Elon Musk Looks to Buy Twitter: Breaking Down the Offer Price, Potential Rival Bidders & Possible Implications on Tesla and SpaceX 4/14/22

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4.5 • 66 Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2022

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our anchors start today’s show covering Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, with Verge Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel discussing the implications Musk’s ownership could have on Tesla and SpaceX. Then, NYU Stern School of Business Professor Aswath Damodaran weighs in on Musk’s offer price for the platform, and former Twitter Global Chair of News Vivian Schiller looks at whether the company could work as a subscription model instead of an ad business. Next, CNBC’s Robert Frank breaks down Musk’s options for funding the purchase, and former investment banker William Cohan shares his outlook for rival bidders who could also try to take over Twitter. NBC News Correspondent Gadi Schwartz also recaps his reporting on using crypto in El Salvador after the country made Bitcoin a national currency. Later, New York Times Contributor Kara Swisher joins for more on Musk’s potential motivations for wanting to own Twitter, and CNBC’s Mike Santoli analyzes the platform’s long-term share performance.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm John Fort. You're listening to CNVC's Tech Check. Our show is live weekdays at 11 a.m. Eastern. Listen in.
0:07.2	Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Tech Check. I'm John Fort with Carl Kingtonia DiGrabosa and Julia Borsden.
0:12.6	Elon Musk has made an offer to buy Twitter. $54.20 a share at a evaluation of $43 billion.
0:21.6	Today we're gonna look into is that the right price?
0:24.5	What's the right strategy for the business and the right process?
0:27.8	And who's the right leadership for this company?
0:30.9	Twitter's board holding an all hands meeting at 5 p.m. Eastern to discuss the bid. You know, this is quite a story, Julia.
0:40.2	I know that you've been talking about it this morning as well.
0:43.8	You've been covering, following Twitter for a long time.
0:47.5	Back up for a bit, and 5420 a share, not necessarily a bad price for a lot of people,
0:53.5	but there's a question, how's
0:55.1	Elon going to come up with that money?
0:57.1	He could sell some of what he's got to do it, but will he?
1:03.4	It seems like he is unlikely to do this by financing it all himself and selling shares.
1:08.8	We do see some pressure on Tesla shares as a result of
1:11.9	that question. But there are really so many questions here, John, and guys about what's going to
1:16.7	happen next? I mean, the ultimate question is, what does Elon Musk want to do with Twitter? Is he
1:21.9	interested in it as a business venture? He says he can only do with it what he wants if it's a private
1:26.5	company. And he has
1:27.5	very publicly criticized Twitter's reliance on advertising. Advertising of course comprises more
1:33.4	than 90% of all of Twitter's revenue. So this is an ad-supported business. And he does not like
1:38.3	that. He's also been a big proponent of making it a free and open platform for free speech, that
	...

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