I want less Trump, but I don't treat his supporters that way. I don't do personal insults. I post things with actual facts and real data, but the "stolen election" believers ignore or scoff at anything that doesn't agree with their narrative. How do you suggest we engage with that mindset?
There are plenty of facts out there that are uncoordinated and lead to no conclusion. For example, I could buy a large sample of phone geo “ping” data that present facts clearly showing a number of people going to and from ballot drop boxes. It would be factual. But it’s nonsense to try to fit that data into a causal connection involving a conspiracy of thousands playing “mule” to stuff the ballot boxes for Biden. Posting other facts won’t help. You can’t easily poke holes in faulty logic or the absence of logic with a different set of facts.
"The problem here is that most (or all) of the best Twitter employees have stock options. Musk’s purchase has a payday attached to it, plus Musk is pretty well known for increasing the value of things he buys. Forcing the deal to be cancelled will likely depress Twitter’s stock price and value, and therefore the future value of these employees’ wallets. How much does someone have to believe in the 'dangerous for American democracy' trope to put their money and career on the line for it?"
The actions of Twitter's employees will be a key determinant of what happens to the company, but Musk is taking the company private, not just becoming majority shareholder. Stock options have a fixed value up until the date that deal closes, those options convert to actual shares, and Musk purchases all of them to take the company off the public markets. There's a fixed incentive (Musk's purchase offer) to not goof up the deal, but it's extremely unlikely that employees will see the upside in terms of private equity if Musk is successful and does manage to raise the value of the company. Given that options are a key part of employee compensation packages in the Valley (that goes *poof* on the deal closing), even if employees play nicely through this interim period, Twitter's going to have serious retention problems and we'll find out pretty quickly how much of the value Musk is purchasing resided in the company's Capital (platform and technology) versus its Labor (employees), if you don't mind me slipping into a little descriptive Marxism. Musk making noises about Trump before the deal closes will jeopardize the value in the latter.
True to a point. Remember that Musk controls Tesla which is a public company and also controls SpaceX which is private. These companies have similar retention issues that are not necessarily related to their stock value. (Or future share deals for private concerns). I am pretty sure that any APA will have some clear rules for senior employees that will prevent or limit their ability to “take the money and run.”
As a public company, Tesla resembles Twitter now more so than it will resemble Twitter post-takeover. I'd be very surprised if Tesla doesn't include employee stock options (ESOs) as part of the compensation package. As for SpaceX, the expectation is that the company will have to go public at some time in the future, if only to allow all of its investors at this point to cash out on their investments, so ESOs are likely in force there as well for the future (but not yet scheduled) public listing.
Unless Musk presents a roadmap for taking Twitter public again, ESOs at Twitter are off the table for the time being, so Elon will be competing with other Silicon Valley firms with just salary and benefits when it comes to hiring and retaining employees.
As for preventing employees from taking the money and running, there's likely a clause in those Twitter ESO contracts that stipulates that any unvested options vest immediately upon change of control of the company. Elon will be buying those newly-vested shares as well, so it's unclear what he can put into place to retain staff that want to take the proceeds from sales of their newly-vested shares to Musk and go somewhere else. Purchasing those newly-vested employee shares occurs before he assumes control of the company.
He's not doing a great job building employee goodwill at the moment, especially given how much he's leveraged his Tesla ownership and is putting both companies in completely avoidable jeopardy[1] running his mouth when no one is really looking for that.
I want less Trump, but I don't treat his supporters that way. I don't do personal insults. I post things with actual facts and real data, but the "stolen election" believers ignore or scoff at anything that doesn't agree with their narrative. How do you suggest we engage with that mindset?
There are plenty of facts out there that are uncoordinated and lead to no conclusion. For example, I could buy a large sample of phone geo “ping” data that present facts clearly showing a number of people going to and from ballot drop boxes. It would be factual. But it’s nonsense to try to fit that data into a causal connection involving a conspiracy of thousands playing “mule” to stuff the ballot boxes for Biden. Posting other facts won’t help. You can’t easily poke holes in faulty logic or the absence of logic with a different set of facts.
Agreed. So what do you suggest?
Keep on doing what you do. Thinking folks will eventually understand the truth in time.
"The problem here is that most (or all) of the best Twitter employees have stock options. Musk’s purchase has a payday attached to it, plus Musk is pretty well known for increasing the value of things he buys. Forcing the deal to be cancelled will likely depress Twitter’s stock price and value, and therefore the future value of these employees’ wallets. How much does someone have to believe in the 'dangerous for American democracy' trope to put their money and career on the line for it?"
The actions of Twitter's employees will be a key determinant of what happens to the company, but Musk is taking the company private, not just becoming majority shareholder. Stock options have a fixed value up until the date that deal closes, those options convert to actual shares, and Musk purchases all of them to take the company off the public markets. There's a fixed incentive (Musk's purchase offer) to not goof up the deal, but it's extremely unlikely that employees will see the upside in terms of private equity if Musk is successful and does manage to raise the value of the company. Given that options are a key part of employee compensation packages in the Valley (that goes *poof* on the deal closing), even if employees play nicely through this interim period, Twitter's going to have serious retention problems and we'll find out pretty quickly how much of the value Musk is purchasing resided in the company's Capital (platform and technology) versus its Labor (employees), if you don't mind me slipping into a little descriptive Marxism. Musk making noises about Trump before the deal closes will jeopardize the value in the latter.
True to a point. Remember that Musk controls Tesla which is a public company and also controls SpaceX which is private. These companies have similar retention issues that are not necessarily related to their stock value. (Or future share deals for private concerns). I am pretty sure that any APA will have some clear rules for senior employees that will prevent or limit their ability to “take the money and run.”
As a public company, Tesla resembles Twitter now more so than it will resemble Twitter post-takeover. I'd be very surprised if Tesla doesn't include employee stock options (ESOs) as part of the compensation package. As for SpaceX, the expectation is that the company will have to go public at some time in the future, if only to allow all of its investors at this point to cash out on their investments, so ESOs are likely in force there as well for the future (but not yet scheduled) public listing.
Unless Musk presents a roadmap for taking Twitter public again, ESOs at Twitter are off the table for the time being, so Elon will be competing with other Silicon Valley firms with just salary and benefits when it comes to hiring and retaining employees.
As for preventing employees from taking the money and running, there's likely a clause in those Twitter ESO contracts that stipulates that any unvested options vest immediately upon change of control of the company. Elon will be buying those newly-vested shares as well, so it's unclear what he can put into place to retain staff that want to take the proceeds from sales of their newly-vested shares to Musk and go somewhere else. Purchasing those newly-vested employee shares occurs before he assumes control of the company.
He's not doing a great job building employee goodwill at the moment, especially given how much he's leveraged his Tesla ownership and is putting both companies in completely avoidable jeopardy[1] running his mouth when no one is really looking for that.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/business/elon-musk-tesla-twitter.html
This is an interesting possible wrench in the gears of a deal: https://twitter.com/obarcala/status/1524183819607232515