Oh Elon….And Which Brokerage/Exchange Will Elon Musk Buy?
Courtesy of Howard Lindzon
Two HUGE mistakes in my public market investing the last 8 years are:
1. Not owning Tesla
2. Owning Twitter
Forget all the reasons why I suck for the moment, Elon Musk now owns Twitter too.
On February 2nd of this year I shared this thought about Twitter on Stocktwits (and Twitter but the message gets plotted against the price on Stocktwits):
Yesterday the stock closed at $50 for a 49 percent gain since the message.
Twitter was not a value stock in February and now it will not magically be a growth stock, but with Elon in charge of the worlds largest ‘financial bullhorn’ a lot of things could change for the better for and at Twitter.
Of course, Matt Levine chimed in perfectly with a Bloomberg piece titled ‘Oh Elon‘ (there are so many great takes so please read it) and opened with this gem of a riff:
Look this all makes complete sense, obvious, intuitive, simple sense. If you are the richest person in the world, and annoying, and you constantly play a computer game, and you get a lot of enjoyment and a sense of identity from that game and are maybe a little addicted, then at some point you might have some suggestions for improvements in the game. So you might leave comments and email the company that makes the game saying “hey you should try my ideas.” And the company might ignore you (or respond politely but not move fast enough for your liking). It might occur to you: “Look, I am the richest person in the world; how much could this game company possibly cost? I should just buy it and change the game however I want.” Even if your complaints are quite minor, why shouldn’t you get to play exactly the game you want? Even if you have no complaints, why not own the game you love, just to make sure it continues to be exactly what you want? The game is Twitter, the richest person in the world is Elon Musk, and:
Elon Musk is an activist without having to be an activist! Take That Ackman and Icahn!
We could speculate on why Elon Musk did this but I believe it is just smart business for him to own the digital supply chain of marketing and promotion/financial bullhorn.
Fat Nixon got himself kicked off the greatest financial bullhorn of all time. His Twitter ‘clone’ will go down in flames faster now that Elon is all in on Twitter. Elon is now up 20 percent on his insurance policy. Of course there will be speculation now as to whether Elon Musk will pressure Twitter to sallow Trumpf back on Twitter but it makes sense for Elon to keep him away from competing for attention on Twitter (and just blame the board as a ‘non’ activist).
It seems like the next obvious extension for Elon ‘the activist and speculator’ that he accumulate 9 or 10 percent of a brokerage or exchange so that he can show off his trades in real time.
Will it be Robinhood, Coinbase, Etoro or FTX (yes I own shares in all of these)?
I imagine it is cheapest for Elon to be an ‘activist and speculator’ in Robinhood. Elon can buy his 10 percent take for a paltry $1-$2 billion, Vlad is not loved by his users (see Jack) and the product is great, easy to use and you can also buy Dogecoin.
Keep your eye out for the next Elon Musk poll!
