Antisocial Media

Image source: Dzm1try, Aygun Ali and Kaspars Grinvalds - Shutterstock

What's going on?

Twitter accepted Elon Musks offer to buy the social media giant earlier this week, whether you like it or not.

What does this mean?

Weve all been where Elons been: bought a stake in one of the worlds biggest social media platforms, rejected an offer of a board seat, then offered to buy the company outright. So you mustve felt for the guy when Twitter tried to scupper the move with a poison pill tactic, hoping to put him off by diluting his ownership and driving up the price of the deal.

Breathe easy: some of Twitters largest shareholders bombarded the company with calls urging it to accept, forcing the company to come to the negotiating table. So while your bids on major companies mightve fallen through, Elons didnt: Twitter agreed to sell to the worlds richest man for around $44 billion 38% more than it was worth at the start of the month (tweet this).

Why should I care?

For markets: Rob Tesla, pay Paul.
Banks are prepared to lend Elon almost $26 billion to pay for the deal, but hell need to cover the rest himself. That leaves two options: find investors to buy the company with him, or more likely sell some of his stake in, say, Tesla. That might be why the EV makers stock has fallen 9% since he announced his takeover ambitions earlier this month.

The bigger picture: Leave Elon alone.
Elons been explicit about his intent: he wants Twitter to be a bastion of free speech, where everyone disgruntled men, disgruntled presidents, and disgruntled billionaires alike can finally tell the world what they really think after having been silent on podcasts, on network television, and on the world stage for far too long. But analysts have pointed out that Elon has used the platform to influence his personal business interests before, and they cynically argue that he could use his new position to do it again. Okay, snowflakes

Originally posted as part of the Finimize daily email.

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