LordsFire
Internet Wizard
It's amusing how she thinks that's 'bad news' for Musk. She treats the outcome of the case like a foregone conclusion.
Musk actually buys Twitter.
- Thread starter LordsFire
- Start date
It's amusing how she thinks that's 'bad news' for Musk. She treats the outcome of the case like a foregone conclusion.
Bigking321
Well-known member
Yeah, it would be interesting to see a case where Twitter lied about everything go against musk.
I think the more likely outcome is the cost of buying Twitter gets lowered a huge amount. Due to them lying about everything.
I think the more likely outcome is the cost of buying Twitter gets lowered a huge amount. Due to them lying about everything.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Twitter is making the argument that Musk recklessly rushed into the sale without doing his due diligence, and that he didn't specifically ask their board about bots before he made his offer. Therefore, he's not allowed to take those things into consideration.
www.zdnet.com
AOL's take on it comes down to ambiguous language in the contract. The contract specifies that Musk is allowed "Reasonable" access to their information. Twitter says the data it's withholding could harm the company if the deal doesn't go through, so it's not reasonable for them to disclose it. Musk's arguing that buyer should reasonably be allowed to know data, especially if it could somehow harm the company so badly, and also that Twitter lied on its public disclosures which he based his original sale estimate on. Ultimately it's going to go with what the judge thinks the legal definition of "Reasonable" is.
www.aol.com
Musk did not seek due diligence and the $44b deal will be completed: Twitter
Twitter said it is 'committed to completing the transaction on the agreed price and terms as promptly as practicable'.
www.zdnet.com
AOL's take on it comes down to ambiguous language in the contract. The contract specifies that Musk is allowed "Reasonable" access to their information. Twitter says the data it's withholding could harm the company if the deal doesn't go through, so it's not reasonable for them to disclose it. Musk's arguing that buyer should reasonably be allowed to know data, especially if it could somehow harm the company so badly, and also that Twitter lied on its public disclosures which he based his original sale estimate on. Ultimately it's going to go with what the judge thinks the legal definition of "Reasonable" is.
Elon Musk's legal battle with Twitter turns on ambiguous contract language
Twitter’s clash with Elon Musk turns on language that can be open to multiple interpretations.
www.aol.com
umm...I'm not sure they thought that one through.
How was all this relevant to Musk and Twitter again...cuz I forgot?
I hope he isn't forced.
After hearing all of those stories and reading those articles about Twitter employees traumatized by the potential of Elon Musk buying out Twitter, I can't fathom why Twitter would force Elon Musk to buy their company and reintroduce those traumas to their employees again. 😔
Typhonis
Well-known member
Well someone wants to make some money before Twitter Tanks.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
'Cause Parag Agrawal, current CEO of Twitter, has rules in place that will give him personally a sweet 42 million dollar bonus if Musk buys Twitter.
Corporations do not act in their own interests, nor those of the employees or customers, they act in the interests of the board members and executives running them.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/YJWRZN43BVOXPKFJQJUOX46HNQ.jpg)
Judge orders Twitter to give Elon Musk former executive's documents
Twitter Inc needs to give Elon Musk documents from a former Twitter executive who Musk said was a key figure in calculating the amount of fake accounts on the platform, according to a Monday court order.
www.reuters.com
Well, let's go through it step by step.
1) Twitter makes money based on ad revenue.
2) Twitter's ad revenue comes from people looking at the ads that other companies pay them to have.
3) Twitter has a bot problem. You might think of it in terms of people spamming the community with false opinions, but for Twitter, those bots probably count as seeing ads, which Twitter gets paid for. Twitter has very little reason to go hunting down bots.
Look at Twitter's supposed growth for the US:
Number of Twitter Users 2024: Demographics, Breakdowns & Predictions - Financesonline.com
Number of Twitter users with in-depth details on user demographics, platform use, and comparison with other social networks
financesonline.com
2017 -- 25.5 million
2018 -- 26.25 million
2019 -- 29.5 million
2020 -- 35 million
Where is this growth coming from? Twitter has been purging conservatives with glee for the past 2-5 years. It's almost as bad as SB. If you get hit with an automated ban, you can sit it out. If you challenge the ban and you get a mod who doesn't like you or what you said, you get a permaban. No way of challenging it, no second chances. You're just gone. And from what I've experienced and from what I've seen others experience, I don't expect that their numbers have gone up. In fact, I expect their active users have gone down. The QAnon purge alone would have accounted for 70,000 members. Not counting the 7,000 accounts sometime before that.
Looking at wikipedia, the last time that Twitter did an actual purge of bot accounts in 2018, they went from 326 million users to 325 million users...and proceeded to lose 20.5% of its stock, equivalent to 6 billion dollars.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10125279/acastro_180130_1777_0008.jpg)
Twitter reports a million fewer users as a result of ongoing crackdown on bots
Twitter says it’s wiping out fake accounts faster than ever
www.theverge.com
So my guess? My guess is that after the purge in 2018, they didn't want to do anymore because of the market damage to Twitter. And after they started purging conservatives in 2020 (and a bit before that), my guess is that they've either stagnated on growth or they've lost active users and are letting the bots run amok to bolster their numbers.
