western governments seem to be doing a to, and not using it to fight crime or human trafficking or other things that the government, that both governments and the companies say that the spyware is useful. i do think that is a bit of catch up by some of these intelligence agencies who believe that they have better systems than the private sector and especially in this case, within a so group. there will also promises made by the n s a group. years ago saying that is the technology couldn't be used against, for instance, us phones or israeli. ready phones or u k. ready phones all of that has been proven to be bogus. ah, it is good to have you with us. hello, adrian said again, here in doha, the headlines on al jazeera russia's deadline for ukrainian soldiers, and maria pull to surrender, has passed. moscow sister lives of troops and sought still works, would be sped if they end what it calls senseless resistance. speaking outside the un,

antonio good heritage says the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in ukraine hang in the balance. to day i am calling for a 4 day hold the week humanitarian balls beginning on holy thursday, and running through east the sunday, april 20 force to allow for the opening of a series of humanitarian corridors. the mediterranean balls would provide the necessary conditions to meet 2 crucial imperatives. first, safe passage of all civilians willing to leave the areas of current and expected confrontation in coordination with the international community of the red cross. seconds beyond humanitarian operations already taking place. at balls we will offer the safe delivery of life saving humanitarian aid to people in the car. thus it areas such as mario ball caisson donuts and low hunts britain's prime minister as apologize to parliament found to being fined by police for breaking his own

government curve. at 19 lockdown rules, orest johnson is resisting calls from the opposition to resign over the so called party gate scandal reset. i will come, the promised he knows what he is. oh i'm so he drives every one else down with him. the more people to place themselves parroting his absurd defences, the more the public will believe. all politicians are the same, all as far as each other are not suit. this prime minister just fire a possess, has been shot dead by police and shrine co during demonstrations against the government handling of an economic crisis. turner, the people reported to have been injured, protest as a demanding the resignation of president casa, via russia parkson. and there is the headline news for you here on out a 0 off the inside story. next. ah,

will a loss take over? twist it. the billiard air has made a controversial offer. replacing many hurdles. what's driving my quest to own twitter, and what would it possible paper and mean for this platform, this is inside store. ah hello, welcome to the program on kim vanelle twit, his board has armed itself against a possible takeover of the world's richest man said he wants to buy twitter. billionaire, a lawn mosque has made

a $43000000000.00 offer. he says the social media giant needs to be taken private to grow and to become a platform for free speech. but the twitter board is fighting back. it's adopted a so called poison pill plan that will prevent anyone from owning more than a 15 percent stake in the company that allows others to buy additional shares at a discount making a buyout much more difficult mosque recently increased his stake to 9 percent, making him twice as largest shareholder must calls himself a free speech absolutist opposed to any restrictions on what someone can say on social media. as long as it has to the laws of the country where the platform is based. he's posted a series of tweets indicating he thinks twitter is heading in the wrong direction. it isn't the 1st time mosse because railed against was claiming it represses free speech. that he partly blames on the platforms, reliance on ad revenues or news of the bid fit the internet and especially twitter on fire among those responding. saudi arabian, a best,

a prince. i'll will lead ban tallow between his saying that as one of the major shareholders in twitter, he rejected a takeover bid by a mosque. he said, i don't believe that the proposed offer by musk, $54.20 per share, comes close to the intrinsic value of twitter, given its growth prospects. the. let's bring in our guests from not her dom, indiana, indiana. rather, we have tim hobby, the system professor of management at the university of notre dawns. mendoza college of business from atlanta is jim addison, social media sector, lead at glass wing benches and from york. william cohen found the of puck news and former mergers and acquisitions. investment banker, thank you all very much for joining us here on inside story. i'd like to start with you mr. anderson. let's start with what the state care, how important is twitter for the public discourse. and why is this take the bid bio

long mosque has sparks such intense reaction. you can, you know, twitter in his long punched above its weight class if you will. it's important far seems to exceed its performance financially. it has been a mediocre investment. i think most analysts would say from a financial perspective, but it is embroiled in many of the most consequential discussions around politics, the economy, et cetera. and so i think in many ways, eli boss is correct and identifying, wow, this is an under leverage dancer. somebody could do more with twitter, so i don't think he's wrong in going after it because it really is an important part of what we do him hubbard. he almost said that this is about ensuring there's an arena for free speech, so we can all talk freely within the bounds of the law. do you think he's serious about this? take a bit or do you think he's just making a point? i think honestly, he's making a point if you stand back and you think about what he wants to do to achieve it's

free speech and, and you know, an open platform for everybody and to move the company in that direction. i don't necessarily think he needs to buy the company. instead, even just showing that it's possible to buy twitter puts twitter in a position where then they have to think, okay, how can we position our platform? how can we set the users up in order to avoid the need for a take over by somebody but like you on musk, william, call it in new york. so far, the board of twitter has responded by triggering the so called poison pill plan. to find out what, what that is, what it means, what it does is it will allow other shareholders to buy shares of twitter stock less expensively. ready than they're currently trading for in the market. if you are, must buys around 15 percent of the twitter stock now. ready these poison pills are merely away from the central hurdle if you

