Bonus Episode: Elon Musk v. Twitter — with William Cohan

William Cohan, a founding partner and writer at Puck, as well as a former M&A investment banker, joins Scott to discuss how Elon Musk's deal to acquire Twitter might shake out, including what options he might have for backing out, how Twitter's lawyers might respond, and what it all could mean for shareholders. Follow William on Twitter, @WilliamCohan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:10Scott Galloway?

  Okay, we are on with Bill Cohen, who is a professional acquaintance and also a friend who has done fantastic work and written some of the more thoughtful, rigorous books about the financial crisis and some of the icons of finance and is now, are you the founder or co-founder of Puck? What's your title there?

• 0:29Speaker 01

  I'm one of the founding partners of Puck, yes, which is of course owned by its writers, which is I think a very wonderful development in the history of the world.

• 0:40Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, and you guys have gotten, let me say, you guys have gotten a ton of traction really quickly. I'm constantly reading or your work is being referenced anywhere. So Puck is a hot, young media property. So Bill, I love, you've gotten a ton of press around your, you've kind of become the Yoda around the Elon saga. And the reason I wanted you on today is to talk about that. And or when I say Elon, Elon slash Twitter saga, I'd love to get, let's start, what is the state of play right now? Where would you describe the current state of Elon's proposed acquisition of Twitter?

• 1:18Speaker 01

  I think I would say, Scott, that the market is anticipating him actually being childish and asking for a price cut. You know, the market is like, for Twitter is like 37 bucks a share, his offer is 5420 in cash. You know, we're not talking stock here. If it were stock, then okay, maybe the valuation might be, you know, more fungible. But cash is supposed to be cash. So he's offering 5420 in cash. Obviously, the market no longer believes that people are going to get 5420 in cash. And that means sort of everybody just sort

• 2:02Speaker 01

  of waiting around for him to figure out the best way to ask for his price cut.

• 2:09Scott Galloway?

  So I want to take the other side of this, so I want to have a discussion with you because you, I don't want to acknowledge where we've had disagreements, you've been more right than I have. I don't think he's looking for a price cut. I think he's looking to get the hell out of Dodge. And that is he's seen the, his currency, his wealth declined 35, maybe 40% after closing markets today. And on the other side of the coin, I don't think the board would entertain him coming back. He's violated the nondisparagement agreement. He's violated the securities disclosure agreement. He's violated the confidentiality agreement. He's violated the initial agreement to go on the board. Doesn't this board look like assholes if they basically fall for this again?

• 2:53Scott Galloway?

  I mean, do agreements with this guy mean anything? Would they accept? Would they entertain a lower price?

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, let me say that, you know, I, just because I think the market is awaiting a price cut, quote unquote, offer from him.

• 3:11Scott Galloway?

  Yep.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  I, I think you could also be absolutely correct. He could just have said, like, what the hell did I get myself into here? Am I really going to sacrifice everything I've built in Tesla on the altar of Twitter? Now, I think it's important to note that a lot of people are sort of linking the two stocks together because of the margin loan, which is now six and a half billion dollars that he has, you know, got a commitment for that is tied to his Tesla stock. But that loan does not exist yet, Scott. None of the financing exists yet. Because obviously, like, take the 12 or 13 billion dollar senior secured financing

• 3:56Speaker 01

  that he's proposing for Twitter. Obviously, that loan doesn't exist because he doesn't own the assets yet to pledge them as collateral. So nothing exists on the financing side. So everybody's saying, oh, my God, he must be getting margin calls on his Tesla stock because it's tied to the Twitter. No, none of that's happened yet. Tesla's stock is falling because...

