Twitter

It is not often you see a metaphor walking into an office lobby, but when Elon Musk walks into Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco carrying a sink, he's acting out the "everything but the kitchen sink" expression. (Okay, it looks like a bathroom sink, but Elon was going for the "sink" part of the metaphor.)

The closest I ever saw anyone come to nearly carrying "everything but the kitchen sink," was when I observed a homeless on Park Avenue South at about 26th street as I was leaving work with an array of plumbing pipes around his head. He was carrying everything but the kitchen sink.

I'm waiting for Ben Zimmer of the Wall Street Journal to give us the origin of that expression. I think he's informed us of how "the whole nine yards" took hold in the language by telling us it was expression of soldiers firing anti-aircraft machine guns from the back of planes with an ammunition belt of 27', or 9 yards. "Sarge, I gave them the whole 9 yards."

Mr. Musk, depending on your viewpoint, is either an unlikeable fellow who has got his fingers in too many pies, or a comical tycoon who doesn't care what you think of him.

I love the fact that he was able to get Twitter for $44 billion. Not because of any cultural changes he might bring to Twitter, but because I admire that he settled on $44 billion rather than $45 billion.

How do these guys reach these numbers? Was the $44 billion already knocked down from say $50 billions that the board of Twitter wanted? No one buys a house at list price. They usually pay less, but sometimes in some markets they have to pay more to secure the sale.

I mean, could Mr. Musk have hard-balled them even further and completed the deal for say, $43 billion? A billion dollars less is significant change, even to a man like Mr. Musk. After all, one billion is a thousand millions. 

(I shared my posting with an in-law-relative and he had a very nuanced view of how the $44 billion sale price was reached. His view is: "I think he came to 44 billion because he smokes a lot of pot and he tried to get 4.20 into the per share price and the closest way to do it was $54.20 which became 44 billion." This well might be the reason.) 

Could Mr. Musk have completed the deal for $43 billion, and paid $44 billion, and distributed $1billion to all the current Twitter users? Somewhat like when a mutual company goes public, they need to reimburse the policyholders some cash. The number of Twitter users factored into the price, so shouldn't we get a piece of the sale?

There are those who are quite upset with what they speculate will be the changes at Twitter. It will for now become a private company, with no stockholders. Will The Donald get back on Twitter? Will Q-Anon and right wing loonies take over? Will all the Woke people drown out everyone else?

Since Mr. Musk borrowed heavily to put together $44 billions, there are people who are owed significant jack. They are not going to want to see Twitter be like a boat which is a hole in the water into which one pours money. Make no mistake. There are no stockholders, but there are creditors, and they want to get more than their investment back. In other words, he's got to make money somehow. And he won't do that if he pisses everyone off.

The video of Elon carrying a porcelain sink into the headquarters lobby, to make good on his phrase that there are those who are going to have to "let it sink in" that he's bought Twitter, looks like part of a skit from "Saturday Night Live." Will they ask him back now to be a host?

I'm sure there are those who are wringing their hands and wondering what are hey going to do now with their Twitter accounts now that a "Barbarian" is at the door. Will they go to Canada? Is that far enough away? Don't they have Twitter there as well? I think it's global, so my guess is that there are those who are in an ice station in Antarctica who could Tweet. Maybe even penguins can have an account.

My feelings are neutral. I think I've been on Twitter since 2010, do not post much, but do enjoy reading from a select body of those that do. It's never cost me anything to "join" Twitter. No credit card deduction appears on my monthly statements. It's free in the general sense that things are free once you've got a computer or a cell phone.

Aside from being a great platform to read from, Twitter has proved to be a great source of news items for the media to make use of when someone posts something idiotic, or usually controversial on the site.  No more beating the pavement or hanging outside doors to try and get someone's comments. The reporters do not have to leave their desks, because it seems there are those who can't seem to help themselves and who think there are those of us who really care what they think.

For now, I'm not at all worried about Twitter. But if they start to charge for it...

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