‘Like Throwing Money Down a Hole’: Kara Swisher Breaks Down Elon Musk’s Chaotic Bid to Take Over Twitter

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Kara Swisher thinks — well, knows — that Elon Musk is having second thoughts about buying Twitter for $44 billion.

“He has to be. This price is too high,” she told me on the latest episode of The Interview. “This is not worth $54 a share. It’s crazy. It’s like throwing money down a hole.”

That doesn’t mean the acquisition is over. Swisher said Musk might have another idea: reprice the bid.

“He should walk away, pay the billion-dollar breakup fee and then wait until it declines. He could pick it up for $15 billion versus $45 billion. That’s a nice savings. There’s a lot you can do with $30 billion.”

Walking away from the deal might not be easy. Either way, Musk is certainly taking a hard look at his bid of $54.20 per share.

Swisher knows Musk better than most. The New York Times writer and host of the wildly popular Sway podcast has known the Tesla CEO for decades, and has interviewed him at length multiple times.

She was one of the first reporters on the internet beat in the 1990s, covering the boom from the Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau. She went on to co-found Recode and has interviewed some of the biggest names in tech, media and politics — including Mark Zuckerberg, Rupert Murdoch and Barack Obama.

Swisher has not spoken to Musk recently, and describes their relationship as “up and down.”

“We’ve had beefs,” she said. “He hasn’t returned my emails. He usually does. He’s talking to right-wing people. He’s friends with Mike Cernovich. Good for him. He’s making new friends. I don’t care. I have four children, I don’t need Elon Musk.”

Despite their tumultuous relationship, Swisher likes Musk, who she describes as “very funny,” “brilliant,” and “a whole lot smarter than Peter Thiel.”

I spoke to Swisher on Thursday afternoon, the day before Musk said he was putting his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter “on hold” as he seeks more information on the amount of spam and fake accounts on the platform. (It remains unclear what “on hold” means, given Musk already signed a contract to buy Twitter.) A few hours later, he maintained he was still “committed” to the acquisition. Who knows what he’s really thinking (except maybe Kara Swisher).

Musk has pledged to “unlock” the potential of Twitter and rid the platform of content moderation policies he says have stifled free speech. He hasn’t offered much in the way of specifics for how he’ll go about doing that, and critics have pointed out that Twitter has tried out, or already has in place, many of the ideas Musk has floated.

“I don’t think he has any idea what he’s talking about,” Swisher said. “Honestly, I think he’s just saying things. It’s like me saying things. I don’t think he knows what they’ve done.”

In this sense, Swisher said Musk reminds her of a certain politician who ran for office making broad declarations that he would fix America’s problems — without offering any specifics. But she also pointed out the differences between that politician and Musk.

“Trump has made no good businesses. He’s a terrible businessperson and has a spate of shitty businesses that he’s dragged behind him for years. The only thing he’s good at is running his mouth, which made him president. Fine. But Elon Musk is a very successful and innovative business person who has created really valuable businesses. So he gets to be an obnoxious whatever, so and so, if he wants to be, as far as I’m concerned.”

Swisher also thinks the alarm from many liberals about what a Musk takeover means for Twitter is overblown.

“The current owners of Twitter include the Saudis. If I could go through the owners of Twitter right now, you might not like them much either,” she said. “I think they’re over-indexing on what Twitter means and the impact it has. I think it’s a very small operation. It’s a shitty business. It’s only used by 20% of Americans and even less so abroad.”

As for how to reconciles Musk’s brilliance with some of the more inane controversies he wades into, Swisher said the world’s richest man “contains multitudes.”

“Some of it is really juvenile, and some of it is quite brilliant. I always say, go back and read a biography of Thomas Edison — what an asshole,” she said. “Also brilliant. And by the way, many people think Elon’s an asshole, I do not. He can say some unfortunate things. He lives out loud.”

Download the full episode here, and subscribe to The Interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Read more coverage of The Interview on Mediaite.

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