• 4:21Speaker 01

  As we've discussed before, Tesla's stock is like hugely overvalued. Uh, and all of sort of tech land is taking a hit right now. So the fact that it's down forty percent actually does not have anything to do with Twitter. Now, uh, look, he, he played the board in round one like a maestro. Uh, but now he's in a very tough position with the board. Because now the board is going to hold him to account to what he signed. Like you signed a merger agreement with us. With, uh, out, you know, representations and warranties and breakup provisions and things that you can do to get out of it.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Look, and if you want to get out of it, okay, we can litigate, you can pay us a billion dollars, you can do a, a, any number of, of, of other things. Now, having said that, uh, everything is a negotiation, even a signed merger agreement. Uh, and so, uh, if, you know, he hadn't done any due diligence prior to, you know, signing the merger agreement, which is of course, you know, uh, somewhat foolish, but maybe that's the way he felt he should do it. Uh, and now he's quote doing his due diligence and now he's quote, you know, finding things like Bos and he's obviously looking for reasons to cut the price. Now, obviously we all knew fifty-four twenty was like man, I sent from heaven.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Uh, if you're on the board of this company, uh, and I don't know what the line is, Scott, but there's a line for fairness. Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan Chase have done their fairness thing is there's a band of fairness. It's not just a point, it's a band. Where in this band, uh, of fairness, you know, any price cut, uh, uh, might fall is of course the open question. So, look, if he went to fifty, that's still fair. If he went to forty-five, my guess is that would be still fair. Uh, I think that, you know, and it's gotta be something with like four twenty at the end.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  So maybe it needs to be forty-four twenty or something. If it was forty-four twenty, ten bucks less.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  They would still take that Scott, they would be pissed off. A lot of Arabs would be pissed off and probably sue the heck out of him. Although, how do you sue the world's richest guy? Not exactly sure. Uh, you know, a lot of shareholders would be pissed, there'll be shareholder lawsuits. But I think the board would, you know, reluctantly agree to say it's fair. If he becomes a total asshole and tries to do something like in the threes, like where the stock is trading now, then the board's gonna walk away and tell him to go pound sand and the whole thing will blow up. You'll, you'll be right, he'll be, I mean, he is, you know, as we've discussed, I mean, most deal guys would never operate this way. I mean, most people care about their reputation as deal guys would never, they would do the first phase, how we got to the merger agreement.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Everything since the merger agreement has been buffoonery.

• 7:23Scott Galloway?

  So let's talk a little bit about, let's start with Twitter's not value, but market value. So he started acquiring shares in January when the stock was at thirty two bucks. If you look at the peer group, whether it's Snap, whether it's Meta, uh, and their performance, since he started acquiring shares at thirty two bucks, they're off thirty to forty percent, meaning that the, the natural-

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Snap is off seventy percent.

• 7:47Scott Galloway?

  Seventy, I didn't know that. It's off, okay, so, well, let's call it, let's call it, just, let's be generous, that from thirty two bucks, the natural level for Twitter, I think you'd argue, without this exogenous Elon event, would be about twenty bucks right now. And he signed a contract where my understanding is he waived diligence, uh, for fifty four fifty. I can't imagine, I'm sorry, fifty four twenty, excuse me. It, this seems like now it's nothing but a negotiation to reduce the breakup fee.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, Scott, it, it seems like a lifetime ago that he agreed fifty four twenty, but it was April twenty fifth.

• 8:32Scott Galloway?

  Is that right? Isn't that interesting?

• 8:34Speaker 01

  You know, Scott knows his lawyer, uh, his law firm.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Gave Twitter a draft copy of the merger agreement on April 24th. So they turned it around and signed it in a day. Now, the market has had a rough go for the last seven or eight weeks. And in the middle of what was the ongoing rough go, he agreed to pay 5420. So obviously, it was fair. There are people who say, oh, my God. Uh, you know, he, he, you know, he should pay more, you know, it's not fair, you know, there should be now. Microsoft should pay 70. I mean, there's like, nobody coming in to pay more. The other thing is the board of Twitter did not even authorize its bankers to call third-party potential acquirers.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Because either they knew that, uh, nobody would say yes or, or be interested, or, you know, there was such a big advertisement on Twitter, put on Twitter because of all the publicity around Elon's bid, that if anybody was really interested at above 5420, they'd come out of the woodwork. Obviously, no one is interested above 5420. So, um, if I'm the board, I just do what the board says, which was, we intend to enforce the contract that we signed with this guy. Now, that doesn't mean that, as we were talking about, that, you know, if Elon comes back and says, all right, I'll give you 4420,

