Header image source: Network
In just a few weeks, Musk has once again become a global public enemy.
In the United States, billionaire O'Dowd's constantly attacked Tesla on Twitter almost every day, even editing videos of Tesla's assisted driving accidents and placing them on the Internet at millions of dollars; a San Francisco federal court judge ruled that Musk's tweets about Tesla's privatization in 2018 were "knowingly committed" and the latter faced billions of dollars in damages; and the lawyers of the famous Hollywood movie star Johnny Depp released important evidence. Accusing Depp's ex-wife Amber Hurd of cheating on Musk in marriage...
In Germany, BMW executive Pieter Nota has publicly declared that Tesla's dominant era in the field of electric vehicles is over; at the same time, the Berlin gigafactory, which has just started construction, has caused trouble - a sewage leak in the paint shop, although the company claims that the pollutants have been completely collected and reported to the local water bureau, but angry civil environmental groups have come around and protested...
In China, the China Consumers Association released the "Annual Report on the Protection of China's Consumer Rights and Interests (2021)", which named the Tesla Shanghai female owner's roof protection incident; the autopilot company that has just been established for 3 years has also challenged Tesla, saying that the actual performance of its newly released urban NOH system is not inferior to Tesla's performance in China...
If Tesla's assisted driving function is smeared as a necessary tuition fee on the road to autopilot, if the lace news with Hollywood actresses stems from the debauchery of Iron Man in Silicon Valley, if the "pulling" from the old aristocrat BMW and the emerging self-driving enterprises belongs to the troubles of the strong, if the "water incident" in the Berlin factory belongs to the conservatism of extreme environmental organizations, these seem to explain the truth, but the series of evil consequences caused by Musk's "mouth hi" privatization in 2018 can only be attributed to self-inflicted.
Interestingly, the above evil results originated from privatization and spread to Twitter, and after becoming the world's richest man, Musk decided to acquire Twitter, privatize it, publish the source code, change the auditing mechanism, and make it more "free speech"... So on Twitter, another bloody storm was set off.
#上
Twitter, it is true that Musk played it clearly
Like Trump, Musk is a Twitter enthusiast who is equally unspeakable and dares to challenge the bottom line.
Musk's "Privatization Manifesto"
In August 2018, Musk tweeted that he was prepared to take Tesla private for $420 in the U.S. stock and said the funds were in place. As soon as the news came out, Tesla's stock price soared, rising from $343.84 at the opening of the day to $379.57 at the close. The next day, the volatility drew an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which believed that Musk's funds used to privatize Tesla were of unknown origin and suspected of taking advantage of the opportunity to inflate Tesla's stock price.
17 days later, under the obstruction of multiple forces, Musk abandoned the privatization plan, and Tesla's stock price fell sharply. A significant number of investors felt cheated and jointly took Musk to court. At the same time, the SEC officially filed civil charges and huge fines against Musk and Tesla. The matter was eventually resolved through "private", Musk was forced to resign as Tesla's chairman, agreed to go through the pre-review of the company's internal lawyers before sending Twitter in the future, and paid a fine of $20 million, and Tesla also paid the same amount of fines.
Musk has always been grumpy about this matter. In a recent public speech, he repeated the old story, using the term "Bastards" to make SEC officials scold the dog bloody head, and said that his previous "private affairs" with the SEC were forced, and his concessions were "illegal concessions."
"SEC officials threatened me that if I didn't, the banks would stop funding, which would bankrupt Tesla immediately." It's like pointing a gun at your child's head and I'm forced to admit that I lied to save Tesla. "He repeatedly reiterated that his tweets were not lying, and that he had really found a source of funds for privatization." I have never deceived shareholders, I will never deceive shareholders, I am for the survival of Tesla, for the benefit of shareholders..."
But shareholders clearly don't think so. Although the SEC accepted the settlement, the shareholders did not, but collectively sued Musk in court, making him pay the price for the "mouth hi" behavior at that time and pay compensation. Recently, the presiding judge in this case has ruled that Musk's tweet was a "knowing crime" and said that "no reasonable jury would consider Musk's August 7, 2018 tweet accurate or misleading." The case will be officially pronounced at the end of May, according to foreign media statistics, if it loses, Tesla will face billions of dollars in damages, of which JPMorgan Chase alone claims compensation of up to $162 million.
In fact, musk's controversy on Twitter is much more than that. Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2020, Musk secretly bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, and after opening a position, he announced on Twitter that Tesla would support bitcoin payments, and the value of bitcoin rose sharply. In March 2021, Musk sold a part of bitcoin and used this part of the funds to buy Dogecoin, and then stood for Dogecoin on Twitter and other public occasions, allowing its price to soar in the short term, and it did not take long to cash out and leave the market, making a profit of 6-14 times. Then, in May of that year, Musk announced on Twitter that the bitcoin mining farm is high energy consumption and not environmentally friendly, tesla will stop accepting bitcoin payments, so the value of bitcoin fell sharply, and when the decline exceeded 50%, Musk used the funds to make profits on Dogecoin to copy bitcoin on a large scale. In June, Musk announced that once it was confirmed that miners were using clean energy wisely, the company would resume bitcoin trading, and bitcoin rose sharply...
