I think many have no idea what is happening here. Maybe White can clarify something for me as I am just a little league investor.

Elon has stated that he was taking it private. Is that not why there is a per share price? Doesn't that mean that there will be no shareholders to answer to? My understanding was that all shareholders would basically be forced to sell their shares to Elon at the $54 and change price that was negotiated. So if I am correct anyone who would pay more than that in the meantime would be a fool.

If he takes it private there will likely still be some "minority" shareholders. Those will be the bankers and possibly some current board of directors members who own substantial blocks of stock. If I were a board member I certainly wouldn't remain a shareholder.

But in general YES. There will be no shareholders to answer to and better yet, no SEC to hassle Musk

You are correct that it would be foolish to pay more than the 54.20 Musk has offered. Lots of things can still go haywire with this deal. Some of his financing ( the bankers mentioned above) may back out because the price is so wildly out of sync with the value of the company.

That would force Musk to sell more shares of TSLA that he owns...further depressing that stock price.

Maybe he could use the loss for tax purposes while still acquiring holdings?

I have thought about that angle too.

BUT, he has no loss until he buys TWTR and then sells it for less. He does have a huge capital gain tax liability from selling several billion dollars worth of TSLA stock..........if he can generate a loss on TWTR he may be able to reduce that tax liability next year. The timing is kinda funky.

He may have to pay the tax on the TSLA trade and then amend his return next year to harvest any loss that he may generate by buying and then selling TWTR.

I don't think he'll do that.

He may make a few changes to TWTR and then try to take it public again. At least he may get some of his money back. Several large companies have done that in the past

I'm not sure either. I believe he owns around 15% of their stock now, so that would play in to.

My Dad would buy trailers or truck tractors or send money to the IRS, his choice, lol. I'm sure there are alot of factors in play, including those of the others he had asked to chip in.
(At least at one time he was looking for other investors)

Yeah. Too many moving parts to this drama. Stay clear IMO

Oh yea, we're outta that game. Got out several years ago once we figured we were good for our needs.

Capitalism at the higher level at work here. A rich person being able to most likely force a firm to make the transfer or sale way more advantagous for himself is the goal of many moguls and he is good at what he does. Some have referenced maybe some tax issues or savings. My God there are a whole host of tax advantages for him. Maybe the major one is if he has huge capital gains on selling stocks at a profit and invests in other stocks he can simply do a 1031 on that trade and not pay a dime. There are many ways to also create write offs and losses with owning a business. There are profit sharings, pension plans, benefis etc. that all have potential to create huge savings and he could indeed sell all or parts for a loss and stll make a ton of profit on the deal. A man like Musk has comptrollers that know all the rules and which ones are the most elastic and in reality most people don't like rich people but they admire them for their ways to make governments look bad. They want to get away with similar activities on a much smaller level.

Bryce

The 36th annual Forbes list of the world's billionaires for 2022 lists Elon Musk as #1 with $219 billion. Jeff Bezos is #2 with $177 billion. I think Musk knows something about business and investing.

True, but only jbyrd bats a thousand.