D&D General Elon Musk Wants To Know 'How Much Is Hasbro?'

Following the richest man in the world's attack on Wizards of the Coast for two paragraphs in the 500-page celebration of D&D, The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977, Elon Musk--who bought Twitter not that long ago--wants to know how much D&D's owner Hasbro would cost.

After the public sharing on Twitter of Jason Tondro's (who wrote the book’s foreword) private Facebook posts, Musk replied "How much is Hasbro?"

Hasbro's estimated capitalization is currently $8.71 billion, with $3.95 billion of debt.

It was on 21st December 2017 when Musk similarly enquired "How much is it?" before proceeding to make a bid for Twitter. He later tried to back out of the deal, but was forced to buy the platform for $44 billion in June 2022. Current estimates by investment firm Fidelity put the platform at a value 80% less than when he bought it, with a worth of only about $9.4 billion.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

And Magic The Gathering, still them most profitable of Hasbro's divisions.

D&D maker continues to lean on MTG and Baldur’s Gate 3 during 2024's “turnaround” phase

Hasbro will continue to lean on Monopoly Go, MTG and Baldur's Gate to keep its financials afloat through 2024's "turnaround" period.

www.dicebreaker.com

MtG is not it's own division, WotC is, MtG is a studio within that division, like D&D, Archetype Studios, Skeleton Key, Invoke, Atomic Arcade etc...

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Maybe he will pull a Crassus.

Who will make him drink a cup of gold though?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Who will make him drink a cup of gold though?

King Midas himself, hallucinated via the aid of psilocybin.

 

[Distracted DM]

MtG is not it's own division, WotC is, MtG is a studio within that division, like D&D, Archetype Studios, Skeleton Key, Invoke, Atomic Arcade etc..

I'm definitely ignorant here, isn't WotC a subsidiary? Are division and subsidiary interchangeable?

But yeah, WotC is Hasbro's money-maker, and MtG is WotC's money-maker. WotC is like, what, 70% of Hasbro's worth? As I recall it's why the question of splitting WotC from Hasbro on the exchange came up a few years ago, and since then Hasbro has been taking a very active hand in deciding WotC's leadership, so they can prove they're integral to WotC's operations. Hasbro's value itself would tank if separated from WotC.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I think folks are going overboard on the panick, you'd think Musk had said he was going to ban women and minority from the game, which he has not, anyone can buy a Tesla and there are still transfolks on twitter. It's more likely he just fires Tondo for baiting him and puts Kuntz in charge of D&D. Kuntz has skills so that's not too bad in my opinion and is more likely to respect canon. Maybe he also pulls trigger warnings off of older products.

Folks imaginations of Musk owning Hasbro have gone wild.

D&D is a very different medium then twitter, it's not opinion, debate driven, it's just a series of fantasy settings and rules.

 

[Corinnguard]

Because if you pretend Musk doesn't exist he'll magically cease to exist? He's some weird quantum experiment. Unless we all are?

This isn't too different than throwing a towel of your head and hoping that a certain monster from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy doesn't see you.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm definitely ignorant here, isn't WotC a subsidiary? Are division and subsidiary interchangeable?

But yeah, WotC is Hasbro's money-maker, and MtG is WotC's money-maker. WotC is like, what, 70% of Hasbro's worth? As I recall it's why the question of splitting WotC from Hasbro on the exchange came up a few years ago, and since then Hasbro has been taking a very active hand in deciding WotC's leadership, so they can prove they're integral to WotC's operations. Hasbro's value itself would tank if separated from WotC.

WotC got promoted from Subsidiary to full on Division of Hasbro when WotC became what was keeping Hasbro afloat.

 

[Nikosandros]

BTW, it's Jason TondRo.

 

[Corinnguard]

WotC got promoted from Subsidiary to full on Division of Hasbro when WotC became what was keeping Hasbro afloat.

If Hasbro was the Titanic and Elon Musk was the iceberg that would sink it, I don't think WoTC would be enough to keep it afloat.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think folks are going overboard on the panick, you'd think Musk had said he was going to ban women and minority from the game, which he has not, anyone can buy a Tesla and there are still transfolks on twitter.

LOL dude, he literally changed the rules of Twitter to make it so that you can harass and demean and say horrific things to trans people, and no longer enforces rules against misogyny except where they're going to get Twitter into legal trouble in the relevant country (i.e. some rape threats are ignored, some are acted against). He backed off slightly only because multiple countries were about to ban Twitter for being intentionally non-compliant with their internet regulation.

Don't pretend he wouldn't ban trans people or the like if he could do it without Twitter simply getting hard-shutdown in a bunch of countries. Even here on TERF Island (Britain), with our very TERF-friendly government, that sort of blatant discrimination wouldn't fly.

His latest thing is literally threatening individual bureaucrats with being fired and with the implication his followers should hurt and harass them, and threatening to execute people when he gets into power (which he's not going to do lol, fortunately, his ridiculous playpen of a department is purely advisory). This is not a stable, reasonable, or predictable individual.

It's more likely he just fires Tondo for baiting him and puts Kuntz in charge of D&D. Kuntz has skills so that's not too bad in my opinion and is more likely to respect canon. Maybe he also pulls trigger warnings off of older products.

He has no real idea who those people are, nor does he even know about the warnings re: older products. That you think he does is a little strange and shows a lack of familiarity with his tourism. I'd be shocked if he was even familiar with 5E's actual rules. Like, could he tell you what Proficiency Bonus was without looking it up (not the precise number for a level even, the general concept)? Almost certainly not.