<story><title>Twitter Sues Elon Musk</title><url>https://www.axios.com/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boffinAudio</author><text>Lets put it this way - say I have a company that makes cars, and I tell you - a potential investor of more than a billion dollars - that I have shipped a million cars this year and you should give me money on the basis of that revenue, are you an idiot if you don&amp;#x27;t ask to see the actual receipts that show that I have actually, indeed, shipped a million cars this year?&lt;p&gt;Yes, I think you would be, and anyone who has given you money to spend on this act, should think so too .. Trust, but verify: This is a pretty basic business rule.&lt;p&gt;Twitter has a responsibility to demonstrate that the trust they expect in their own estimations of their own market value, is actually verifiable - and with an issue of humans&amp;#x2F;bots ratio, they should surely be willing to be as open and honest as possible about this issue.&lt;p&gt;Twitters core value, the basis of their own estimation of the value of their stock, is entirely derived from the actual # of human eyeballs they have attached to their systems.&lt;p&gt;If those eyeballs are really just blind sockets on the outside of a software-based bot, then Twitter is factually lying about how many humans it has in its system.  This would be &lt;i&gt;essential&lt;/i&gt; for any buyer to know beforehand, and I really am astonished at the efforts you are going to justify this omission on Twitters&amp;#x27; part.&lt;p&gt;The bot to human ratio is a KEY factor to understand in correctly evaluating Twitters real value - how anyone can argue that Twitter don&amp;#x27;t have the responsibility to demonstrate the accuracy of their estimation of market value, especially in the HN environment, is beyond me.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the Musk-hate rage is blinding you to the rationality of Musks&amp;#x27; request.  &amp;quot;Hey, you say you are worth this much because &amp;lt;blah&amp;gt;, please show me that &amp;lt;blah&amp;gt; is actually a truthful and accurate estimation ..&amp;quot; - this is not at all an unreasonable request.&lt;p&gt;Twitter board executives DO have the responsibility of answering the claim that their user group is a certain percentage human.&lt;p&gt;The fact that they haven&amp;#x27;t done this easily and openly is telling, in and of itself - and I would wager that most making the claim that they don&amp;#x27;t have a responsibility of being honest about the number of users in their system, are in fact engaged themselves in deceit and dishonesty on the issue of &amp;quot;actual users&amp;quot; versus &amp;quot;pretend users&amp;quot;.  How else can you justify the non-response?&lt;p&gt;Twitter should be able to easily answer the question: bot to human ratio?  It is fundamental to their core purpose as a business to know the answer to this question. The fact that they can&amp;#x27;t, and are instead engaging in an anti-Musk agitprop campaign, is very, very telling ...</text></item><item><author>CogitoCogito</author><text>&amp;gt; It demonstrates that Twitter is inflating their value and lying to their shareholders. Whats so hard to understand about that?&lt;p&gt;No it doesn&amp;#x27;t. Twitter not handing over its bot data demonstrates...that Twitter is not handing over its bot data. Does Musk have actual _evidence_ that Twitter is inflating its value and lying to its shareholders? You do understand that &amp;quot;Twitter not handing over its bot data&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t evidence.&lt;p&gt;Anyway if the question of handing over &amp;quot;the bot data&amp;quot; data is irrelevant to Twitter&amp;#x27;s claims, then it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter if it&amp;#x27;s handed over. The legitimacy of those claims would then be unaffected by the bot data itself.</text></item><item><author>boffinAudio</author><text>It demonstrates that Twitter is inflating their value and lying to their shareholders.  Whats so hard to understand about that?</text></item><item><author>dragonwriter</author><text>&amp;gt; Twitter didn’t hand over the bot data and will have to do so in court to prove its point.&lt;p&gt;Even if that was true (and none of Twitter’s legal claims require the bot data to prove), so what?</text></item><item><author>zackees</author><text>As Musk stated on Twitter, Twitter didn’t hand over the bot data and will have to do so in court to prove its point.&lt;p&gt;I see Musk walking paying nothing, or else a settlement with twitter at a lower price.</text></item><item><author>dragonwriter</author><text>Even recognizing that any one sides filings present an incomplete story, Musk’s &lt;i&gt;public&lt;/i&gt; actions alone combined with the terms of the contract as related in the Twitter suit look pretty bad for Musk. Unless he’s got some other line of attack much stronger than the ones he has been publicly previewing, I don’t see how he prevails here.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Cederfjard</author><text>Multiple people have already said this, but I&amp;#x27;ll ask just for the sake of it: Are you aware that Elon forewent his due diligence by simply skipping that part and going straight to signing the deal?&lt;p&gt;That means that Twitter DOES NOT have the responsibility that you claim. Sure, you may think that according to a certain moral framework they do, but in the context of this deal, which is what the thread is about and what the people you are responding to are talking about, it is irrelevant.&lt;p&gt;I might add as well as a counter to your accusations of &amp;quot;Musk-hate rage&amp;quot;, that perhaps it&amp;#x27;s you who&amp;#x27;s suffering from Twitter-hate rage with a dash of Musk-fanboyism, and that it&amp;#x27;s Elon who&amp;#x27;s twisting the truth for his own gain rather than Twitter. Could that not be the case?&lt;p&gt;Lastly, it&amp;#x27;s not a &amp;quot;non-response&amp;quot;. Twitter has continuously provided Musk with the data he&amp;#x27;s asked for, he just keeps asking for more. Also, even if you ridicule the idea, some data is simply _not_ appropriate nor necessary to share before a sale. Otherwise you could find out any trade secret from anyone simply by making an offer and then reneging on it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Twitter Sues Elon Musk</title><url>https://www.axios.com/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>boffinAudio</author><text>Lets put it this way - say I have a company that makes cars, and I tell you - a potential investor of more than a billion dollars - that I have shipped a million cars this year and you should give me money on the basis of that revenue, are you an idiot if you don&amp;#x27;t ask to see the actual receipts that show that I have actually, indeed, shipped a million cars this year?