Sam and Shaan break down Elon Musk’s surprise offer to buy Twitter for $43 billion, reading his SEC filing letter live and reacting to his TED appearance. They discuss whether the deal will go through, what Elon’s real motivations are, Twitter’s ad platform failures, the idea of Twitter as a protocol, and end up in a wide-ranging conversation about billionaire psychology, daddy issues, and how Elon should eventually go out.
Speakers: Sam Parr (host), Shaan Puri (host), Ben (producer)
Breaking News: Elon Offers to Buy Twitter [00:00:00]
Shaan: All right, we’re live — breaking edition. Sam just texted us and said we got to do this Elon thing.
Sam: Sounds like you’ve got a lot of opinions.
Shaan: I got some opinions, for sure. First let’s summarize what happened, and then tell me how you initially heard about it and how you reacted.
Sam: All right. So weeks and months and years ago, Elon has always criticized Twitter — saying how he loves it. He’s actually one of the top 10 most followed accounts in the world, and of the top 10 he’s one of the few that’s actually actively posting like a normal person would. He’s criticized Twitter for banning free speech, basically for being too liberal — he didn’t ever say that word, but that’s kind of what he’s getting at.
About a week ago he bought nine percent of the company. Then he announced he was going to join the board of directors. And the weekend after he announced that, he started posting things like, “Let’s turn Twitter’s HQ into a homeless shelter.” I actually lived next door to Twitter’s headquarters at Ninth and Market a couple years ago. It’s basically like no one’s there — the pandemic shut down that area of the city and it’s full of homeless people. And he tweeted, “Let’s shut down Twitter HQ and turn it into a homeless shelter — because nobody’s going to work anyways.”
So that was two jabs. He also tweeted, “Should we create an edit button? Yes or no?” He tweeted basically three or four things like that.
Then on Sunday night — he was supposed to join the board on Monday — he said, “I’m not joining the board.” And for people a little bit in the know, the reason he’s not joining the board is that when you join the board of a company like this, you can’t own more than 14%. So by not joining the board, he can now buy the whole thing.
That happened on Monday. It’s Thursday morning. First they were playing patty cake with each other — the CEO of Twitter, Parag, was like, “So happy to have Elon Musk on our board, he’s the best.” Jack Dorsey says, “So glad to have Elon on our board.” Elon says, “So glad to be on the board, Jack.” They’re all playing patty cake. And then one or two days later, it becomes — he’s actually not joining the board. He basically goes hostile. And now at 6 or 7 AM this morning, it was announced that he was going to buy Twitter.
Right away when he bought nine percent of the company, the stock jumped 10%. But the current valuation was like $43 billion, and I think he offered to buy it at $54.20 per share — give or take, I forget the exact amount. It was a nice premium, not a huge premium but a nice premium. And here we are now, waiting for what’s going to happen next.
By the way — I actually think Jack Dorsey was somewhat genuine. I think the CEO of Twitter, Parag, was not genuine. That guy doesn’t even tweet. He’s not even a user. Have you ever read his tweets? He just tweets like screenshots of PDFs.
Shaan: He follows me. That’s all I know.
Sam: So he’s good in my books. Parag, you’re the man, you have excellent taste in who you follow.
Shaan: That’s something. But he’s not like a power user of Twitter. I think I know how to use Twitter better than he does.
Sam: For sure you do. He tweeted on January 20th, then February 16th, then March 3rd — and before that, November 30th. This guy’s tweeting bi-monthly.
Shaan: Whereas Elon actually gets it.
Reading the Offer Letter Live [00:05:30]
Sam: So anyway, that’s where we are now. What’s your take?
Shaan: I think there’s a couple different things. First I want to say — baller move. I’ve been on record saying I think Elon can be kind of cringy with stuff he says in public. I think he’s an amazing inventor, an amazing visionary, a force of nature for sure. But I think he’s kind of cringy in the way he — for somebody who’s trying to be like an engineer’s engineer — he sure does a lot of stuff to make himself seem cool, and it just comes across try-hardy to me. But this was not that.