• 10:10Speaker 01

  which is quite the slap. They know, the board knows, its bankers know, just as you said, that without Elon, it's in the 20s, it's got a two handle. So 4420 still looks pretty good. But at some point, the embarrassment factor, the unfairness factor, the schmuck factor is too much. And they'll, and they'll, they'll, you know, they'll say no, and then he'll have to decide. So then what happens? So I have to decide whether he blinks, as opposed to the board blinks. He'll have to decide whether to pay the billion dollars, or whatever it is that he has to pay to get out of this thing. Uh, and he'll have to decide then whether to slap a tender offer in the paper and go completely hostile at 25 and see who shows up.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Or he just walks away and pretends this never happens. But it's not going to result in Tesla stock going back up, by the way. Because again, the, the margin loan related to Tesla and Twitter does not exist yet.

• 11:07Scott Galloway?

  So let's, let's try and talk about what we think is probably a known known. And that is, he doesn't want to close on this deal at 5420.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:15Scott Galloway?

  And so either does, either wants to close on a much lower price, or he just doesn't want to close at all. He's like, okay, just get me out of here.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:22Scott Galloway?

  Now, let's talk, let's talk about the exit wounds. There is a billion dollar breakup fee, but there's also a specific performance clause, right?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:31Scott Galloway?

  It's, I think Twitter and a Delaware court will make the argument, oh, no, you owe us.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  He has to close.

• 11:38Scott Galloway?

  You have to close. But this goes back to what you said. Can, how, can you force someone to show up with $45 billion? Can you legally enforce that? And if you can't, which I don't think you can, what, is there any precedence for the kind of damages or judgment that he might be looking at?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Deals have been required to be closed via specific performance clauses. That has happened. Okay, that, people have been required to close deals.

• 12:08Scott Galloway?

  Right.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  By the court. Now, I don't think I've ever heard of a deal being required to be closed of this magnitude, where the person on the other side is the world's richest guy. But, I mean, it would be well within the rights of the Twitter board to go to Delaware court and demand that. He's completely conceded all of the power in this relationship to the Twitter board.

• 12:33Scott Galloway?

  But let me, let me ask you this, though. Okay, so I don't think you can physically force someone to show up with 45 billion, but you could technically say, you failed to show up. You owe the company 45 billion. Could that happen?

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Company shareholders, yes. You owe the company shareholders 45 million, yes. He, I mean, I don't, I don't know how they enforce that. I mean, you know, what's the enforcement mechanism? I guess it's.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  I mean, violating a contract, it's a, it's a tort, right? It's a civil lawsuit. I, I, I don't think it's criminal, so they, I don't think they can put him in jail. Uh, they can fine him until he complies, I guess.

• 13:16Scott Galloway?

  Because when I talk to people about this, I said, I, I've heard two viewpoints and that is Scott, there's precedent for organizations walking from deals in 2008. A lot of very name brand, private equity firms, the market, they agreed, they signed a merger agreement or a purchase agreement. The market changed substantially and they started saying, oh no, something's changed, material average condition, whatever it is, force majeure and we're out.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:41Scott Galloway?

