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.

 

[Parmandur]

One hopes $8 billion would be a step too far given his current underwater financial status...

 

[OptionalRule]

One hopes $8 billion would be a step too far given his current underwater financial status...

The main problem is he would have to take on the company's debt. They are still massively in debt from the $5B loss they took from MediaOne. (I think that was the name).

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Dumbass still doesn't know how market cap works.

 

[Parmandur]

The main problem is he would have to take on the companies debt. They are still massively in debt from the $5B loss they took from MediaOne. (I think that was the name).

Yeah, $9 billion valuation and in debt on top of that...not a great investment. Not as insane as Twitter, but even with the wealth he has on paper I don't see his interest or his credit line goijg through with this beyond some trolling.

The full thread on Twitter is an absolutely bonkers cesspit, even by the lower standards of Twitter.

 

[Wolfram stout]

So let's say he does....what then? I assume he will follow the anti 5e crowd, but they are already playing something else. The 5e fans go to one of the many options (that are now fully protected).

So I would love to read others best guess for that future.

 

[OptionalRule]

So let's say he does....what then? I assume he will follow the anti 5e crowd, but they are already playing something else. The 5e fans go to one of the many options (that are now fully protected).

So I would love to read others best guess for that future.

I don't see this as anything in danger of actually happening. Entertaining the actual thought for a moment ...

This is basically no better than his "I'm making an AI video game company" thing. It basically means nothing.

He's not a gamedev and wouldn't spend any time on the company so he's mostly meaningless in this context. He would hire someone to run the company in alignment with some kind of philosophy and that person would have some kind of impact. Without knowing who that is, we couldn't even venture a guess if it were good or bad.

 

[Arilyn]

Oh God, he'll rename it Xbro...

 

[Parmandur]

So let's say he does....what then? I assume he will follow the anti 5e crowd, but they are already playing something else. The 5e fans go to one of the many options (that are now fully protected).

So I would love to read others best guess for that future.

The thread on Twitter is full of complaints about Magic the Gathering having a black Aragorn amd other unsavory reactionary complaints. First up would be basically firing everyone currently involved with making Magic and D&D, and then working to to "Make Games Great Again." I doubt he gives a darn about editions or mechanics.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Do you think he would ditch the word species and bring back race?