Have you read the letter?
Sam: Yes, I have it up.
Shaan: The letter is badass.
Sam: So badass.
Shaan: He created an offer — dude, that’s so funny that we both gravitated to the same thing.
Sam: That’s exactly what I was going to bring up — the writing. The writing’s amazing. I’m just going to read it word for word.
So he goes — this is part of his SEC filing. He goes:
“I invested in Twitter as I believe it has potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company. As a result, I’m willing to buy 100% of Twitter at $54.20 per share in cash — a 54% premium over the day I began investing, 38% over the day it was announced. My offer is my best and final offer. If it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder. Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”
So that was the start. And then there’s one final thing — and this is where he puts his nuts on the table. He goes:
“A) I am not playing the back and forth game. B) I have moved straight to the end.”
Shaan: That’s my new thing, dude. “I have moved straight to the end.”
Sam: That is so good.
Shaan: Tomorrow’s Milk Road is going to start with “I have moved straight to the end.” When I talk to my wife tonight and she wants to cuddle — I have moved straight to the end. If I go in a line somewhere, I’m going to stand at the end of the line and say, “I have moved straight to the end.” That is my new thing. What a line.
Sam: It’s good, man.
Shaan: He goes on: “It is a high price and your shareholders will love it.” That’s the best line. “Your shareholders will love it.”
“If the deal does not work, given that I do not have confidence in management — Parag — he literally puts a sad face — nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I will need to reconsider my position as a shareholder. This is not a threat.”
Sam: It is a threat. The biggest threat I’ve ever heard.
Shaan: It’s like saying, “I’m not trying to be racist, but…” or “Don’t take this the wrong way…” Dude, what you’re about to say is going to be really freaking rude.
Sam: Yeah, you’re about to get offended.
Shaan: He says, “This is not a threat. It is simply” — not a good investment without the changes that need to be made — “and those changes won’t happen without taking the company private.” But just the best line of all is: “I have moved straight to the end.” That’s my new thing.
Did He Really Send This as a Text? [00:10:45]
Sam: How about the fact that it says “sent via text”? Does he literally mean this was a text message?
Shaan: I don’t know what that part was. It’s almost like he’s like, “Hey Siri, send this to the SEC, send this to Jack in my address book.”
Sam: I think he sent a message either to Jack or Brett Taylor — the chairman, the guy from Salesforce.
Shaan: Brett Taylor, yeah.
Sam: And I think he sent it saying, “Here’s my offer letter, this will be public tomorrow.” So he was giving a heads up to whoever.
I do not think this is going to go through.
Shaan: Why do you think that?
Sam: So there’s this app called Blind — it’s very inside baseball. You basically have to have an email at a large, prominent tech company to use it. I used to use this all the time at Twitch. Amazon, Apple, Twitter people just whining and gossiping, but anonymously. You have to be an employee at the company to be on there, so you know these are not just randos.
I got some screenshots from the Twitter Blind, and the people who use Blind are not representative of normal employees — but basically 50/50 thought it was a good idea, 50% thought it was a bad idea.
The reason I don’t think it’s going to go through is I do think that management and a large, vocal subset of Twitter employees are going to throw enough of a fit to make this hard to go through.
Shaan: But it’s not the employees who get to decide.
Sam: Well, I said management. I think management could cause — I don’t know the exact mechanics of these takeovers. This is something where basically the board has to decide. And if I’m a Twitter shareholder — this stock has basically been a poor performer for like a decade. I used to own this like 10 years ago. And you’re getting a whatever-percent premium versus today. Today’s price is $45, he offered $54. That’s like 20-something percent premium — don’t do public math — but would you take that premium?
Also, one thing he said was he would try to retain as many private shareholders as possible, meaning you wouldn’t have to sell to be in favor of the vote.
I think there’s all these crazy things like the poison pill — which frankly I don’t even fully understand — but there’s all these art-of-war-type things that you can do. I don’t think it’s as easy as “well, I’m the top bidder.”
