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.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes. Not a death threat, just a "On the list of people I wouldn't be unhappy if they dropped dead" sort of thing. There's been some really big emotions among these four topics about Elon Musk. All triggered by what truly was a silly Tweet.

Zard has it right. Crack a beer. This is not a serious issue. Worth talking about on a slow news night, sure. But not a serious topic.

Cracked another one. Then ran out of delicious Lithuanian beer.

 

[mamba]

I'm taking it too seriously when everyone is freaking out (a couple wishing death on someone) because a troll said "How much is Hasbro?"

you are taking the Mars thing too seriously, as to the rest, no idea, you did not say much on it afaik

Given you replied to this, the odds are that you do though

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, if he wanted to get to Mars, he'd be looking into actual technologies to help survive on Mars rather than depend on an eight grader's reading of Neuromancer and a tenth grader's viewing of Total Recall to just assume other people will get that on lock.

Like, food production, contained living spaces, and the tacit understanding that any attempt at terraforming will be a generational project, not something that will happen 'in two years' like everything else he promises that never happens.

Like... the time it takes to reach Mars is longer than the window he gives to develop the project, train the crew, travel to Mars, and establish a permanent base before we even have an automated base.

Also, to terraform, you have to believe humans can enact climate change. That is the definition of terraforming.

 

[M_Natas]

Zard has it right. Crack a beer. This is not a serious issue. Worth talking about on a slow news night, sure. But not a serious topic.

In isolation, this might not seem like a big issue. But it’s not happening in isolation.

Musk is part of a broader right-wing movement that is actively working—and in many ways succeeding—to consolidate power and push the U.S. toward authoritarianism. With control of the House, Senate, Presidency, and Supreme Court, they’re positioning themselves to dismantle democratic norms and reshape the country.

The media landscape is heavily influenced by billionaires, and anything perceived as “woke” is systematically targeted and attacked. D&D, as part of this cultural shift toward inclusivity, has become a target—not necessarily because it’s a game, but because it represents broader “woke” ideals. The destruction of “woke” D&D is a microcosm of their larger goals.

This effort isn’t just about culture—it’s about economic destabilization, too. Policies like Trump’s tariffs and initiatives like Project 2025 are designed to tank the economy. Why? Because economic chaos makes it easier to implement radical social reforms. When people are preoccupied with surviving economic hardship, they’re less able to resist authoritarian measures. This is part of Trump’s strategy; even though the majority of Americans support abortion rights, economic anxiety and propaganda shifted the focus and allowed his narrative to take hold.

You might think this doesn’t concern you, but it does. Unless you’re a straight, white, Christian male who conforms to their racist and sexist vision, you’re a target. Their aim is suppression, deportation, or worse—elimination by any means if you don’t align with their ideals.

You can ignore them if you choose, but they are not ignoring you. And right now, they hold the power to act.

 

[trappedslider]

To point out some facts to why it won't/can't happen:

First, there's not a buyout clause. He has to approach the board to make an offer.He cannot afford any reasonable offer for Hasbro. If we look at their common stock, it currently is sitting at about $63.89 a share, There are 139.5 million total outstanding issued shares, for a market cap of 8.91 billion dollars.

"But what if he buys 50% plus a share?"

Well, that would be around 4.46 billion dollars, which he definitely hasn't got liquid and possibly does not have, period. But also, it wouldn't get him the company. Hasbro has issued 139.5 million shares - but that's not all they have.

Hasbro is AUTHORIZED to issue up to 600 million shares, and even adding together stuff that is sitting around not trading, they've only issued around a third of that total per their last quarterly report. Which means even if you bought all of it, they can issue enough to retain control.

It is quite literally not possible to force a hostile takeover of Hasbro...and that's assuming the stock price stayed where it was. The moment you began mass buying you'd be driving the price up, but the math above assumes that magically doesn't happen and he still can't.

So, to be able to buy Hasbro he'd have to go directly to the board instead and convince them to sell. And the thing is? The CFO of Hasbro is a Paypal guy. It's in his corporate bio, even. It's why they hired him, or so they say. He knows and hates Musk.

copied from Mors Rattus (@morsrattus.bsky.social)

 

[Megaton Games]

Elon would resurrect Gary Gygax and make D&D gretat again! Back to basics. And also make every old publication public domain. Great!Actually.

 

[Megaton Games]

In isolation, this might not seem like a big issue. But it’s not happening in isolation.