Masked, voice-changing representatives of hacking groups intimidated Musk over the air
In this wave of repeated jumps, Musk made a lot of money, but many currency players have lost their homes, and even some hacking groups can't sit still, publicly releasing threatening videos and threatening to retaliate against Musk. Unwilling currency players have also reported to the SEC, saying that Musk uses his personal influence to manipulate the market and call for an investigation into the latter.
In addition, despite the promise to go through the Tesla legal team before sending a tweet, Musk himself still challenged the SEC bottom line on Twitter for three days. Shortly after the settlement was reached, in July 2019, Musk tweeted that "the production line is being rapidly started." It is hoped that production will be produced by the end of this year, with (capacity) about 1,000 solar roofs/week. ”
Despite the huge price, Musk is still constantly "testing"
For this tweet, the SEC believes that it belongs to the "production number or sales or delivery figure" related information and should be subject to review, and Musk did not submit it to the legal team for review before the tweet. In May 2020, Musk tweeted that "Tesla's stock price is too high", and Tesla's stock price also fell rapidly with this tweet, which was also not reviewed, and Musk explained that this is a personal opinion and does not need to be reviewed.
The SEC constantly sent letters to Tesla to communicate about this, but Musk never stopped frantically testing at the bottom line. In the first quarter of 2022, the Hurun Rich List and the Forbes List were released one after another, and Musk reached the top as he wished, but after becoming the world's richest man, his view of Twitter has also changed, no longer willing to be a user, but trying to acquire it and complete his own business closed loop.
It can be said that even after paying $40 million and a chairman position, Musk has never relented on Twitter. Now, after becoming the world's richest man, Musk has decided to buy Twitter. Interestingly, on the road to acquisition, Musk has fouled again.
#下
Dare not sell it to me? You can try
Different people have different opinions about why Musk bought Twitter. Musk's own view is that the acquisition of Twitter is to make it a platform for global freedom of expression, and after completing the acquisition, he will open up the Twitter algorithm and eliminate the censorship mechanism... The view of some analysts is that the acquisition of Twitter is to build a closed loop of Musk's business empire. Cars, mobile phones, satellite communication systems can be seen as hardware closed loops in their business empires, and Twitter with a large number of users can make them better cooperate with mobile phones, cars, communication systems, and achieve software closed loops... Another part of analysts believe that the acquisition of Twitter is just a smoke bomb, and its purpose is to attract outside attention and let everyone ignore the fact that Tesla is acquiring a lithium company.
There are also good people who believe that Musk bought Twitter just to avoid being banned, after all, as strong as Trump has been blocked, Musk, who also likes to "mouth hi" on Twitter, is undoubtedly also dangerous. Of course, there is a large element of ridicule in this view.
Whatever the original intention, Musk's determination to buy Twitter is solid. Under the lesson of Tesla's privatization, Musk still has a long memory. The intention to acquire Twitter was disclosed through the SEC. But despite this, he still fouled up because when buying Twitter stock, he did not disclose his 5% stake within the specified time limit as stipulated by the securities law, but instead used the time difference to accelerate the purchase to reduce the overall acquisition cost, and did not disclose it to the outside world until the stake reached 9.2%.
In addition, his acquisition also triggered Twitter's anti-hostile takeover mechanism, which immediately launched the poison pill plan, that is, once an entity, individual or group obtains more than 15% of Twitter's issued common stock in a transaction without board approval, the "poison pill plan" will take effect, and Twitter will allow other shareholders to buy additional shares at a discounted price to maximize the acquisition cost.
Poison Pill Scheme, also known as "Equity Dilution Anti-Takeover Measures"
But Musk apparently didn't eat the set, and immediately tweeted that Twitter's board of directors blocking the acquisition was completely disregarding the interests of shareholders. In addition, he gave an ultimatum to Twitter's board of directors, and in a text message to Twitter's chairman, Brett Taylor, Musk mainly stated three layers of meaning: first, the price he gave $54.20 per share was already high, in the interest of Twitter shareholders; second, Twitter is now doing poorly, has come to an end, and only he can save Twitter; and third, if the acquisition is not successful, he will reconsider his stance as a major shareholder.
Although the text message specifically states that this is not a threat, the words are full of threats. Assuming the acquisition is unsuccessful, Musk will sell Twitter shares in his hands, the latter's stock price may usher in an avalanche, its position in social media will also accelerate the decline, and Twitter shareholders will lose their money.
Today, Musk has raised $46.5 billion for the acquisition, of which banks such as Morgan Stanley will provide $25.5 billion in loans, and the remaining $21 billion will be resolved by Musk himself. And this is the ability of the new down payment. Everything looked like everything was ready, just waiting for The Twitter board to nod its head in threat.
The left hand has a smart electric vehicle company that claims to never have an advertising budget, and the right hand is about to take over the privatization of the world's leading social media platform. How comfortable will Musk and Tesla go in the future, who can say for sure?
End
Add friends please note the company and position