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How Elon Can Get That $40B

Elon Musk
Photo by Hannibal Hanschke-Pool/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
April 20, 2022

I was speaking the other day with a billionaire hedge fund manager, one of the dozen or so most powerful people on Wall Street, to get some fresh insight into the ongoing Elon Musk-Twitter hostage negotiation. Was it real, as I’ve contended, or was it all bullshit, as many others have suggested? “I love it,” he said. “I think it’s great.” 

This investor went on to say that the offer was a great boost for activist investing, which he feared might have been proclaimed dead “prematurely” what with Bill Ackman’s recent pronouncement that he was pretty much abandoning the activist approach to investing, in favor of investing in great companies and sticking with them for the long haul, like his hero, Warren Buffett. “This is actually a really good time for real, old-school activism,” he added, surmising that Elon is surely enjoying the mountain of attention he’s getting from making an offer for Twitter. “I’ve observed it in myself,” he continued, “like the dopamine receptors and the neurological response that you get from it. I’m sure he’s getting a rush out of it. And probably, when you get to his stage”—meaning his level of extreme wealth—“anything that gives you that kind of stimulation” is exciting.