it on its balance sheets. Except no one wants it so they have a bad debt on the books that will cause consternation amongst a few parties.
Mein_Bergkamp@reddit
Yeah the value for him has always been as a platform for his views.
The more pressing issue is going to be how influential twitter still is and with no truly viable alternative to Musk it's pretty much as valuable as when he bought it.
merelyadoptedthedark@reddit
But musk is still paying the loan on a $44b deal. This may just be the value on paper, but she's still paying a fuck of a lot for a product he put into the ground.
StoneColdMethodMan@reddit
Its a value that only means something if you want to get a loan on this assett.
Background-Chain-625@reddit
Another well aged reddit post
getbuffsafe@reddit
Free speech is priceless. Go to corporate outlets for regime propaganda and censored content if you wish. Yeah, X can be a horrid mess, but it’s relevant and growing despite the doom and gloom.
D3Construct@reddit
Wasn't worth that much on paper to begin with, but it is still the default town square of the internet, and that is priceless. Even with half of advertisers gone.
ufoninja@reddit
No one I know young or old uses twitter.
shebang_bin_bash@reddit
Does that make Reddit the back porch of the internet?
D3Construct@reddit
More like the sandbox, with a loooot of kids eating sand.
vote4boat@reddit
the water-cooler of the internet
GoGoGo12321@reddit
The tech support avenue
heuristic_dystixtion@reddit
Maybe the poorly lit vestibule that smells of patchouli and sweat.
Bubbles_012@reddit
Morning daily experience on twitter while I’m eating toast
Go Back to Reddit
PinkPaladin6_6@reddit
That just sounds like having a shit feed which is 90% your fault. I've never gotten any of that stuff on my feed 🤷
ElectricalRestNut@reddit
I tried muting Elon, but still got his tweets on "For you". Blocking worked.
loveiseverything@reddit
I judge people still on x and companies still advertising there on the character of Elon Musk. As in I'll remove these people and companies from my life.
Icy-Cry340@reddit
You’re so brave.
bureX@reddit
It turned into a shitshow during covid. One-liners, "ratioing" aka raiding, trolling were the name of the game. However, with some good curation, you could find your bubble and get some good content. Not sure about monetization, but Twitter had universal recognition and it was bound to become at least lightly profitable at some point. Especially with the advent of genAI, it would be a great source of data and they could charge well for it.
When it was turned into X, however, it became a hangout place for a bunch of crypto-ai bros, right wing trolls, grifters and "BREAKING" news posters. All with blue checkmarks. If you scroll past the blue checkmarks, you'll find the fanclub of identity politics who think they're still relevant on that platform, somehow.
Deleted everything on there and sent the app on its way into the trashcan, where it belongs. X is hard proof that one shouldn't trust Musk with anything. Won't even buy a car from the guy, he's just crazy enough to send a remote update with butts or something when his aspergers starts acting up.
thisisillegals@reddit
you're just bitter because you have X in your name.
bureX@reddit
That, too.
Dudeinairport@reddit
Dude proved with Twitter that he was a complete idiot, at least when it comes to software. SpaceX and Tesla work because he’s smart enough to stay out of day-to-day stuff. Some of the shit he’s tweeted about software is idiotic, and I’m not even a developer.
No_Explanation_9087@reddit
Yeah but it's not as gloom as it's presented. Other wealthy companies, especially jewish ones (due to the anti semitism and racism), have chosen not to advertise. The blue tick thing isn't as appealing, and all the extra new options are foolish when considering that the youth attention span is quite poor.
I say it's not as gloom as I believe Elon is intentionally destroying the app and he understands he can get the investments to pour in if he decided to pivot and make it how it was before. So it's like a current bad investment with clear ways to fix it.
wazuh@reddit
Makes sense it’d be worth less if its not a platform that’s selling their agenda to the highest bidder