  And they had to pay a price. It was a negotiation. They had to pay breakup fees, but they weren't on the hook for the full purchase amount now. And so I've had people say, there's precedent for this. He'll pay something, but it won't be anything near the $45 billion. And all of this is the beginning of that negotiation. And then I've had other people say, actually Scott, since then, because of that, these agreements have become more airtight and that he effectively signed what is a hermetically sealed agreement where the lawyers for Twitter, who are $1,200 an hour lawyers, said, we're gonna button this thing up like no fucking tomorrow. According to the people I know said this agreement is gonna go down as one of the

• 14:23Scott Galloway?

  most airtight agreements in history, where they probably screwed up was the breakup fee because that's kind of, that's a key point in the negotiation. But it strikes me, and again, I, I don't know Delaware court, uh, uh, legal history here, but we're in uncharted territory. I've never seen anything like, I started as an investment banker like you. I've never seen anything remotely similar to this. And it goes to a whole host of societal issues where these individuals not only think, but have real evidence that they can behave, the rules don't apply to them, that they can just do shit no one else has been able to do before. Do you think there's a, and this might be me projecting, do you think a Delaware court might say, you know what?

• 15:06Scott Galloway?

  This notion that people don't have to live up to agreements is dangerous for a lot of reasons. I was thinking of a scenario here where Apple says, we're gonna buy Netflix, it's cheap. Netflix is, this overnight is gonna cement us as the premier media company in the world. And then Zuckerberg goes, you know what? I can't, I hate Apple. I hate Tim Cook. I can't let this happen. Outbid them. And they go, what? Would we really pay that much? I don't care. Just outbid them. Get them to sign a contract. And in six or nine months, maybe we close, maybe we don't. And if it costs us a billion, two billion, five billion dollars, Elon did it, he walked. Who cares? We kept it out of the hands of Apple. You could end up with a series of just false flags and head fakes in M and A, which would be bad for shareholders,

• 15:49Scott Galloway?

  bad for rule of law. Is this where, is this where potentially Delaware courts take a stand and say, boss, agreements are agreements. And we're going to hit you hard here if you decide to violate this agreement? Or is this me with my emotions getting out ahead of me?

• 16:05Speaker 01

  I think at moments like this, thinking about how a court would set a precedent, or what the lawsuit would look like, or what the, you know, going, going to the, going to the mattress here legally, my gut tells me that we're going to have a practical solution, not a legal solution. So what is the practical solution? Okay. If you're right, and he doesn't really want to own this thing, and it was just a foolish lark, then, I mean, is the remedy that he just pays the billion dollars and walks away, or pays five billion and walks away? Whatever it is that they have to get him to do, you know, to wrap it all up in

• 16:50Speaker 01

  a nice bow. And, and, you know, that's happened. People have walked away from deals lots of times. You know, especially when the markets got rough. You know, I don't know what he's going to claim. I'm sure they can claim something. You know, one of the things he can claim, Scott, is, you know, he's got the senior secured debt committed. He's got the marginal, you know, he increased the size of the equity hole from 21 to 27 and a half. You know, and then he announced that he had 7.1% of what I call the eclectic 18 who are putting money in. Then he got Prince Al-Waleed to roll over his 2 billion. Elon can roll over his 4 billion, at least at 5420. He's asked Jack to roll over, but Jack hasn't said he will yet.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  If I were Jack, I'd take that money and run. So, but if you do all that math, the 27 and a half billion dollar equity hole is still about 14 billion, which he hasn't explained yet. Now, that is, I can't get my equity financing. That's my out. I can't get it. I'm sorry, I've tried, I can't get it. My Tesla stock is tied up. So, he has, he has outs. It's, forget the bot thing. The bot thing is so stupid, it's not even worth talking about. Can he get the financing? It's possible that, you know, the senior debt holders, the senior banks who committed to the bank financing might get squeamish.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  It's possible that Morgan Stanley at all, who committed to the, to the margin loan would get squeamish, but I don't see that happening because he reduced the margin loan in half. So, I'm not sure that's gonna be out. But the equity hole of 14 billion is legit and real, and he hasn't come up in the last couple of weeks with any more investors here. And I, but believe me, wouldn't surprise me if no one wanted to get near the equity of this thing. I think that my gut tells me we're not gonna create precedent in Delaware, although I agree with you that all sorts of bad things could happen if Elon isn't, is just allowed to slither away. Just like a lot of bad things have happened, frankly, in my mind, because Trump has been allowed to slither away.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  I, in one column, I equated Trump and Elon in terms of the way they do deals. I mean, Trump is a pariah on Wall Street. He's never been held accountable for all the things he did wrong. Elon, if he screws this up and does some of the things you talked about, he will become a pariah on Wall Street. I don't think Elon can frankly afford to become a pariah on Wall Street. He's got his wealth tied up in Tesla, which is a whatever, 800 billion dollar company now. If Wall Street, if that, you know, a rah rah, a Wall Street rah rah is over, that's gonna really hurt him.