If Musk were to purchase the company as is, without any investigations, then he likely wouldn't out the information AFTER he purchased the company, because he'd have destroyed his own investment. The people in charge would be able to walk away, leaving Musk holding the bag. 2018's purge took out a million accounts--0.31% of the company's user base...and lost nearly 21% of the company's value.
So the question to me is, was it only the million bot accounts? Or did they stop at a million and after seeing the damage, never bothered with a serious purge again? One might expect that the people who were a bit cannier to what was going on behind the scenes at Twitter or saw the signs sold their shares immediately and hence inflicted a heavy loss on Twitter's stock.
Twitter has already calculated that 5% of its user base are bots. What if it's worse? What if it's 20%?
An academic source suggests it's between 9-15%. That's not insignificant and imagine what it means for people who pay for Twitter's promotion, when there's a good chance that 10-15% of your bill is caused by bots.
How Much Does It Cost to Advertise on Twitter?
Twitter advertising costs $0.26 - $0.50 per first action and $1.01 - $2.00 per follow for promoted accounts. View more Twitter advertising costs here!
www.webfx.com
That may not just sink the company, potentially bankrupt the board members, open them to lawsuits--it means prison sentences. It would be fraud and I think, given Twitter's behavior over the past few months, there is a good chance that a good chunk of their userbase is bots. Not only have they not reported it, but they also concealed it, and continued to charge people for twitter views.
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PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
Which explains why Twatter employs the former chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, they need his connections at the court to manipulate the proceedings themselves, so that not too much is divulged during the court case.
More specifically, Twitter argues that Musk explicitly and formally chose to waive his legal right to due diligence, therefore he cannot now void the sale on the basis of not getting due diligence.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
It's a hell of an argument to make, in that it's a tacit admission that they've been lying about how bad their bot problem is.
I'm also curious how they intend to prove it.
It's a legitimate legal argument which sidesteps the entire issue -- it's saying, "Musk voluntarily chose to waive due diligence, it was even *his idea* to do so because he wanted the quick sale, he cannot choose to do that and then go back and say the (alleged) bot stats void the sale, especially since he *did not* in fact put any such term in the contract, when he had every opportunity to do so when he was making his offer."
You can certainly argue that it can be *socially* seen as a tacit admission that they don't want to actually address the bot isssue on the public record, but it is not *legally* an admission of anything, and as a matter of legal strategy, you pretty much *never* want to fight on the facts if you can pre-empt them first.
The burden of proof would actually lie on Musk since he's the one who is trying to void the signed contract, especially since the only source he's cited for the bot stats being off the charts is a third party application (Botometer). Note that Botometer is the very same algorithm which insisted that Musk's official account was a bot earlier this year. It's definitely got its own issues with reliability, and since it's not even nominally using the same criteria for a spam account as Twitter does, it pretty much *by definition* cannot actually prove that Twitter is lying.
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LordsFire
Internet Wizard
1. I've not done a deep legal dive on this, and even I know that he's claiming they fudged their numbers in their official filings with regulatory agencies such as the FCC. Given the deal was based on numbers of public record such as that, the idea that they do not bear responsibility for lying to the public about such things is absurd on the face of it.
2. It's not just that he used 'botometer' to say the numbers don't add up, it's explicitly that Twitter actively refused to give him the data he needed to confirm that their internal testing metrics were valid. That's a pretty serious issue, and there's language in the terms of the deal that requires they give data on such things.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
The Judge has ordered Twitter to give up some of the documents.
www.businessinsider.com
Twitter is countering by demanding access to all Musk's text messages.
www.businessinsider.com
Elon Musk scores a rare win in Twitter-acquisition lawsuit as the company is ordered to hand over documents from fired general manager
Twitter will have to produce documents from its former general manager as Musk's attorneys demand new information on data.
www.businessinsider.com
Twitter is countering by demanding access to all Musk's text messages.
Twitter wants to see Elon Musk's text messages as it fights for $44 billion acquisition, newly released court documents show
Twitter is likely attempting to prove Musk had no intention of buying the company. The company has said it fears he may build a competing app.
www.businessinsider.com
Well...that might hurt Twitter's cause...
What the Twitter Whistleblower Disclosure Says About Spam Bots, and What It Means for Elon Musk (msn.com)
What the Twitter Whistleblower Disclosure Says About Spam Bots, and What It Means for Elon Musk (msn.com)
their going to have to lower the price but the deal will most likely go through.
I wonder what Musk's acceptable offer would be at this point.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
In the legal case sense, I'm not sure it matters. Twitter's position isn't based on how many bots there are, they're trying to claim that technically Musk waived his rights to actually check so even if Twitter is 100% bots he's still obligated to buy the company at full price.
Now presuming the courts don't force Musk to pay the original offer, in that case, it's going to have an impact.