will, or, and acquire a hostile require to buy a company. i don't think they've ever been actually invoked. i don't think there's never been a time when shareholders actually bought shares of stock. ready the company at a discount to try to prevent a hostile take over. so what they end up being is just they are another hurdle that a potential a wire has to get over and or is the potential acquire to deal directly with the board of directors. how do you think this is going to play out then? do you think this will just be a hurdle for mosque? i know he a tweak by the cryptically. lovely, tender referring obviously to a song but maybe also to attend or offer. right? i think all everything have is now on whether or not he can raise the financing. he already has spent $2600000000.00 with his own money. let's say he needs another 40000000000. he obviously is the war. well,

we think he's the world's richest man with, you know, and so can he raise the say 40000000000 that he. ready needs or the say, ah, you know, so he can raise some of it and dad navy was debating, needs to raise can put in 20 another 20. ready in his own money, kenny raised another $15000000000.00 from 3rd parties to make this possible if he can. it's games that match it's over here by twitter, whether anybody wants to do or not, whether he. ready wants to or not if he can't raise that money, then at some point, does he have that kind of money? if he's the world's richest man radically, he does, we don't know how much of his tesla stock, which is, of course, the foundation of his well, how much of that catholic doc, which is worth around a $175000000000.00. he is already. ready pledged or margin or hypothesis aided

to somebody else for various loans to pay taxes, living life, whatever it is that he does, or space x, or the boring company, some other project. it's not known how much of that that he's already pledged. so the question is, is how much is left on pledge? and at what point does the risk is the value of in tesla to buy twitter? i mean, i think he's a lot of things, but i'm pretty sure he's not going to risk what he's built up in tesla just by twitter. sure. jim anderson, he has talked to masters, talked a lot about they said that the take of the bid being purely for the good of society for the good of humanity almost. what would, what would lead him to make both sorts of statements? what is it that is going on behind the scenes at twitter in terms of algorithms that is become such an issue? while the funny, you know a lot, musk is one of the most consequential entrepreneurs of our generation,

probably the past 50 years. so i will certainly give him that, but trying to understand what's going on in his mind. he is an exercise in frustration. you said he tweeted, love me tender he did i. if any of us think he was tweeting about a song, you know, let's not kid ourselves, we know he's playing a game. right. and he's, he's clever. he, i think enjoys being difficult and unpredictable. and he lapsed onto, you mentioned the algorithms in the free speech. those are the 2 things he's latched onto and for such a smart, brilliant, really, man, he's been maddeningly non specific about what he really wants to accomplish in and around free speech. other than i advocate for free speech and in and around algorithms other than i advocate for opening up algorithms, both of those are enormously complex topics that involve a lot of subtleties. and he has been maddeningly non specific. i think the idea of owning twitter is a lot more interesting to him than the reality of owning twitter would be tim

howard would. would you agree with that assessment? i completely agree that owning twitters is not as luxurious, if you, well as, as, you know, fighting with twitter and proposing buying twitter. if we stand back and we think about mosque and what he wants to accomplish in his lifetime, he wants to do things that are going to push humanity forward and going to mars and electrifying vehicles. these types of grand challenges are where if he spends his time, he can really cement his legacy, going and taking over twitter and spending his time instead at twitter is important . yes, for free speech around the world. but at the same time, he might view his time better spent, hopefully trying to accomplish some of these big, big problems that only he is prepared to tackle william cohen. twitter wants to double the revenues by 2023, with 315000000. monetize of all daily active uses as if we needed a reminder that we are monetize. zable active uses. how ambitious it

plans, how has twitter compared to say facebook from a profitability perspective the twitter is woefully unprofitable. i think, you know, you. ready at the beginning of the show that it is not a great business. it is, it is not a great business. you know, it, it has punched above its weight. you know, it, you know, last, last year you know, if you just don't do the ad backs, which of course, twitter would like you to do it made about, you know, $56000000.00 of the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. which is of course the key metric of profitability on wall street . now they had us $750000000.00. ready legal settlement as part of that. so if you add that back, maybe they did something like $800000000.00 in 2021. in previous years it was

around $950000000.00, somewhat less than a $1000000000.00 of me. but i mean, you know, i don't know live, and it's based books now. ready law. ready but they probably do a $1000000000.00. ready ready you know, in a week and so, you know, apple probably doesn't. ready dollars. ready either died in a day but you know, twitter is not a great a business. and one of the things that you on mosque is talked about is tweeting, leading up to. ready offer surrounding this offer is that he wants to take ads off the platform. well, you know, that might be great for the user experience, but it's going to decimate the now of, of twitter. so, you know, i don't know how we can propose taking. ready company, private, and then decimating, you know, could it be a great company, the mr. cohen? i mean, could it, could it be a money making business?