Twitter’s Valuation Problem [00:14:30]
Sam: Here’s the thing about Twitter. Do you know what Twitter’s market cap is as of today? It’s $34 billion. And we’re in a nice pullback right now for tech, so it’s probably 30% higher a year ago. But right now it’s $34 billion. You know what Snapchat is?
Shaan: About $55 billion?
Sam: Yeah, about that. And here’s the thing about Twitter — I believe they have way more users, and it’s the center of culture right now. Maybe not the center, but it is a center of culture. And their ad platform is dog shit. It’s the worst ad platform of all the big dogs.
So if they could figure that out, they should be worth way more. The thing is, I don’t think Elon gives a shit about ads. I think he’s going to try to figure out another way to make money. But Twitter’s ad platform is really bad, and I do think this company is way undervalued and way under-monetized. They don’t ever innovate — although lately they’ve done some cool stuff — but it’s been like 10 years, right?
Shaan: Yeah.
Sam: And by the way, here’s a couple of takes on the situation. Mark Cuban came out and said, “I think Elon is effing with the SEC.” His SEC filing allows him to say he wants to take a company private for $54.20 — which is, before he used to get SEC fined like crazy because he said, “I’m considering taking Tesla private for $420, funding secured.” So he got to now do it the official way and just put a five in front of the 420.
He bought the shares a couple months ago. This news of him buying, and now the potential takeover, drives shares up. Let’s say they don’t accept his offer — he already said, “I’m going to sell my shares if you don’t take my offer.” So he’s just going to make a huge profit off of these shares. He might make close to a billion dollars off of just effing with Twitter. And he gets all the fame.
Remember we were talking about our friend Alex from Morning Brew, who was talking about buying Puppet Golf courses? And we said, “The announcement is the optimal spot — you got all the praise, you don’t have to actually do it.” Get the picture with the check and post it on Instagram. Don’t give yourself the headache of actually running and owning that business.
Elon is at that perfect spot right now. That’s one take.
Twitter as a Protocol: The Punk6529 Take [00:19:00]
Shaan: Other takes — so there’s this account, do you follow punk6529?
Sam: I think I know who he is.
Shaan: So punk6529 is one of the best Twitter accounts to follow. He posts these thought-leadery things about crypto. He’s great. I think in a very short amount of time — a couple months — he’s built 320,000 followers because he just has really good takes.
And he said something like — Twitter should be a protocol. It’s a short messaging protocol, and it doesn’t need to be owned by a single company. He says: “If you’re excited about Elon taking over Twitter, or upset about Elon taking over Twitter — both of these are the exact same problem. Our global short messaging internet protocol should be completely unaffected by who’s the CEO of some random company in California.”
And in that same spirit — you know, no one company owns email, right? Email is a protocol for sending long-form messages. But one company does own Twitter’s protocol. Because of that, you can’t just choose — like, if this was a protocol, you could say “I want to use the client that has no algorithm” or “I want to use the one that has a really tight algorithm and shows me nothing.” You’d have way more choice as a consumer, and way more companies would be able to innovate and build on top of Twitter if it were a protocol rather than a single company.
His point is: it doesn’t really matter who’s in charge.
Sam: I don’t even think that’s logistically possible at this point, though. Or is it?
Shaan: Not really for Twitter. It’s like — it’s easier for the next thing. Yeah, that’s what I mean. Jack Dorsey has said there’s a project called Blue Sky, which is the idea of turning Twitter into a decentralized protocol. But who knows how realistic that is, and how much of that is just lip service. “We’re working on it, check in in five years and see how it goes.”
Is This Good for Twitter — or Just Good for Elon? [00:22:30]
Shaan: Let’s talk about this angle, which is maybe the most interesting — this is possibly the best troll ever. Like this guy is kind of a child, and some of it’s not funny. This one is very funny. But I actually think — and I think Paul Graham said something like this — I’m not convinced that this would be good for Twitter. There’s definitely a possibility it could be good for Twitter.
