The Hottest Takes on Elon Musk Buying Twitter

Hi, I’m Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA, Esq. If you don’t know me already, I’m a Chartered FinMeme Analyst (CFA) with a particular expertise in #stonk valuation (pro-tip: just multiply by two).

I’ve been told that I have a particularly special insight into the world of finance and memes, so I decided to set up this newsletter to share my thoughts on the latest news, memes, and everything in between!

The newsletter has been on hiatus, but we’re back! Expect a fresh one at least a couple times a month, and follow me on Twitter for more updates and daily musings. For this week’s newsletter, I’m doing a special meme roundup to celebrate and/or lament the news of Elon Musk buying Twitter. Let’s get into it.

Elon Musk is buying Twitter. Yes, you read that right. After acquiring a 9.2% stake in the company to become the largest single stakeholder, the richest man in the world decided he wasn’t satisfied and wanted the whole enchilada.

After threatening to execute a poison pill which would prevent Elon from acquiring a stake in the company larger than 15%, the Twitter board unanimously approved Elon’s bid of $54.20 (note the 420) per share, valuing the company at ~$44 billion.

The deal is being structured as an LBO or leveraged buyout, where Elon uses a combination of debt and equity to finance the acquisition. Within the financing package is a $12.5 billion loan commitment backed by Tesla stock. Although this is significantly more tax efficient than if Elon were to sell his shares, a significant decline in Tesla’s stock price would put even the WallStreetBets margin calls to shame…

So why is Elon buying Twitter? Elon claims he’s doing it for free speech. Twitter has long been criticized for obscure content moderation policies, ranging from reply deboosting and shadowbanning, to even suspending accounts for allegedly breaching the company’s terms of service. By taking it private, Elon states that he will make the algorithms open source and verify all real humans to increase trust and transparency on the platform. Oh, he also joked he’d be buying Coca-Cola next to “put the cocaine back in.”

Elon skeptics aren’t convinced, arguing that much like his Twitter poll to sell 10% of his Tesla stock, the acquisition of Twitter is just another shrewd business move to diversify and lock in some of his $273 billion fortune which is overwhelmingly concentrated in Tesla stock, and which skeptics believe trades at unsustainably high prices.

Twitter’s stock price has gone nowhere since its IPO, so going private could be exactly what the company needs to refocus and improve operationally. On the other hand, Twitter is almost integral to daily political and economic discourse, and putting such a powerful platform in the hands of the richest guy in the world is obviously going to raise some concerns. Whichever side you fall on, it’s a pretty unprecedented time for both Twitter shareholders and users. So here are five of the funniest tweets to come out of the whole saga…

Myspace, the only social network not controlled by a crazy billionaire…

The only thing standing in the way between you and billions is that daily Starbucks…

It’s kind of the same, right..?

The only good reason to own Twitter is to suspend your enemies:

Watch out Coca Cola, it’s about to get lit…

Do you have any favorite reactions to this whole media shitstorm? Please let us know in the comments, or @ me in Twitter (that includes you, too, Elon).

~ Dr. PP out