We Eat Ham And Jam And Spam A Lot [Updated]

at

Fupp you, San Diego.

Earlier…

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal (left) and Elon Musk

Gulp.

This morning.

Elon Musk says Twitter has to show spam accounts are less than 5% for takeover to go ahead (Sky)

Getty

Sponsored Link

50 thoughts on “We Eat Ham And Jam And Spam A Lot [Updated]

    1. Kin

      Maybe he has just exposed something like the many fake accounts to drive up the companies worth
      If Twitter had half the subscriptions that it professes to have the value of the company surly would be far less

      Maybe Twitter shares might just be worth zilch if they are found to be having fake accounts
      The greed

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        When Elon backs out, he’ll owe Twitter $1bn. He’ll probably try to weasel out of that too.

        1. Kali

          I wouldn’t bank on it, if they misrepresented the user count of a business valued on it’s user count, all bets are off.

          1. Kin

            Exactly
            I wonder what pay the CEO is on due to results
            A suppose a big smelly rats in the boardroom
            Send in the FBI and the security exchange before papers are shredded
            This could be bigger than the script from Wall Street

        2. Kin

          Exactly but if they have been falsifying anything to increase it’s worth and found out them I think they will be paying billions to him for attempted fraud
          After all musky is bigger than twitter

  1. Hughie Luas

    Seems reasonable they prove the claim.

    I doubt the deal will happen. Shame as I’d love to see the San Francisco Twitter HQ shut down and turned into a homeless shelter and everybody in Dublin Twitter fired and the building used for Ukrainian refugees and a popup Bread41.

    1. John

      This was all known in advance of the deal.
      Elon didnt do his homework before committing to a multi billion dollar purchase. The whole situation is pathetic. It will cost him the break up fee to walk away from the deal.
      I saw a wall street analyst call it the “Dog ate my homework” excuse.

      1. Bodger

        ‘This was all known in advance of the deal.’

        What was? Parag is still saying less than 5 per cent.

        1. johnny

          (the onus is on musk to do his due diligence not the target of his unwanted,unsolicited bid)

          1. Bodger

            Would the CEO publicly dissembling about such a serious issue (affecting the company’s value) not warrant a pause in the negotiations?

          2. johnny

            what do you think-if a buyer was overpaying for the ‘sheet:)

            after making a offer getting it accepted-now wants moan and complain about the multiple handles used by a very loud and shouty expert ‘analyst’…

            nah,its a face saving exercise he’s desperate for an off ramp,never had the cash to start with,hence the ‘show me the money”.

            no one is going open an exit door-he has specific performance to worry about and an awful lot of exposure.

          3. Bodger

            johnny, if 20 per cent of Broadsheet’s engagement was conducted by bots our chances of selling the site would be even worse than they are today, which is to say we would likely need to pay someone to take it over.

          4. johnny

            ..there is an old adage that you will now hear a lot,its called buyer beware or caveat emptor.
            in other words do your homework,maybe,maybe if this info was in some offering memorandum and was found to be false,maybe but not now with an accepted agreed unsolicited bid,hold on now its the SEC’s fault:)
            He made a stupid ego driven bid not based in reality like auction fever.

            oh,agreed on reducing your bot count,limiting just one of your fav bots to just the one,one handle would move the dial a lot….

          5. E'Matty

            Eh, misrepresenting their customer numbers to the market is straightforward fraud. It won’t only be Musk suing them if true, but advertisers, investors, then there’s the small matter of the SEC. Your dislike of Musk is blinding you to what would be an obvious fraud if it turns out to be true.

          6. paddy apathy

            Isn’t The Orange One renowned for doing something very similar, over-valuing assets to take out loans and then under-valuing them to bot pay tax.

        2. Ten Pin's Fictitious Mrs.

          No offense Bodger but you really are dim af.
          Do you also believe Elon wasn’t aware of the energy issues with bitcoin.
          Perhaps you could get Kavan to ask him next time they are chatting about the killer vaccines/not v]ac§cin=es.

          1. Bodger

            Ten Pin’s Fictitious Mrs., I believe he is a CIA creation and this is all theatre and nonsense. No need for the language btw.

          2. E'Matty

            Spot on bodger. It’s pure theatre to corral the herd, as per usual. Anyone thinking Musk, the grandson of the head of Canadas Technocracy Incorporated, is some great rebel against the global agenda is going to be real disappointed. He’s as much the rebel as Trump was and is. Both completely fabricated for public consumption and deceit. They put these clowns before the public as opposition to control all opposition and ensure no true opposing figure ever gains traction.

          3. benblack

            He’s a welcome voice, though, in times where his opinions and those like them are being suppressed worldwide. And, BTW, I’m nothing like my father, as I’m sure you’re not like yours.

            I say, after the madness of the past few years, give the guy a chance. He’s done more for the alternative perspective than the whole of MSM.

            Kudos for that alone.

