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posted Facebook comments made by D&D designer Jason Tondro, who spoke about his decision to include acknowledgement of outdated views within early versions of Dungeons & Dragons.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.

 

[Remathilis]

Would you stop using the stuff you already have? Or using 3rd party stuff like A5e? Or are you really saying you'd just stop the game completely?

It's not impossible. D&D is the brand name of RPGs, so much so that its shadow covers much of the scene. People already complain that D&D controls the narrative of much of the community, and few people who aren't passionate about gaming are going to understand the nuance of D&D vs Pathfinder vs TotV vs A5e, etc. Unless you're deep in the weeds, it's all D&D and if D&D becomes associated with the toxic culture that Musk is promoting, it will be very hard to distance yourself from it.

Personally, a D&D under Musk (along with a MTG under him) would be enough to keep me out of the gaming space. I might keep playing privately with my old books and current players, but I would probably disengage with the hobby much like I have with Star Wars due to the toxic fandom surrounding that. It might just be enough for me to say "well, I had a good run, time to find a new hobby."

 

[Divine2021]

Too much drama.

 

[abirdcall]

It's not impossible. D&D is the brand name of RPGs, so much so that its shadow covers much of the scene. People already complain that D&D controls the narrative of much of the community, and few people who aren't passionate about gaming are going to understand the nuance of D&D vs Pathfinder vs TotV vs A5e, etc. Unless you're deep in the weeds, it's all D&D and if D&D becomes associated with the toxic culture that Musk is promoting, it will be very hard to distance yourself from it.

Personally, a D&D under Musk (along with a MTG under him) would be enough to keep me out of the gaming space. I might keep playing privately with my old books and current players, but I would probably disengage with the hobby much like I have with Star Wars due to the toxic fandom surrounding that. It might just be enough for me to say "well, I had a good run, time to find a new hobby."

That sounds about right for me.

Back in the 3e days I did have some trepidation about telling people I played because it still had a reputation for not being inclusive.

Personally though I think it has seeped into enough spaces that it can survive. It is popular among queer people for example for obvious reasons. Since the version of the game that is supportive of us is already made no one can take it away.

I probably wouldn't talk about it as much though as to avoid being associated with the current iteration except in circles I know that I wouldn't be.

 

[Oofta]

That's a conspiracy theory.

There have been several articles about it, such as this one from The Guardians Bots on X worse than ever according to analysis of 1m tweets during first Republican primary debate

In theory they're working on reducing the number and I don't think anyone really knows the percentage.

But it's also off topic I suppose. Just pointing out that there is significant evidence of Russian bots.

 

[TerraDave]

I have been having whiplash going back forth between RL news and here. There seems to be no escaping....

But sure, why not throw a few more toys in the toy chest.

 

[EternalDungeonMaster]

It was until this line was written:

I'm assuming (and hoping) that was written satirically.

 

[Clint_L]

I think you guys are both kind of right. He is as divisive figure. He has many fans and many detractors. And now he is also tied to politics (which probably only intensifies that).

While I am sympathetic to his criticisms of WOTC (and I imagine a lot of the things I don't like that WOTC has done with D&D are things he would be likely to change if he took over), I think it would be bad for the game community. We are already at a point where folks are deeply divided over this stuff. If Musk bought HASBRO or just WOTC. Heck if he just bought the rights to D&D, it would effectively mean about half of the population would not play.

That's pretty generous. The D&D player base is very young, exactly the demographic that has the least respect for Musk (and the one that his comments seem designed to infuriate). Impressing a sub-set of bitter grognards is not gonna come close to the cost of alienating the youth.

I do think WOTC has made a lot of misteps and I think older fans do have justification for feeling at times insulted and pushed aside by WOTC...

I am an older fan. Don't lump me in with your assumptions about what "older fans" feel. What you mean is that you feel you have justifications for feeling insulted and pushed aside by WotC. Fair enough, but I don't feel either, and it seems like a lot of other older fans are seeing the same problems that you are.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That's pretty generous. The D&D player base is very young, exactly the demographic that has the least respect for Musk (and the one that his comments seem designed to infuriate. Impressing a sub-set of bitter grognards is not gonna come close to the cost of alienating the youth.

I don't even want to get into the demographics of D&D and musk like versus dislike. My point was he is divisive, but he does have a fan base. And my conclusion was him buying WOTC would be bad because he is divisive (and it would further divide the hobby). We already have lots of division around taste, style and sensibilities, but Musk entering into the hobby as owner of D&D immediately cranks up the politicization of those divisions

I am an older fan. Don't lump me in with your assumptions about what "older fans" feel.

Obviously I am not saying all older fans. But a lot of older fans do feel this way

Anyways my point was it would be bad for the hobby if he bought WOTC because he is so divisive it would mean about half of people wouldn't play D&D based on who owns the company alone (and clearly me saying 'half' is just shooting from the hip, I don't know what the actual break down would be, I don't particularly care either-----I just think it would mean more arguing, more people not getting along and shouting at each other).

 

[Nord Ronnoc]

Here, this might help.

Someone pointed out how unlikely it is for Elon to buy Hasbro.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Here, this might help.

Someone pointed out how unlikely it is for Elon to buy Hasbro.

I still think it is very unlikely he would or that he was serious, but isn't musk valued at over 300 Billion? I realize that isn't cash sitting in a bank, but I would think he could pretty easily cover the 4.6 billion mentioned in the linked thread (again I am not a money guy so maybe I am missing some technical aspect, it just seems like billionaires with this level of wealth have an easy time buying stuff if they really want to)