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.

 

[Faolyn]

Think about every corporate purchase choice Musk's made so far. It's all about his dream to get to Mars: Boring company, to drill tunnels on Mars; Hyperloop, for transport on Mars; SpaceX, to get to Mars and launch satellites for communications with Starlink; Tesla, for electric engines to power things without oil and coal and gas; Solar City, to generate electricity and Powerwall to reinvent batteries to be higher capacity to run all night even when solar cannot collect; Neuralink, to pilot a variety of things from a distance from anywhere; AI, to cover a variety of jobs humans can't do in that environment; and Twitter, to gather political communications power to promote all these things.

Now how does Hasbro, an ailing $8B toy and games company, fit into this? The answer is it simply doesn't. He's just yanking your chain. He does this.

He's rich and powerful enough to do things out of spite. Which is something he does.

Will he buy Hasbro? Dunno. Does he have the temperament to do so? Yes.

Am I personally anxious about it? No, unless it prevents people from getting into the hobby as a whole.

 

[Parmandur]

So was Twitter, they had poison pills prepared but in the event decide to capitulate.

Sure, they were looking to get out, Twitter was built to sell. Hasbro is a different animal.

I think a deal could be metaphysically possible, but not realistically.

 

[Faolyn]

It would be worth it just to see the hasbro house get cleaned out. Get rid of the activists that have never created anything. They just feed like parasites off the people that truly built this hobby.

What activists are those?

Times and interests have changed, so unless the "people who truly built this hobby" have changed as well, they're not going to be producing much that's interesting or useful to the modern gamer.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Calling other people 'parasites' while rooting for someone who literally just profits off other people's work, knowledge and expertise while adding only memes.

 

[Mistwell]

I think if you guys find it difficult to discuss this topic without using it as a proxy to discuss political topics not welcomed here, you might instead consider posting it over on CircvsMaximvs.com. Which still exists, and is still paid for by Morrus (I assume?), and where you can discuss any political topics in the sub-forum called the Senate.

 

[Azzy]

Calling other people 'parasites' while rooting for someone who literally just profits off other people's work, knowledge and expertise while adding only memes.

It's like his stans desperately want senpai to notice them. And he never will.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If Elon did purchase WotC, I'd say the reaction would be incredible, so I sort of hopes he does do it (but don't expect him to).

For certain values of "incredible," certainly.

The number one thing WotC could do to not have this sort of issue would be to not talk about how they don't want or need their older customers. Everyone is welcome to play D&D, even the people who were doing it in the 70s. Even the person who just heard about the game today. Everyone is welcome.

1) They didn't do that. The people claiming otherwise are outrage farming for clout and your money. WotC is explicitly saying that everyone is welcome, in part because they want everyone's money.
2) This sounds a lot like "well, if you didn't dress that way, you wouldn't have that issue," which is not a great approach to problem solving.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Boring Company is just plain idiotic

It also doesn't follow through on any of its promises. Its big underground rail system in Vegas (which already has a great rail system along the strip for tourists, incidentally) is just people driving Teslas in a tunnel.

Everywhere else, the Boring Company quietly backs out of its projects after getting all the hype.

It's too dumb to even be a con. It's just gross incompetence backed with "I'm too rich to be told this is an unworkable idea" money.

 

[mamba]

Oh look the ugly green face of envy is here.

you mean your 'avatar'?

 

[mamba]

No they are not. They literally insult the old products and the people that designed them and played them. It's what started all this.

describing a product that contains sexist sections as that is not insulting, it is just a fact. If you cannot handle that and have a meltdown over it, that is on you.