• moody@lemmings.world
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    19 days ago

    He didn’t want to buy Twitter. He said he would buy it at a ridiculous price so his stocks of the company would go up, but the FTC forced him to follow through on his purchase after he tried to back out.

    Yes, it has given him access to these things, but without the FTC’s intervention, he never would have bought it.

    • 7toed@midwest.social
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      19 days ago

      Everytime I see this, I want to ask why he even proposed buying it in the first place then? He surely knew offereing such an overvalued amount would at least get interest for selling, even if the FTC didn’t get involved, what was the point? How it has all turned out now makes me refuse to believe there wasn’t some ulterior motive.

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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        19 days ago

        He had purchased 7% of the platform without reporting it, which is illegal, when he made his joke “54.20” offer. That offer shot the stock up 30%.

        He was trying to make a few quick billions by pumping and dumping the stock, but the SEC got onto him immediately, so he went and signed what he thought was an escapable contract with Twitter to try to get out of commiting federal crimes.

        Twitter, not being idiots, made an inescapable contract, and were stunned when he signed it, but were glad to suddenly make billions in profit for all its shareholders.

        He thrashed and fought buying it, all the way up to the Delaware chancery court. He was scheduled to testify under oath the next day, but suddenly dropped his suit to stop the sale. Apparently there were a great deal of damning emails and texts in the discovery process that Twitter’s lawyers were expected to ask him about.

        Dude committed federal crimes to try to make billions, and instead lost 10s of billions in buying twitter.

      • moody@lemmings.world
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        19 days ago

        Like all other billionaires, he figured he was rich so he could get away with it.

        Twitter’s board didn’t want to sell at first, but eventually they agreed, and then he tried to back out with bullshit excuses.