But I think there’s a certainty that this is horrible for Elon Musk. Consistently, this guy makes decisions that are funny and cool and leave people shocked. But it’s kind of like eating an entire orange including the peel. It’s really funny that you did it and we’re going to laugh about it forever. But I was in college with a guy who ate an entire orange and an entire lemon, including the peel, in one sitting. And I’m like, “That’s hilarious that you’ve done that,” but that’s going to suck for you for a while.
This is going to be bad for Elon for a long time. This is not going to make his life more fun. This is going to make his life significantly worse, significantly harder, so much more pressure. This is not a smart move for his personal life.
Sam: The point he’s at right now is brilliant, though. What does this say about Elon? Number one — “I’m super rich. I could just buy Twitter. How about that.” Somebody tweeted: “Elon said, ‘You don’t want me on your board? Okay. I won’t have a board seat — I’ll have all the board seats.’”
Second thing — why is he doing this? When Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post, people said, “What are these billionaires trying to do, trying to control us?” Elon’s version is, “These tech companies are effing it up,” which is already how a lot of people feel — these tech companies have too much power, too much control, they’re shaping the narrative, they’re not free speech. So he came out as, “I’m doing this for free speech.” And how are you going to argue against free speech? Raise your hand if you’re against free speech.
So he virtue signaled free speech, did it in a bold and baller way that got him way more attention and fame, and he’s going to make money from it — just by buying the shares beforehand, creating all this ruckus, and then being able to sell out if the offer’s rejected. And he can kind of be the underdog — “You know, the powers that be wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do. I was going to make this thing awesome, but they wouldn’t let me do it.”
Elon at TED: The Plan B Tease [00:27:00]
Sam: How about the fact that we just did an episode recapping the Milk Road where Peter Thiel had this outlandish headline — he called Warren Buffett the “sociopathic grandpa in Omaha.” Buffett’s stereotype is that he’s this nice old man who’s just, “Oh shucks, I just happened to do well.” And Peter Thiel is supposedly this evil guy. And then you’ve got Elon who does the craziest stuff on earth.
Imagine these guys when they were 25 or 30 years old, with a little something but maybe not this much. What type of fun would it have been to be in the same room with these guys? It’s like the perfect combination of capable enough to pull it off, crazy enough to think it’s funny.
Shaan: Yeah, exactly. Ben, pull this tweet up. So Elon is at TED right now as we’re talking. And you know who’s there — our boy Jack. He’s there to talk about SpaceX, Tesla, whatever. But of course — of course — it’s a 30-minute talk about Twitter.
Ben, can you pull this link up? We should watch this. This is Elon Musk talking about his plan B if the deal doesn’t go through.
Sam: I haven’t watched this video — it just got tweeted out — so I want to live react to whatever he says here.
[Clip plays: TED interviewer asks Elon about plan B if the board doesn’t accept his offer. Elon says, “I think… I think we would like to hear a little bit about plan B… for another time.” Audience applause.]
Sam: That’s a nice tease.
Shaan: Well played.
Sam: Well played. What the plan B could be — I don’t know. Launching his own thing? I don’t think that’s a good plan B. Twitter is really hard. How many people say they’re going to create a social media product? How many have actually worked? You’ve got TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram — that’s basically three or four. A lot try.
Shaan: Everyone tries when they first start, but there’s like three that work. Yeah.
Sam: How’s Trump’s thing doing, Truth Social?
Shaan: Horrible, right? I downloaded it because I was like, I gotta see what’s going on. But I haven’t spent too much time on it. It was crashing like crazy the first day.
Sam: Social — I don’t think building a new one is possible. Maybe that’s the plan B. Maybe he’s going to be like, “Hey everybody, Truth Social, that’s where we’re going.” Then you get the Trump stans and the Elon stans together. That’s a lot of devoted followers.
