All right, all right! I’m no threat to Elon’s bid. I’m only buying ten shares but I AM buying Twitter! Per my last post, this is to support Elon’s efforts but also to make a point. WE the People should NOT be looking for another savior. (Jesus the Messiah is my Lord and Savior, I need no other.)
Now, while I would love to see others follow suit and buy a few shares of Twitter – you only need to buy one share to become a shareholder – this probably won’t happen. Why? I hate to be this blunt but because most of my fellow citizens are far too used to sitting in front of their monitors/cell phones whatever and whining. I have no doubt most anyone capable of reading this is also able to cough up the $50 more or less to buy a share of stock. As a matter of fact I’ll show you how you can do it without paying a nickel in commissions. (There are other fees and such that may apply, I don’t know, this is murky territory and it appears our beloved government has their sticky fingers all over our pockets – again.) It’s not hard. You can do it on a smart phone and, if you play your cards right, you might even end up a few dollars ahead, even after the greedmongers devour their “share”.
Now, let me be up front about this – the link I provide will be a referral link, meaning I stand to get a few shares of some unknown stocks by sending you to this broker. How many or what it is all worth, I don’t know. What I do know is you can do the same – grab a referral link after you sign up and send some folks to the broker too.
The broker is Webull and here is their current offer.
LIMITED TIME OFFER: Get 5 FREE stocks valued up to $9,600 by opening & funding a #Webull brokerage account! Get started > https://a.webull.com/ga6te3G5921n4f3kfb
It only took a few minutes to set things up. It’s a lot like opening an online bank account so you’ll need all the standard information you’d need for that. You don’t need to fund the account to get your first two shares of stock but for the other three you do. But since you are buying Twitter stock, you’ll need to fund it anyway. Now, if you already deal with a major bank, your account will likely be verified immediately. I deal with a small local back so it took a day longer for them to deposit a few nickels into my account (more FREE money – YEAH!) and for me to tell them the amounts.
Long story short – for $100 out of pocket you can buy TWO shares of Twitter and be a bona-fide stockholder. Big deal… right? Actually, it is a bigger deal than you might think.
First, consider the poison pill scenario. The honchos at Twitter are considering invoking a strategy to stop Elon from buying the company. They’ve even said they’d rather crash the company then let him buy it. Whoa there Nelly! Wait just a gol darn minute. Just because YOU don’t like the idea, crashing the company, MY company (or my piece of it anyway) is an abdication of your fiduciary responsibility. In other words, they are legally, ethically and morally required to act in the best interests of us shareholders and guess what? Anybody with an IQ bigger than their shoe size can understand crashing the company is NOT in the best interest in the shareholders. We are talking legal action here. But that’s not all.
What if Elon simply walks away? What if he says the heck with the whole idea and dumps his shares? Well, first of all, you can expect the stock to drop like a rock. Us shareholders will lose some money. Okay. Fine. I understand this, but there is something else, a very, very serious issue that, so far, has not been addressed. This glaring issue predates this whole Elon Musk thing by far. What is it?
Twitter is breaking the law. Yep. That’s right. (Now take this with a grain of salt – I am not a lawyer and this is not to be considered legal advice – it is an observation based on what I’ve garnered as a citizen.) You see, as a social media platform, by federal law, they are insulated from being sued for libel, defamation, etc. as they are supposedly providing a platform for free speech. But they are not. Not at all. In fact, they are quashing free speech. In effect they’ve turned the company from a social medial platform to a publisher. As such they’ve potentially opened the company up for potential legal action. As I said, I’m no lawyer but I’m sure there are some savvy legal minds out there who could make some hay with all this. As shareholders, we can sue on this issue too.
Guess what? These same principles apply to other social media platforms as well. The best part is we, as shareholders, need not depend on any government official to take action. Shareholders have rights. Among those rights is the right to hold the company we are part owners of accountable.
Note here. I hate it when someone posts something and the deletes it without explanation so I won’t do that here. Without direct knowledge the above was posted concerning, I think, Section 230 of the Federal Code. Others and stated and I took them at their word, this law allows for free speech by insulating the platform from legal action. Well, my layman’s reading of the code confirms the platforms are insulated from legal action but it essentially gives them carte blanche to “edit out” free speech and protects them from legal action for that. Leave it to the politicians to muck things up.
While this ill-constructed legislation does NOT protect citizens AT ALL (by my calculations) this doesn’t mean shareholders have no pull. It just means we will need to find another way. Meanwhile, we’ll need to work on getting this fixed. It is not the platforms per se that need protection – at least not THIS protection. The end all should be to protect free speech. Period.
Okay, so depending on how things play out, my next move is uncertain. I may decided to go ahead with my purchase of FnBook. I will probably only buy a single share but a shareholder is a shareholder, with all the rights and privileges that come with that class of share. (Different classes, such as common and preferred, have different rights. Usually, common shareholders have voting rights, for instance.) As a shareholder, I will keep an eye on things from a different perspective. While I do not plan on personally suing anyone, I may well join a suit should one be filed. I may find it necessary to start asking questions and requesting information I am entitled to as a shareholder. I may band together with other shareholders – with or without a common interest. By this I mean, I content ALL shareholders should have a say – for you Twitter honchos, this is one of the principles of free speech. People can say things whether I, or anyone else for that matter, agree with them or not. I may send Elon my proxy votes. I may not.
Here’s an interesting thing. Twitter headquarters is in San Francisco. If they have a vote, I have a right to participate. Now, I’ll have to check this with my tax expert but I’m pretty sure I could go to San Francisco to vote and write off the entire expense as a tax deduction. My further understanding comes with a couple of caveats. First, one must have enough write-offs (total) to make it worthwhile. These days the “standard deduction” is pretty high so it likely wouldn’t be worth it for me. Next, is I’m not sure if there is a limit to how much anyone could actually write off. Take gambling, for example. My understanding is gambling losses can only be written off against gambling winnings. Thus, if you spend $20,000 to win $500, well you can only write off the $500. You’ll eat the other $19,500. The bottom line is basically the same as always – never underestimate the greed of a politician (or in this case, the politicians’ minions). Like I said, ask your tax professional but under certain circumstances, some folks could offset at least part of the cost of a trip to say, San Francisco.
The Bottom Line
What have you got to lose? If you bought ten shares of Twitter like me, then maybe $500 +/-. Chances are you wouldn’t lose ALL of that because even Twitter is worth something even if they crash and burn. Heck if they run the stock price down to $0.02 per share I’ll spend another $500 and buy another 25,000 shares.
The upside is you took action. You did something. Sure, maybe we won’t change the world but how do you know you won’t? Or at least you are not a part of it. Look, back in February I posted about buying Fnbook. It was somewhat tongue in cheek but not entirely. Did my post have any impact Elon Musk? It is highly doubtful, but what if it did? What if someone read my post (Hey! It happens! Really!) and through a series of wild convolutions, some germ of the idea somehow reached Elon Musk? I doubt anyone will ever know for sure. All I can say is I write what I write, I do what I do and maybe, just maybe, some good will come of it. What about you?
At the very least check out Webull. Again their offer is below.
LIMITED TIME OFFER: Get 5 FREE stocks valued up to $9,600 by opening & funding a #Webull brokerage account! Get started > https://a.webull.com/ga6te3G5921n4f3kfb
And again, this is a referral link so yes, I do stand to profit. (Yet another government agency, the FTC, I think, or maybe the FCC, requires me to disclose such things.)