Wait, aren't you aware of the "It's not illegal if a billionaire does it" rule?

Billionaire or not, what is illegal in his move ?

That is a great question and I wonder the same thing.

"I am going to dump 1/10th of the company that I very publicly acquired if they don't do what I want them to do" feels like manipulation since he's controlling the value of such a large amount of it.

But is it illegal to be willing to lose money if a threat isn't met?

Furthermore, would it be illegal for him to dump his shares, allow the trajectory to tank the price further, then rebuy when it bottoms, rinse and repeat?

It’s not illegal to say “I want to buy more shares at what I believe to be a generous price. If the board won’t sell me these shares, I don’t trust the judgement of the board and will subsequently sell my existing shares.”

That's called a hostile takeover. Part of being a public company.

No, you are allowed to sell your shares if you don't want them anymore.

How? The laws absolutely allow for hostile takeovers. If Twitter gets to determine what to censor because it's a corporation, well, they get to get bought like one too.

The mental gymnastics going on in this thread is crazy.

Let's separate two concerns:

1) Belief system – whether you philosophically support Elon's take over or not

2) Objective facts, corporate finance and legal aspects of what's going on

All I can see in this thread is 1) masquerading as 2).

>All I can see in this thread is 1) masquerading as 2).

Indeed. One would have hoped that Hacker News would be immune from Reddit/Twitter-style "Anything I don't like is illegal/unconstitutional", but apparently not.

"Someone buying up shares of a company before he announces a hostile takeover is inside information and thus illegal!" Good grief.

Depends if the offer is made in good faith. If not, this would really look like market manipulation.

No it's not.