Shaan: The problem is they kind of hate each other. And also, Elon doesn’t care about making conservatives happy. He cares about trolling. If you only have your own audience on there, it wouldn’t be very fun. He doesn’t like getting people cheering — he likes pissing people off or ruffling feathers.
Elon’s Psychology: Truth, Daddy Issues, and What Drives Him [00:32:00]
Shaan: You know what I think that’s rooted in? I think that’s rooted in his father lying to him.
Sam: Okay, you went there.
Shaan: Daddy issues. It all comes back to daddy issues.
Sam: Not everything.
Shaan: I think most things in life are genetics, and then the other half is things that happen to you from ages zero to four. And someone’s called him — how old was he? Maybe ten? But I do think things happen when you’re two and three that actually impact you. And I think he’s had a troubled relationship with his dad. His dad just wasn’t around. I have a feeling there’s a world where his dad was like, “I promise I’ll be at this game, I promise I’ll do this,” and then he wasn’t there. Something like that. He’s obsessive-compulsive about the truth. I actually do believe him when he says truth matters.
Sam: What did his dad lie to him about?
Shaan: I made that up — I don’t know. But I know his dad wasn’t around. His dad left his mom and wasn’t very present in his life and was kind of rude to his family.
Sam: I’m just guessing, but there’s a world where that happens. The things you value come from your experiences. People who value authenticity — it’s because they’ve dealt with inauthenticity. People who value family — it’s because they’ve had either a great family experience or a terrible one and want to rectify it. You’re definitely shaped by that.
So if he’s telling us he’s kind of maniacal about the truth — he said something like, “It matters to me almost pathologically” — I think some percentage of that is virtue signaling, but let’s take him at his word for it.
Shaan: What does he actually think is untrue? You know, “free speech” — people are going to be able to say anything, but those things aren’t necessarily going to be true. It’s this belief that the answer to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. I get that. But I’m not sure what his actual ideas are.
Sam: Yeah. If you look at the list of ideas Elon’s floated on Twitter — I saw this screenshot — I’m going to read it out loud.
Here’s the list of what Elon has tweeted since he sort of announced what he was going to do, before he left the board: Tweet one — vote to remove the “W” from Twitter. So just “Titter.” His poll options were “Yes” and “Of course.” That’s a cringe joke, exactly.
Proposal two — turn HQ into a homeless shelter. Three — eliminate ad revenue. Four — just say Twitter is dying. Five — overhaul the blue checkmark policy. Also with that, he said he was going to smoke weed at the next board meeting. He posted a meme of him smoking weed at Joe Rogan’s at the next board meeting. Next — an edit button. Next idea — “free speech.” No idea of how or why or what. Just “free speech.” And the last one — open source the Twitter algorithm.
So if you’re one of the people who thinks Elon’s going to save Twitter — the ideas that he had were not the most earth-shattering. Between “Titter,” the homeless shelter, and quote-unquote free speech — what were these ideas?
Can Elon Actually Run a Consumer Social Product? [00:38:30]
Shaan: Our friend Nikita, who seems like he knows what he’s talking about with consumer apps, was like — running a car company and creating PayPal and a solar business is a lot different from the kind of art that it takes to create a consumer tech product like Twitter.
And I totally agree with that. Like, think about this — when someone says, “We’re going to create this thing where you can only write 140 characters,” nine out of ten normal people would say, “What? F that. Let’s make it so I can write as much as I want.” And they’re like, “No, we’re going to do this weird thing.” It’s kind of like Vine — you only have four seconds to make a video. No one can do that. But actually it creates a whole art form out of it.
I think Elon could potentially be a little too rational and logical to create the magic of Twitter.
Sam: I have the complete opposite take. If the guy can land a rocket and re-land it on its butt in the middle of the ocean, and make electric cars that are awesome — pretty sure he could figure out the social media thing. The problem is he’s still doing those other things. Albert Einstein isn’t going to create YouTube — not because he can’t figure it out, but because he doesn’t need to create it. Elon’s a leader and a first-principles thinker.