• 19:38Scott Galloway?

  We'll be right back.

• 19:43Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Bilt. Most of us work hard to earn our keep, but usually there's no one around to hand you a cookie when you successfully pay your monthly housing bill. No one except Bilt, that is. Bilt has expanded from their original rental rewards program, and they have a lot more going on for members now. For example, members can earn points on mortgage payments, too. Every housing payment gets you points that get you a lot more than baked goods, such as flights with top travel partners, including United and Hyatt, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and much, much more. Here's another benefit of Bilt membership. You also get access to what they call a neighborhood concierge. You can make restaurant reservations, book fitness classes, and find new local spots, all while rewarding you at more than 45,000 merchant partners. It's simple. Being a renter and now owning a home feels a lot better with Bilt.

• 20:28Scott Galloway?

  You can download the Bilt app and join the membership for where you live at joinbilt.com/profg. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com/profg. Use our link so they know we sent you.

• 20:43Scott Galloway?

  Support for the show comes from Vanta. As AI adoption grows, so does your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but your team isn't getting any bigger. Most compliance tools promise automation, but you're really stuck doing all the work by hand, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently. The regentic trust platform is built to scale with you, not slow you down. With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round, cutting your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools including Claude or Cursor. Want proof?

• 21:27Scott Galloway?

  Over 16,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp, Ryder, and Harvey save time and resources while scaling fast with Vanta. Learn more at vanta.com/profg and get $1,000 off. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A dot com slash prop G for $1,000 off.

• 21:50Scott Galloway?

  So let's, let's break down. So first off, it does sound as if he can make a credible claim to a Delaware court that he couldn't get the financing, that that is a satisfactory condition of not closing.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he, he is said, you know, he, I'm going to have 27 and a half billion dollars of equity financing here. That's a lot. It's a lot.

• 22:12Scott Galloway?

  But let's break it, let's break it down because it's not all created equally. The, the 12 or the 14 billion dollars in senior secured debt financing, he can get that because the lenders go, look, for whatever Twitter's failings are, it's worth 12 or 14 billion dollars. We'll loan because if he defaults, we'll take control of the company.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  That'll be secured debt, secured based on the assets of Twitter. I don't know what the hell the assets of Twitter are, but wherever they are, they're all.

• 22:41Scott Galloway?

  It is a company that does a billion dollars in EBITDA and there's a bunch of people out there that claim it's worth a lot more. Anyway, so, so I can see how he's lined up the debt financing. On the equity side, the senior debt finance, excuse me, on the equity side, I don't think anybody other than a few VC funds who will put 50 or 100 million in just to cozy up to Elon for future deals are not calling him and saying, hey, FYI, I'm not down any longer with going in at 5450 on a company that looks like it'd be worth in the 20s right now. That just makes no sense. You can agree that the world has changed and you know, I won't say anything publicly, but I'm out for the equity side

• 23:23Scott Galloway?

  of this. Now that should, if you will, trigger his, give him a ripcord to pull and say to a judge, I couldn't raise the equity financing. But if he's worth, if he's got 150 billion dollars in Tesla stock, can the judge then say, boss, you may not want to show up with this money, but you're capable of it. So I'm holding you. To this purchase agreement because you are capable of raising this equity just by selling Tesla stock. That may be bad for Tesla. That may be a lack of diversification or a bad business decision you don't want to make financially, but you are absolutely capable of showing up with this equity. Could they make that argument?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  I'm certain that they could make that argument. You know, what we don't know about Elon and his personal balance sheet is what other cockamamie things he's done.