i mean, with, with a lot mosque. i believe that stocks and twitter up more than 20 percent since ilan mosque disclosed his steak into it on, on april the 4th. it's almost like he's just having him involved. attracts investment and tracks height attracts excitement, you know, couldn't go on to do great things. well, the fact that he's made an offer for the company and the stock price going out is not the same as the company generating, you know, profitability and even, i mean, you know, could it be, i think a bigger problem is not, could it be a great company, i think the biggest problem the deal on most, you know, is like the dog that catches the car here. you know, is he going to do things that alienate many of the users on twitter that make it relevant? ready what makes twitter so relevant is the great debate that takes place all day

every day. if you know, he does things like, you know, bring back donald trump. for example. he's going to alienate something like half the 2 thirds of the users and they're going to drop off the system and go somewhere else and he's going to lose them and they are going to be monetized, as you said. so i'm not sure exactly what he has. ready my year i don't, i don't see his vision. ready company making it right. kim addison, as we mentioned earlier, saudi arabia the prince already been. tyler is a major shareholder of with he said in 2015 that he had, he had at that point to 5.2 percent stake. now he is tweeting his opposition to this take all the saying that the offer doesn't come close to the intrinsic value of twitter. do you think for him? it's purely a cash thing. or might saudi have pressured, the prince and into opposition as, as a little mosque actually implied when he tweeted water, the kingdom views on journalists, freedom of speech. is there more going on there?

do you think? i'm sure there is more going on. i mean, you know, the boards of directors have their own intrigue and their own dynamics and twitters is somewhat legendary for having, you know, inside the palace intrigue, if you will. so i'm sure there's a lot of dynamics. i somehow doubt, for a lot of the people involved here that is really about the cache, whether it be the kingdom of saudi arabia or ilan mosque, frankly, you know, twitter, this goes back to the point we've made of twitter punching above its weight. class is a really important platform and you know, there's a lot of people who would be interested in having either de facto control or absolute control over what goes on over the moderation decisions that are made there. and i suspect that's a big, big chunk of the, of the opposition as well, is just a sense that, wow, if he line mark gets control of twitter if he owns it, especially if he then makes it a lot more valuable, then that's not going to reflect well, on the, on the previous board of directors, who almost certainly all will be pushed out and who did not unlock that economic

potential. sure. tim habit, you are an assistant professor of management. how would you describe the loan mosque management style? i think he's the type of person that's a problem solver. i think he involves himself in projects and businesses that are very technically advanced. and rather than shy away from the technical problems that play the technologies these trying to develop, he brings together a group of smart people that are able to then to tackle the problem in a way that other companies just aren't. and so if we stand back and we think about how he's able to reuse rockets, how he's able to develop battery technology that other companies just can't. i think his leadership style really is that excitement is that bringing together people who are able to really tackle these deed problems. and that's unique, that's putting in a position where he's a bit of a visionary, where he's able then to control the discourse. but also, as he's developing these technologies in these individual companies, he's finding ways to then take those technologies and use them in other areas and

other industries in ways that weren't necessarily thought of in the beginning. and so his management style is very much bringing people together that are very smart to tackle problems that are very, very complicated. what about has unpredictability though, because if you're a major shareholder in any of the companies that he owns, you know, any of his tweets, anything he says in an interview, under the influence, perhaps you don't, you don't know what he's, what he's going to say or do next, so i mean is that, is that not mission? that is absolutely an issue. that's the noise, if you will, around the, the innovation and the foresight that he has. you know, if you stand back and you think about chief executive officers, if you sit down with a typical seo, you're going to ask them about an industry lookout for a few years. you can ask about the company, what they're going to be doing in 5 years. when you sit down with the law, muster you asked the question, where's humanity going to be in 2050? and that's a completely different thing. and so, yeah,

the antics that he puts out are, are very disturbing at times that are very controversial. but at the same time, the core of what he's doing is really big. it's really trying to advance humanity. and so i kind of feel like at times, yeah, we like to talk about those things. but at the same time, we really should be focusing on the good things that he's doing. and those are quite numerous. char william cohen, just speaking about what mosque has been teaching, he also tweeted that jack dorothy leaving the board of twitter meant that the board collectively owns almost no. she is in twitter and therefore that, and i quote their economic interest a simply not aligned with shareholders. does he have a point? absolutely. he has a point. aside from jack dorsey, who's leaving the board in may, jack dorsey has about 2.25 percent ownership steak and twitter. the rest of that board has weigh less than one percent ownership stake. and so they don't, you know,