Who do I have more faith in — Parag or Elon? I have more faith in Elon.
Shaan: Yeah, but Parag is actually running it. Elon’s not building the train — he’s just making sure his trains show up on time.
Sam: Well, that’s the problem, right? That’s why it’s plateaued. User growth was like 300 million monthly active users five years ago, now it’s like 340 million. It hasn’t grown much at all. Plus the hate, the scams, all the other stuff.
Shaan: My take is that this is the ultimate example of social media ruining everything. Think about how much time and productivity — from useful, awesome activities — I or anyone could be doing instead of checking Twitter, being on TikTok, whatever. Social media is this distraction time suck.
And this guy is trying to make us multi-planetary, make self-driving cars, get us off fossil fuels — and he’s getting distracted by social media. He’s just doing it at the biggest scale. Not just using social media — he’s like, “I’m going to buy it, then I’m going to have to fix it.” Dude. Just do the thing where you help us go to Mars and have self-driving cars that are electric. Those are the useful things. Solving social media is just another distraction, done at Elon scale.
How Should Elon Go Out? [00:43:15]
Sam: If he dies in the next five years, would you be surprised?
Shaan: I would not be surprised.
Sam: I would not be surprised either. Do you think that’s how this story has to end?
Shaan: I don’t think he’s going to die — low probability. But I do think it would turn him into the greatest cult hero ever.
Sam: It’s kind of like Tupac. I’ve got Tupac in my background here, I love Tupac. He died when he was 25. Only 25. And people talk about him being the best rapper ever. Biggie was 24. Jay-Z and Eminem have done it for 20 years, so they definitely have the volume. But the reason we say Tupac’s the best ever is because he died young — all that potential preserved forever.
So in some way, I’m like — Elon can do the same. Go out on top, and we’ll remember him as the best.
Would you want to die and be the Tupac of newsletters?
Shaan: No, I wouldn’t. But I’m not Elon. There’s two things I know in this world — there’s crazy guys like Elon, and the second thing is I’m not one of them.
Sam: We should end it on that. Just to reiterate your angle, Shaan — you’re of the opinion that Elon has daddy issues and you hope he dies. Is that correct?
Shaan: To the first point — 100%. His dad? Daddy issues. Show me a successful person and I’ll show you a messed-up dad. For sure, without a doubt. Second thing — do I hope he dies? 100% no. Do I think it will be an even better part of the story? Yes.
Unless he has some kind of Howard Hughes thing where it becomes even more of a mystery — or a J.D. Salinger thing where he just disappears — yeah, I’m on board with that. But if he just gets old and dies? You can’t go out that way.
Sam: Yeah. That’s actually a better question — what’s the right way for Elon to go?
Shaan: Heart attack? Nah. Overworked and stressed? Nah, that’s for the common man.
Sam: Dying on Mars. Crashing. Exactly. He’s got to be the guy who goes to Mars, dies in the process, taking men farther than they’ve ever gone. That’s got to be the way he goes. Just drifts out into space. Or he disappears and no one knows where he is — he lives in a trailer in rural wherever.
Shaan: And he has to claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto. That’s the smartest move. If I’m his PR team — “Listen, Elon, before you go, we need to claim the Satoshi thing.” That’s the cherry on top of your legacy. There’s no way to disprove it if you’re going to go anyway. That’s the last little thing on his to-do list, on the bucket list.
Sam: Dude, this is awesome.
Shaan: That was not where I thought we would end — with him dying.
Final Takes: Is It a Strategy or Just Fun? [00:47:45]
Sam: That’s a good impromptu episode. Ben, what do you think?
Ben: Loved it. I think it’s a bad investment. But I think Elon’s having fun. If you had as much money as he had, why would you not spend your time just having fun?
Sam: I don’t think he’s having fun. I think he’s doing it as an investment.
Shaan: You think this is a strategy?
Sam: I think he’s kind of playing the role of a court jester — laughing on the outside, appearing to have fun, everyone’s laughing with him — but also crying on the inside. I do not think his life is enjoyable in any sense of the word.