• 24:16Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, has he committed it? Yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, is it already committed? I mean, I have no idea how he's funded SpaceX. I mean, and there's been a lot of capital put into SpaceX. Let's not kid ourselves. And by the way, what he's done with SpaceX is pretty amazing.

• 24:32Scott Galloway?

  Extraordinary.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Getting those rockets to land on the platform.

• 24:35Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I think it's gonna be worth more than Tesla.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 24:38Scott Galloway?

  For a lot of reasons.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  And I have no idea how we finance that. So what we don't know is what the rest of his, how he's pledged that Tesla stock, is it even free to be used as collateral to, for more equity? All that he's said on the equity side here is, I'm going to show up with 27 and a half billion dollars. He, he showed up with like 13 and a half billion so far, and that includes his stock that he would roll over. So he's got 14 billion to, um, to come up with. The 7.1 is the eclectic 18, and that's just like, okay, you know, Larry Ellison saying, sure Elon, uh, you know, I'll write you a check,

• 25:22Speaker 01

  you know, if this thing ever closes from my foundation, but that could easily be pulled. Any of those could be pulled. You know, I don't think any of those will pull. I don't know. I don't know half of them. Uh, what I find so interesting about that eclectic 18 is that none of them are private equity firms, you know, there's like this, there's no Blackstone, there's no Apollo, there's no TPG, there's no KKR. That's like a whole group of, you know, deep, dry powder, deep pocketed equity players that is just like said.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  NFW. And, and, and by the way, I don't blame him because as you just said, you know, we can be generous. We can say Twitter is going to do a billion dollars of EBITDA. You know, that's being generous. So 44 times EBITDA. That's what he's proposed here. Forty-four times EBITDA. You know, I, I think, uh, while private equity deals have gotten really out of control in terms of valuations in the last few years, it's, you know, maxed out at like 11 and 12 times EBITDA. That's maxed out. Used to be six, seven, eight times EBITDA now because of the cheap financing and everybody's got so much money. 11 and 12 times EBITDA, whatever they can make their

• 26:34Speaker 01

  IRRs. Forty-four? That's a totally different zip code. So I don't see any private equity firms coming into this unless they want to be friends of Elon. Does anybody want to be friends of Elon? Does Steve Schwarzman want to be friends with Elon? I don't think so. The bottom line is if he's looking for an out, we both know he's going to find one. And, and, and no one's going to challenge him legally on it. They may say, okay, instead of a $1 billion breakup fee, pay us $3 billion. Okay. Uh, now, if he

• 27:04Scott Galloway?

  You don't take, I, I, let me just push pause there. Now granted, I'm emotional, but I've been on a lot of public company boards. Yeah, thank you, Bill. Uh, I would be like, oh no, we're gonna, we're gonna hit this bitch hard. We're gonna go, uh, my attitude right now would be, we're closing, we'll see it closing. We're hoping to see on closing. And if we don't see on closing, we know we'll see you in a Delaware court. And our starting position is you owe us $45 billion. That's the agreement. You have the money. This will be our case. And at this point, we're not settling for 44. That's, that's how I would approach this on the board. Cause when I think about the damage here, Bill, I

• 27:43Scott Galloway?

  mean, I feel as if he has basically laid bare that Twitter is worth a lot less than it is. No one would come in, no other bidders. You were right. I thought there'd be other bidders. There weren't. An enormous distraction to the company. Shitposting everywhere. My guess is it's gotta be chaos among senior management. Do I want to work for this guy? What happens to my job? I'm going to start returning the calls of headhunters looking to, to, that are offering me jobs that I haven't taken for 10 years, much to the detriment of my family's economic security. I'm out. I am punching out and and Parag feels like he can't say anything.