&lt;p&gt;Yes, I think you would be, and anyone who has given you money to spend on this act, should think so too .. Trust, but verify: This is a pretty basic business rule.&lt;p&gt;Twitter has a responsibility to demonstrate that the trust they expect in their own estimations of their own market value, is actually verifiable - and with an issue of humans&amp;#x2F;bots ratio, they should surely be willing to be as open and honest as possible about this issue.&lt;p&gt;Twitters core value, the basis of their own estimation of the value of their stock, is entirely derived from the actual # of human eyeballs they have attached to their systems.&lt;p&gt;If those eyeballs are really just blind sockets on the outside of a software-based bot, then Twitter is factually lying about how many humans it has in its system.  This would be &lt;i&gt;essential&lt;/i&gt; for any buyer to know beforehand, and I really am astonished at the efforts you are going to justify this omission on Twitters&amp;#x27; part.&lt;p&gt;The bot to human ratio is a KEY factor to understand in correctly evaluating Twitters real value - how anyone can argue that Twitter don&amp;#x27;t have the responsibility to demonstrate the accuracy of their estimation of market value, especially in the HN environment, is beyond me.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps the Musk-hate rage is blinding you to the rationality of Musks&amp;#x27; request.  &amp;quot;Hey, you say you are worth this much because &amp;lt;blah&amp;gt;, please show me that &amp;lt;blah&amp;gt; is actually a truthful and accurate estimation ..&amp;quot; - this is not at all an unreasonable request.&lt;p&gt;Twitter board executives DO have the responsibility of answering the claim that their user group is a certain percentage human.&lt;p&gt;The fact that they haven&amp;#x27;t done this easily and openly is telling, in and of itself - and I would wager that most making the claim that they don&amp;#x27;t have a responsibility of being honest about the number of users in their system, are in fact engaged themselves in deceit and dishonesty on the issue of &amp;quot;actual users&amp;quot; versus &amp;quot;pretend users&amp;quot;.  How else can you justify the non-response?&lt;p&gt;Twitter should be able to easily answer the question: bot to human ratio?  It is fundamental to their core purpose as a business to know the answer to this question. The fact that they can&amp;#x27;t, and are instead engaging in an anti-Musk agitprop campaign, is very, very telling ...</text></item><item><author>CogitoCogito</author><text>&amp;gt; It demonstrates that Twitter is inflating their value and lying to their shareholders. Whats so hard to understand about that?&lt;p&gt;No it doesn&amp;#x27;t. Twitter not handing over its bot data demonstrates...that Twitter is not handing over its bot data. Does Musk have actual _evidence_ that Twitter is inflating its value and lying to its shareholders? You do understand that &amp;quot;Twitter not handing over its bot data&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t evidence.&lt;p&gt;Anyway if the question of handing over &amp;quot;the bot data&amp;quot; data is irrelevant to Twitter&amp;#x27;s claims, then it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter if it&amp;#x27;s handed over. The legitimacy of those claims would then be unaffected by the bot data itself.</text></item><item><author>boffinAudio</author><text>It demonstrates that Twitter is inflating their value and lying to their shareholders.  Whats so hard to understand about that?</text></item><item><author>dragonwriter</author><text>&amp;gt; Twitter didn’t hand over the bot data and will have to do so in court to prove its point.&lt;p&gt;Even if that was true (and none of Twitter’s legal claims require the bot data to prove), so what?</text></item><item><author>zackees</author><text>As Musk stated on Twitter, Twitter didn’t hand over the bot data and will have to do so in court to prove its point.&lt;p&gt;I see Musk walking paying nothing, or else a settlement with twitter at a lower price.</text></item><item><author>dragonwriter</author><text>Even recognizing that any one sides filings present an incomplete story, Musk’s &lt;i&gt;public&lt;/i&gt; actions alone combined with the terms of the contract as related in the Twitter suit look pretty bad for Musk. Unless he’s got some other line of attack much stronger than the ones he has been publicly previewing, I don’t see how he prevails here.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dragonwriter</author><text>&amp;gt; Lets put it this way - say I have a company that makes cars, and I tell you - a potential investor of more than a billion dollars - that I have shipped a million cars this year and you should give me money on the basis of that revenue, are you an idiot if you don&amp;#x27;t ask to see the actual receipts that show that I have actually, indeed, shipped a million cars this year?&lt;p&gt;Yes, if you agreed to, for a slightly different but more relevant example, buy a social media company where there was some doubt about the degree to which it&amp;#x27;s claimed user base was actually bots for $44 billion dollars, of which you were personally on the hook for $33 billion in cash with the rest financed, you would be an idiot if you also agreed to waive due diligence as part of that agreement without first having satisfied yourself on the real user numbers.&lt;p&gt;But you having been an idiot and signed that agreement, the fact that the agreement required the social media company to provide you information reasonably necessary to help you complete the acquisition would not give you a right to data who&amp;#x27;s only purpose would be to allow you to perform the due diligence you had waived.&lt;p&gt;As much as the bot data may arguably be relevant to the due diligence any sane investor would perform before such an acquisition—an argument you do a valiant job of presenting—it is not something that there is any reasonable argument that Twitter has an obligation to provide in this case, because Musk was so desperate to get Twitter to sign that he agreed to waive due diligence.</text></comment>