Shaan: I don’t either. But I think he’s getting enjoyment from this, probably. Like — it’s our version of when you tweet something funny. I’m like Quagmire from Family Guy — giggity, that’s hilarious. But I’m not happy three days later from that and feeling content.
Sam: Right. He doesn’t come across like a content, happy person.
Shaan: Hell no. He’s said as much in many interviews. Things like, “You wouldn’t want to be me.” Or, “I will find death as a relief.” Those are pretty strong statements. You don’t have to read between the lines.
But to Ben’s point, I do think he gets off on being the class clown, the guy who gives the middle finger to the system. He’s taking F-you money and saying F-you. He is enjoying the stunt aspect of it.
I don’t think he’s doing it as an economic investment. I think he’s doing it as a combination of maybe 20% stunt and maybe 80% mission. Maybe I’m wrong on those sliders. Maybe it’s more like 50/50. I’m not sure.
Sam: I think it’s 80% mission, 20% stunt. Not an economic investment. But we use the most economic framing — as we say on this podcast, we’re big on being post-economic, late-stage capitalism. That’s what we’re known for.
You look at Jeff Bezos who bought the Washington Post — I think he paid $200 million.
Shaan: $200 million, yeah. Nothing, basically.
Sam: But at the same time, what did he get? Washington Post gives you a voice, I guess. But you don’t even have full editorial control — well, he could if he wanted to.
What he got is a little different. At the time, it was seen as a cool power move. And the second thing he got is what a lot of rich guys have — vanity. Collectibles. “I own this farm. I own this basketball team.” There’s a rich-guy toy chest thing.
Shaan: I agree. It’s like owning a sports team — a journalism sports team. But from the functionality standpoint of actually having a voice, buying Twitter is sort of the same thing. Except he’s getting the only voice that actually matters. The only thing that can actually drive and change public opinion.
Media Ownership and CNN’s Decline [00:52:30]
Sam: If he wanted to pull that move — how much is CNN?
Shaan: Good question. What’s the parent company?
Sam: Well, I think they just merged.
Shaan: Between five and ten billion, I would guess.
Sam: Yeah. But look at News Corp — Rupert Murdoch started Fox, and he started this one company that recently had to separate because it was a monopoly on news. Those two companies became News Corp, which basically owns Fox News and Fox News affiliates, and then 21st Century Fox, which is the movies and TV shows. Collectively, what’s that worth?
Shaan: News Corp Class A is $13 billion. What’s the more valuable one?
Sam: Fox Corporation, I think. Fox Corporation — $30 billion. So $43 billion total. And they’re way more popular than CNN. So CNN can’t be that expensive.
But who the hell wants to own CNN? These dudes who want to own the Washington Post and Twitter, right? Why not? You know how many people watch CNN at any given point — their real-time viewers? It’s sometimes as low as tens of thousands of people. There are chicks on Twitch doing ASMR with more viewership than CNN in the middle of the afternoon.
Shaan: That’s hilarious.
Sam: I mean, not literally — but it’s hilarious that I said that. Like, CNN — Anderson Cooper is pretty cool, but it’s just like dentist TV. You listen to it when you’re at the dentist.
Shaan: Shooting situations and going to the dentist are the only times I’ve got CNN on. Or when you go get coffee in the morning at a McDonald’s — they always have Fox playing in the background.
Sam: Did you see the CNN+ fail?
Shaan: It failed. Yeah. What do you expect? You can’t just put a “plus” and a paywall on stuff no one cares about. Quartz shut down their paywall today too. Same thing — you can’t call it “Quartz Pro” and expect to get more money because the main Quartz already sucks. You’re just putting a bow on a pile of poo. It doesn’t automatically stop being a pile of poo.
Sam: That’s basically what a lot of these companies do. And it’s not the right move.
Shaan: The “plus” thing is just a dead giveaway. That’s a tell. “Plus” or “Pro.”
Sam: All right, that was good.