they are fiduciary for shareholders. but in terms of, you know, actually having any skin in the game here, they have 0 skin in the game and i would also add for your viewers that prince. i will lead who wants to part time, they have owned something like 5 percent of twitter are no longer. ready does i'm not sure what he owns at the moment. i'm not sure what, how relevant it is that he's tweeting about? he is view of, of you on must offer he's and he's not involved anymore. and he's not on the board . he's has no influence. he's not a large shareholder, so not sure why anybody would listen to him at the moment. but you know, the key here is some. ready big shareholders that are out there, which are a big retail of asset management. companies like black rock,

like morgan stanley, like vanguard, which is the largest shareholder at 10 percent. so i think they're all likely to take if this financing can be firmed up if, if you are much can crew to his financial advisor, morgan stanley. and if you can prove to goldman sachs. ready who's representing the twitter board and the twitter board that he has this been asking why got then those big shareholders vanguard, black rob, morgan stanley, are going to go in, take this money and run. this is the, the best thing that's happened to twitter in, in, in years. jim addison, what would that just go down the road and imagine what would a twitter with an evil musk having a controlling state? what would that look like? what changes could we see? i mean, i know is included called to remove advertising and dropping w from the name twitter. but apart from that, i mean, what could that look like?

so i think it would be wildly unpredictable that that's maybe part of the excitement. i think when people look at this, as you mentioned earlier, wow, he's made twitter relevant in a way that the topic of twitter, not just what's going on on twitter by other people, just the copy of the topic of the company in the platform itself. so i think that in many ways that would be a net positive. it would continue because everybody's on the edge of their seat wondering what even mark is going to do next. i think pragmatically, he had said he does not agree with the advertising oriented business, but as william said, i mean that's like 95 percent of their revenue. if anybody could pull off a fundamental transformation of a company's revenue model and saying, we are 95 percent ad dependent and i want us to be 5 percent ad dependent in the next say 3 years, you know, even mosque. that's the kind of big thing that he could pull off and they could turn subscription twitter into a subscription business. there's a lot of other things they could do that are not tweaking around the margins and trying to get 20 percent growth. but fundamentally changing the nature of the company. and so i would expect at least those things to be under discussion for

somebody like a lot again, whether he has the time, the patient and whether that the big enough legacy as tim had said, is that what he wants to spend his time and how he wants to leave his mark, re rebranding and re reformulating. what constitutes twitter? i think that's the open question. 10 hubbard. where do you think this is all headed? does it at the very least continue to bring to the, for the question all free speech on social media, or how do we do a moderate speech on social media to keep people safe, to stop information or what, how do you see this playing out? if respond back, can we think about what's already happened? we're having the discussion on free speech right now. and i think even if he doesn't go through with the, the buyout of, of twitter, he's already made a mark and already had everybody stand back and think about free speech and what it means. and what happens when a company decides to regulate speech, and a lot of times we think of these social media companies as firm companies that

aren't going to be changing very much. and so if they take a stance on free speech, that might be controversial, a lot of times we kind of just go, oh, okay, yeah, and we move along our day. but at this point in time, he's making a stand back and look at twitter, look at these space. facebook and other companies that are working to regulate speech to some extent, and actually say, well, you can actually, you can come in and you can change the firm, you can buy out the firm, you can change the board of directors, you can change out management, and drastically change the position of the company, but that just not them putting another one man in control. you know, if it's all about decentralization and you know, putting the weight, making everything transparent, is that not just counter intuitive when in fact, what he's looking to do is have a controlling stake. yeah, i think in one key thing, you know, when having the controlling stake is that a lot of the social media companies, you know, the, the interest in them rises and,

and falls at times. and so even if he comes in and he has great visionary ideas and he's able to make changes, it doesn't always mean that those changes are going to be for the better. so there's always a risk in him coming in as well. and that's, that's the hard part, i think, really, to gauges what are the benefits, but then what are the potential risks in terms of user base in terms of interest in twitter. it will definitely keep it in the news and keep it something that we'll be talking about. but at the same time, i'm not sure that how users are going to change their level of interaction your company going forward to record about a minute left. so let's leave it, would you, william colon, where do you think this is headed? what's your take if you can raise the capital that he. ready needs to prove to. ready the twitter of. ready directors and building the fact that he has the $40000000000.00 that he needs to make is $54.20 an oper real. it's his company there's. there's clearly no one else coming along to buy this

company. there's no question the $54.20 is a fair price for this company. i mean. ringback 43. ready $1000000000.00 for a company to make a $1000000000.00 a year and the die is plenty generous. plenty bear if he can range the. ready banana thing and prove that he's got it is over are i will over there. thank you very much for joining us gentlemen. tim hubbard, jim addison and william cohen, and thank you for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com, and to further discussion, go to our facebook page sense facebook dot com forward slash a jane said story can also join the conversation on twitter. handle is at a j inside story. for me, kim fidel and the whole team here and go ha ah

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