Hasbro Stock Price Surges After Elon Musk Makes Comments About Purchasing Company

Hasbro's stock price has jumped nearly 2% after Elon Musk made an offhand comment on his social media platform about potentially buying the Dungeons & Dragons publisher. Coming out of the US Thanksgiving holiday, Hasbro's stock price jumped by 2% on Friday. The cause appears not to be Black Friday sales, but rather Elon Musk's recent comments about Hasbro and Dungeons & Dragons. Early Thursday morning, Musk responded to a post on the app formerly known as Twitter by social media culture warrior Ian Miles Cheong asking "How much is Hasbro?" Cheong had posted Facebook comments made by D&D designer Jason Tondro, who spoke about his decision to include acknowledgement of outdated views within early versions of Dungeons & Dragons. In his post, Cheong called the phrase "grognard" a slur and also incorrectly referred to Tondro as the "project lead" of Dungeons & Dragons. In another post, Cheong incorrectly stated that Hasbro owned the "license" to Dungeons & Dragons. (Hasbro owns Dungeons & Dragons outright.) Musk's net worth is estimated at over $334 billion.

The stock price responded positively to the possibility of Musk purchasing Hasbro, with the price bouncing well ahead of Wednesday's price of $63.89. Musk is an expert businessman, having previously purchased Twitter for $44 billion after a prolonged lawsuit in which he attempted to back out of the deal. Twitter's valuation currently sits at around $9 billion, a decrease of nearly 80%. Hasbro's current market cap is $9.1 billion, which means Musk would only stand to lose around $7 billion should he tank its value at a similar rate to Twitter's.

Musk's interest in the toymaker stems from his umbrage over comments found in The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons. In the foreword of the book, Tondro discusses the "moral quandry" in early D&D material, specifically referencing insensitive and derogatory language that was "casually harmful to anyone with a physical or metal disability, or happens to be old, fat, not conventionally attractive, indigenous, Black, or a woman." Tondro never criticizes Gary Gygax or the other co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons by name in the foreword, but Musk and several other right-wing leaning commentators took his words as an explicit attack.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

This is the worst timeline

Why do folks say that, there's a timeline where slavery was never abolished, where aliens are invading, where Hulk Hogan is King of the World, where we are all hosts for the eggs of giant wasps, it can always get worse.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Which has also been trickling away as Musk has abused it and Bluesky (and to a lesser extent Threads) have taken more and more users from Twitter. Bluesky has seen an insane surge recently and most of those people are ex-Twitter and seem pretty pleased with things, meanwhile Twitter gets slower and worse.

I used to scroll Twitter pretty often until very recently, but it was so noticeable when people left in droves to Bluesky that I ended up going over there and now scroll that instead, and my feed is vastly better too - way more art, way more designers and writers, saying more, talking about more, and way less cryptobros and ignorant sods and sealions and so on.


How so?

It's too late. It's already de facto the platform of the US government re: messages, and trying to make it more than won't make people post on it or scroll it or watch ads or subscribe. Unless you propose an actual mechanism, we can dismiss this as vague wishful thinking on your part.


Because he's an idiot. Like, genuinely a dumbass. No sane or competent businessman would have got trapped the way he did with his stupid brinksmanship and attempting bullying. It was a huge self-own on his part.

And no, none of it was "based on fraud", and put in the word "basically" is just disingenuous and outright false. The "bots" have got much worse under Musk's watch too - demonstrably.

The government contracts would just be there as an excuse to funnel money twitter, engagement wouldn't matter that much.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The government contracts would just be there as an excuse to funnel money twitter, engagement wouldn't matter that much.

What contracts? The government doesn't pay any more than any other business for Twitter accounts, which is utterly negligible.

 

[Maxperson]

I really hate sensationalist headlines. It "surged" 2%? Hasbro has been having days where it "surged" and "plummeted" by that much or more all year. A month ago the stock was $71 and now it is still less than that.

Going up a buck twenty is not a surge, nor given the history of Hasbro this year can it absolutely be chalked up to Musk's comment.

 

[martinlochsen]

This is the worst timeline

It was until this line was written:

Musk is an expert businessman, having previously purchased Twitter for $44 billion after a prolonged lawsuit in which he attempted to back out of the deal. Twitter's valuation currently sits at around $9 billion, a decrease of nearly 80%. Hasbro's current market cap is $9.1 billion, which means Musk would only stand to lose around $7 billion should he tank its value at a similar rate to Twitter's.

 

[Mistwell]

This is now thread four about this topic. Lovely.

 

[Steampunkette]

I would hate to wish death on someone, but there will be obituaries I read and go "Huh. Nice." if I survive long enough.

Musk is very much in that bucket, now.

Now I just need to survive long enough in a nation that hates me.

 

[Retreater]

Thankfully we have the SRD. Nothing Musk can do can impact what we already have. He can only ruin the future of D&D, not it's legacy. And nothing good would ever come out of his acquisition of Hasbro.

I mean, he can change the way gaming is perceived in culture. He can make it so unpopular and full of such toxicity that growth becomes nil - that entire populations of fans feel unwelcome.
When many players turned from D&D 4e to Pathfinder, the hobby was different. Today, most players seem to be D&D fans. Musk would kill interest in the entire hobby for the legions of players who joined in the 5e era.
I expect this will be what's going to happen.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

What contracts? The government doesn't pay any more than any other business for Twitter accounts, which is utterly negligible.

Paying for ads at plumped up ad rates.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, he can change the way gaming is perceived in culture. He can make it so unpopular and full of such toxicity that growth becomes nil - that entire populations of fans feel unwelcome.
When many players turned from D&D 4e to Pathfinder, the hobby was different. Today, most players seem to be D&D fans. Musk would kill interest in the entire hobby for the legions of players who joined in the 5e era.
I expect this will be what's going to happen.

You assume loud voices on the internet truly represent the views of the majority, they don't. Musk has legions of fans who will happily jump into D&D.