Is DeSantis going to be the one who finally breaks Twitter?

With the Twitter board having created a poison pill strategy to block Elon Musk from buying the entire company, it appeared that Musk might end up being stymied.  However, Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, may be riding to the effort with a shareholders' suit accusing the board of directors of breaching its fiduciary duty.  However, even if the board is forced to bow down, it's possible that America's national security apparatus may step in to block the sale.

To catch you up on things, Twitter has become Ground Zero for the left's control of the flow of information.  Democrats in politics and the media claim that the only way to save democracy in America is to end freedom of speech.  Apparently, the Founders were fools when they drafted the First Amendment because they believed that our inherent right to free speech is essential to a democratic republic.

Elon Musk, who is too friendly with China and builds electric cars because he believes in anthropogenic climate change, is nevertheless a free speech absolutist.  He recognizes that Twitter is endangering the American experiment by stifling all speech that does not serve the interests of the Democrat party.  Therefore, Musk bought a bunch of shares in the open market and then made an offer to buy the entire company for a price over 35% more than the market price per share.  The sale would be a huge windfall for Twitter shareholders.

The Twitter board responded by creating a poison pill strategy that would vastly increase the costs of the buyout for Musk.  Technically speaking, this is a legitimate move.  Corporations facing a hostile takeover frequently respond with poison pills.

However, things are a bit different here.  The poison pill strategy is meant to protect against takeovers that will destroy the value of shareholders' interest in the company or that will destroy the company itself.  In this case, as noted, Musk's offer will enrich shareholders.

Interestingly, though, the offer will not enrich board members.  Except for Jack Dorsey, they don't hold shares.  If Musk walks away, they, unlike the shareholders, suffer no economic harm.  And if Musk triggers the poison pill strategy, they have no shares that will be devalued.


Image: Ron DeSantis.  Twitter screen grab.

In other words, the board is harming its shareholders' financial interests but not its own.  That's a breach of the board's financial duty, which is an actionable wrong — and that's where Ron DeSantis comes in.

On Wednesday, DeSantis held a press conference to announce that, because Florida's pension plan holds Twitter shares, he has standing to sue the board for breach of fiduciary duty:

 

What a wonderful idea!  DeSantis is on a roll, defending ordinary Americans' rights and interests all over the place.  I am liking ever more the cut of that man's jib.

But here's something that might throw a wrench in the works: according to former intel officials, any efforts to affect Big Tech companies, including Musk's buy-out plan, create a national security risk:

Former Obama era intelligence officials, those who helped construct, organize and assemble the public-private partnership between intelligence data networks and supported social media companies, have written a letter to congress warning that any effort to break up Big Tech (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Microsoft, etc.) would be catastrophic for the national security system they have created.

Citing the information control mechanisms they assembled, vis-a-vis the ability of social media networks to control and approve what is available for the public to read and review, the intelligence officials declare that any effort to break up the private side of the intel/tech partnership will only result in less ability of the intelligence apparatus to control public opinion.

This is a fascinating assertion because, as you may recall, The Conservative Treehouse has already asserted quite credibly that Twitter may be a front for or partner with U.S. Intel.  According to him, Twitter is a money hole that requires a huge platform to function:

Twitter is not a platform built around a website; Twitter is a platform for comments and discussion that operates in the sphere of social media.  As a consequence, the technology and data processing required to operate the platform does not have an economy of scale.

There is no business model where Twitter is financially viable to operate…. UNLESS the tech architecture under the platform was subsidized.

In my opinion, there is only one technological system and entity that could possibly underwrite the cost of Twitter to operate.  That entity is the United States Government, and here's why.

In wrestling, if your opponent has you pinned, if you can wiggle around enough to force him to move and create space for you, you can still win.  In the same way, the left, having thought it had locked conservatives down, is suddenly being forced to make that space.  Things in America are getting very, very interesting, and, although that creates danger, it also creates opportunities.

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