Musk is part of a broader right-wing movement that is actively working—and in many ways succeeding—to consolidate power and push the U.S. toward authoritarianism. With control of the House, Senate, Presidency, and Supreme Court, they’re positioning themselves to dismantle democratic norms and reshape the country.

The media landscape is heavily influenced by billionaires, and anything perceived as “woke” is systematically targeted and attacked. D&D, as part of this cultural shift toward inclusivity, has become a target—not necessarily because it’s a game, but because it represents broader “woke” ideals. The destruction of “woke” D&D is a microcosm of their larger goals.

This effort isn’t just about culture—it’s about economic destabilization, too. Policies like Trump’s tariffs and initiatives like Project 2025 are designed to tank the economy. Why? Because economic chaos makes it easier to implement radical social reforms. When people are preoccupied with surviving economic hardship, they’re less able to resist authoritarian measures. This is part of Trump’s strategy; even though the majority of Americans support abortion rights, economic anxiety and propaganda shifted the focus and allowed his narrative to take hold.

You might think this doesn’t concern you, but it does. Unless you’re a straight, white, Christian male who conforms to their racist and sexist vision, you’re a target. Their aim is suppression, deportation, or worse—elimination by any means if you don’t align with their ideals.

You can ignore them if you choose, but they are not ignoring you. And right now, they hold the power to act.

Can we speak about RPGs without getting over-political?

 

[Megaton Games]

To point out some facts to why it won't/can't happen:

First, there's not a buyout clause. He has to approach the board to make an offer.He cannot afford any reasonable offer for Hasbro. If we look at their common stock, it currently is sitting at about $63.89 a share, There are 139.5 million total outstanding issued shares, for a market cap of 8.91 billion dollars.

"But what if he buys 50% plus a share?"

Well, that would be around 4.46 billion dollars, which he definitely hasn't got liquid and possibly does not have, period. But also, it wouldn't get him the company. Hasbro has issued 139.5 million shares - but that's not all they have.

Hasbro is AUTHORIZED to issue up to 600 million shares, and even adding together stuff that is sitting around not trading, they've only issued around a third of that total per their last quarterly report. Which means even if you bought all of it, they can issue enough to retain control.

It is quite literally not possible to force a hostile takeover of Hasbro...and that's assuming the stock price stayed where it was. The moment you began mass buying you'd be driving the price up, but the math above assumes that magically doesn't happen and he still can't.

So, to be able to buy Hasbro he'd have to go directly to the board instead and convince them to sell. And the thing is? The CFO of Hasbro is a Paypal guy. It's in his corporate bio, even. It's why they hired him, or so they say. He knows and hates Musk.

copied from Mors Rattus (@morsrattus.bsky.social)

Musk could easily buy WotC or the D&D brand. Just money. And Hasbro needs money.

 

[M_Natas]

Can we speak about RPGs without getting over-political?

This is a musk threat that is about him threatening to buy Hasbro because it is to woke for him.
You can't really leave politics including Musks culture war agenda out of it.

 

[Cergorach]

Where there's a will, there's a way. With Musk we've seen that with Twitter, we've seen that with the Cybertruck, we've seen that with his possible political appointment...

While Musk is cash poor, he still has a LOT of assets people deem valuable. That generally means he can borrow against those assets if he really wanted to AND someone was nuts enough to borrow him that money. Looking at the sad reality is that there are people and organizations out there that would totally do that.

As for buying Hasbro, whether it's a publicly traded or privately held company (like Paizo) just means how much the buyer is offering and how much the current owner(s) wants to part with their company. What way too many people don't get is that a company's sole purpose is to make it's owner(s) money. And no matter how much the CFO hates Musk, the CFO is not the 100% owner of Hasbro, he's only the Chief Financial Officer, his responsibility is to make the owner (aka. shareholders) money.

Also keep in mind that Musk 'overpaid' between 75% and 175% (depending on how you calculate those things) for acquiring Twitter. If Musk offers $16B for Hasbro, with it's marketcap at $9.1B, many shareholders would be interested. If he was to pay $25B for it, there would be very few complaints. That's the power of money and the reality of companies.

If Musk would offer Morrus $10 million for Enworld.org, I seriously doubt that Morrus would say no. That would imho be the sane and human thing to do, unless you're already a billionaire and this is just a hobby project you're very attached to. Which I presume Morrus isn't.

But to be honest, Musk is just acting like a bully and is rattling everyone's cages, just for fun/spite. I'm not saying it's impossible, but unlikely.