      2. Ian - oG

        100% John but also the SEC might have to take some serious steps about Musk’s behaviour because he has been manipulating share prices with his usual guff.

        Musk might find himself in very hot water.

        Also, I am hugely enjoying watching all the cryptobros implode and losing literally everything.

        Hopefully the market for the utterly idiotic NFTs collapses as well.

      3. Kin

        John maybe musk did his homework but later found out before it was too late that he was to be conned
        Musk of course pays people big bucks to ensure he is not ripped off before he puts pen to paper
        I suppose $1 billion walk away fee now is in doubt if indeed Twitter scammed shareholders

        I am beginning to love this guy but I still cannot abide American cars especially electric cars

        1. SOQ

          If Twitter has been scamming shareholders then the board, and probably the top tier of management, is gone. Fraud is never a good look.

          1. Kin

            SOQ as you know white collar crime is rarely exposed
            Sure look at what lead to the 2008 crash and before that bearings bank
            Very high stakes and $44 billion is a hefty payday

          2. johnny

            Barings Bank has nothing to do with this situation nor is it comparable,that was a rogue trader.
            the only FRAUD allegations have been made by the same fool or sucker who bought into it in first place,so of course now its FRAUD,which is libelous as there is no evidence none at all.
            you were played
            got had
            fell for it
            but cause you so smart has to be,has to be fraud…you cant be the dupe
            in poker at a table if you have not figured out who the sucker is its you,duh.

    2. Nigel

      Publicly talking down a company he’s proposing to take over? Dodgy in the extreme.

        1. Kin

          Ian o g
          Some thing stinks In the state of denmark
          Maybe the securities exchange in New York might start digging and the FBI
          Maybe someone in Twitter decided to fiddle like Nero in Rome
          Now maybe an investigation might get to the bottom of why a social media company got so valuable

  2. johnny

    No Musk
    (play on no mas from sugar ray and duran)
    any moment now the resident and know it all expert on ALL things will be along with a ‘splainer.
    cant hear you
    and yet normally so so shouty and mouthy
    NOTHING.
    how’s that humble pie taste….

    1. Ian - oG

      He’s a low energy supervillain, technically a bad guy but not really scary, bit like Dark Helmet from Spaceballs.

      I’d say his Schwartz is fairly limp as well.

  3. stephen moran

    Twitters SEC filling has a clear disclaimer about their internal estimates of bot numbers the caveat reads “in making this determination, we applied significant judgment, so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated.” Musk had the opportunity to read these filings before offering to buy Twitter, and he had the opportunity to do due diligence on these numbers before signing the deal. (He declined.) He can’t now go to Twitter and say “actually now you need to prove that your user numbers are right.” If he wants to walk, he has to prove that they’re wrong, and also that they’re wrong in a way that has a material adverse effect on the business. .

    Under the deal he signed if the bot number are greater than 5% the has to prove that this would have a “Material Adverse Effect” on the company – under Delaware Law this has translated in court hearing into meaning a 40% decrease in long-term profitability. That’s a serious burden of proof on uncle Elon

    He’s squirming because the stock price of both Twitter and more importantly Tesla are playing catch a falling knife and as I said when this story broke he’s short ten’s of billions on the funding side of the equation (asset rich / cash poor) – again as I said before would you lend him tens of billions against the stock of a company (Tesla) that’s stratospherically overvalued by any peer group metric imaginable.

  4. SOQ

    Due diligence does not apply here as the only people who can really determine the bot percentage is Twitter itself- everything else by everyone else is guess work. So while Musk cannot prove the figure is x y or z, if he can prove it is higher than the quoted 5%, then what Twitter engaged in, is at best sharp practice.

    The number of users is like the number of customers a real world businesses- and is of paramount importance. If people have being using the platform in good faith only to find their ratings have been distorted by bots, then like the overzealous and at times downright stupid censorship, this issue will do Twitter serious harm.

    Nobody is saying who created those bots or why, but as a strategy- raising the issue is a clever way of devaluing the company.

    1. stephen moran

      the point is that this figure is in Twitter’s SEC filing (which is a legal document) – with a large very canid disclaimer – which I quote above- (i.e. that its best efforts) – but Musk declined due diligence BEFORE signing the deal so its caveat emptor now- its like your buying a house at auction which you have decided not to get surveyed – that’s your tough mammary glands if you find dry rot and rising damp later . He signed an agreement with a “Material Adverse Effect” clause which means legally that HE HAS TO SHOW that anything that subsequently transpires will affect the LONG TERM profitability of Twitter by @ least 40 percent – that is one hell of a high hurdle to clear – he’s squirming because the market i gone south and he could never afford it in the first place without selling 60 percent of his Tesla holdings. Lawyers heaven. He was also late with his SEC filing on his declared holdings prior to the bid and submitted the wrong form (which is securities fraud) so file him between sh i t and syphilis

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie