Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, also known as Mr. Wonderful, doesn’t mind telling it like it is and saying the harsh part out loud – that’s why they call him Mr. Wonderful.
This week, O’Leary did not hold back when he was asked about Elon Musk’s bid to purchase Twitter, slamming the company’s board for being completely inept and announcing his support for the Tesla founder to take over the social media platform so its shareholders can finally start to see a profit after a decade-plus of stagnant stock prices.
According to O’Leary, the entire Twitter board should be fired immediately and changes are drastically needed because the company has been the “most miserable investment” in the tech market, and it’s directly related to their woke censorship practices, to boot.
From O’Leary’s appearance on MSNBC’s Squawk Box this week:
“It’s horrific what this company has done to their shareholders. I weep like a baby for them. I wouldn’t touch this stock. However, if Elon Musk gave me a piece of the deal … I’d back him because of executional performance on everything he touches.
The rest of this board and those employees have done a horrifically bad job. I think they should be fired.”
In other words, as Mr. Wonderful frequently puts it, “take this thing behind the barn and shoot it.”
That is… unless Musk steps in and takes over the reins. He may be the only person who can right this sinking ship, according to the billionaire investor. After all, the Twitter board as it sits now has had almost 10 years to make a profit, so it’s time to go.
The company’s stock value has only risen minimally since its introduction in 2013. At the close of markets last week, Twitter’s stock was at 45.08, less than $4 above its initial price of $41.65 – which is abysmal growth over nearly a decade, especially in tech.
O’Leary continued:
“This is the most miserable investment you could have put your dollars into in social media. It has totally lagged all its other competitors… [The reason] this thing has underperformed is [because] they’ve tried to do this curation by canceling voices and losing millions of followers.”
The best way to look at this is, you gave them a decade, why not get the whacking stick out and just start all over again? And that’s what Elon Musk is proposing.
“The biggest risk for shareholders here – whether you believe in the free speech issue or not – is if Musk goes away, then they’re back in the same miserable place they are now… When you start to try and figure out who should have a voice and who shouldn’t, you’re stepping on the basic principles of free speech in America – and that really doesn’t sit well with a majority of the population.”
The mention of free speech triggered MSNBC host Andrew Sorkin, who at this point pushed back on O’Leary’s favorable view of these principles. In defense of Twitter’s censorship tactics, Sorkin pushed for Twitter’s current status quo because it blocks material like pornography, conveniently ignoring the real issue at hand – which is the censorship of dissenting thought and so-called “misinformation.”
O’Leary, to his credit, doubled down in favor of the first amendment, telling the uptight, virtue-signaling Sorkin to “get over that” tyrannical anti-free speech thought process.
“The cost of free speech, the cost to society, is allowing the lunatic fringe to have a voice, and that’s always been the case – back to when they were writing newspapers by hand. You gotta get over that, Andrew.”
Boom.
Watch:
Any way you slice it, Musk taking over Twitter would be for the better.