• 28:24Scott Galloway?

  This guy, and I've said this all along and again, I have a bias against Elon because he calls me names on Twitter. But he brings volatility, not value to his side hustles. He has literally been an agent of chaos here. I mean, there might be a good thing that might come from it is if they actually address the bot issue. I've always said it's a huge problem. He's the one that benefits from the bots. The bots that attack me, I'll have Tesla and their bios. And his his bots have unnaturally, in my view, elevated the price of Tesla stock by creating this narrative that Tesla is this amazing energy company that's solving climate change. This feels like it has all sorts of what I would call societal and M and A and corporate rule of law and rule of fair play overlay.

• 29:07Scott Galloway?

  So to wrap up here, you think kind of, it sounds to me like kind of possibly a lower number. You think in the fours, the board would accept it, hum and ha, but then accept it. Anything lower than that, they walk. And it's going to be a negotiation over a breakup fee, but you don't think it's going to be a game changing judgment against him that he'll probably get away with. I don't know, a fairly expensive rap on the knuckles, but it won't be anything sort of precedent setting.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  We're not, it's not going to be a transcendent. It's not going to be like the Revlon decision from 1986. It's not going to be a transcendent, illegal battle because because even though if you were on the Twitter board, Scott, and I have no doubt that you would be vocal and you would say these things. Okay, then what would happen?

• 29:57Scott Galloway?

  Put me in a corner.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  I'll tell you what would happen. What would happen is is what always happens. Then Wilson Sonsini and Simpson Thatcher, Twitter's two law firms would say, Scott.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  You're right to be emotional, you're you're right on the business points. You're probably even right on the legal points. But, okay. Do we really want to go down this path of of of scorched earth? Legal battle with the world's richest guy? And then all your other board members will all talk about it, will hash about it. We'll have executive sessions about it. Everybody will talk about it and think of sleep on it. Sleep on it, we'll come back tomorrow and then cooler heads, cooler heads will prevail. Scott, and the practical solution will be, let's try to either get the best new deal for our shareholders that we can get.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Or if he doesn't want to go that route, or he's going to be a real jackass about it. Then, you know, for hell with that. Let's just get a better, let's get five billion out of him. And he can walk away, we can have five billion more that we could use for who knows what at Twitter and run this company as a public company. Take our lumps along with all of our brethren like Snap and Meta and everybody else. And in trade in the twenties, yes, there'll be shareholder lawsuits. But I don't think the shareholder lawsuits are going to be directed to the Twitter board. I think the shareholder lawsuits are going to be directed to Elon Musk. And who knows how that's going to play out. But he'll, you know, he always manages to wiggle out.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  And then they'll they'll go on and they'll, you know, Twitter will be quote unquote, fine. Elon will have completely eviscerated his reputation on Wall Street. And what the implications of that are for Tesla, SpaceX and the boring company. And anything else cockamamie that he wants to do. Well, we'll we'll have to watch and see what happens.

• 31:58Scott Galloway?

  Yeah, I think the I think the good money is on the viewpoint for the guy with the hair. I Bill, just when you say that, you just sound infinitely reasonable and practical. And I'm I'm neither of those things. Bill Cohen is an author and the founding partner, a founding member, partner, journalist of Puck. And has kind of been the go to on the Elon Twitter drama. Uh, Bill, I really, I I love speaking to you. You you're both insightful and civil. And I love how you're able to encapsulate both sides of the argument and make a what feels like an infinitely reasonable. I don't know. Every time you say something, even though I want to disagree, I find myself just nodding my head and going, you know, that just makes a lot of sense. Bill, thanks for your time. Thank you, Scott.

• 32:42Scott Galloway?

  Always a pleasure to be on with you, truly.