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Elon’s Out

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181–190 of 767 posts

Re: Elon’s Out

#181

Musk holds a key piece of America’s future in space in SpaceX. I wonder if it’s only a matter of time before he starts dangling that to get what he wants in cases like this. I still am generally favorable toward Elon, but I think we’re seeing him transform into a villain

The day he starts threatening US homeland security with SpaceX might be the day he finally understands his place.

Re: Elon’s Out

#182
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if the court orders Musk to close the deal and he says no? I can't believe people are taking this very silly statement seriously. This is utter nonsense. There are remedies for people who disobey court orders. Having assets makes you more vulnerable to a court's authority because you have something to lose. If a court orders specific performance and he doesn't do it then he's liable and the court will take his…

>the court will take his assets to compensate. How do you seize billions of dollars of stock without affecting share prices?

It's not like the shares are destroyed or immediately sold. If anything, they are prevented from being sold under pain of contempt, so could increase prices by limiting the supply.

Re: Elon’s Out

#183
Another hypothesis: Triggering a legal battle in the courts is a delaying technique to push out the acquisition until the economy rebounds (and Tesla and Twitter valuations with it), or until after the 2024 election, because Elon realized that he doesn't actually want to let Trump back onto the platform. (Perhaps because he perfers DeSantis)

Re: Elon’s Out

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met an almost billionaire once; I mentioned how a million dollars would cover me for the rest of my life and she followed with a 10 minute speech on how money is horrible and she can't sleep at night for their concern. I was moved but I confessed I'd still want that million dollars to fall out of the sky. It didn't feel like she "wanted more".

I used to ‘hang’ with a billionaire friend of the family and, maybe that might be dutch, he was incredibly frugal (drove a crappy old but not classic car, lived in a rather small house etc) and yea was obsessed with making more. He would ask me out for a coffee and ask to split the bill (or just pay his part and walk wait for me to pay my part) even though I usually just paid as I don’t like going dutch. He spent alm…

Warren Buffett reputedly lives frugally and clips coupons.

Re: Elon’s Out

#185
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I continue to be super concerned about this. I do not understand how the U.S. government does not view these billionaires as serious ideological threats to democracy, the court system, national security, etc. Makes one realize just how bought out Congress is. Once a person has wealth over, say, $500 million, then there should be a 100% tax.

According to the Laffer curve it should probably be 70% or so to maximize government income, but yes. If you tax them 100% they'll just stop working or bail to another country, and then you collect zero tax revenue from them. At 70% most of them will just suck it up and pay. (I realize France is a counterpoint here, but I'd argue it was a half-assed attempt, and they have neighboring French-speaking tax havens that h…

The Laffer curve is a fact-free zone except for at it's two end points.

The reality is that nobody knows for sure what the curve of revenue vs. tax rate looks like other than at those two end points, which makes the entire concept completely useless.

Re: Elon’s Out

#186
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m being loose with words but I do mean that he should see punishment. Not necessarily jail.

He should see jailtime for the market manipulation. We'll see what happens. This isn't even a thing the SEC is known to be pursuing presently, so don't hold your breath.

> He should see jailtime for the market manipulation.

Is that the normal punishment?

Re: Elon’s Out

#187
post #45

> that it has knowingly been massively understating the number of bot accounts in order to trick companies into buying Twitter ads and shareholders into buying Twitter stock Wasn’t Google Ads 80% fake clicks on some studies? It won’t be surprising Twitter Ads is actually worse. There is so zero incentive to clean it up and so many shady reasons to do it.

Fake clicks and bot accounts are two distinct things in my opinion. Bot accounts are bad, fake clicks are much much worse.

It depends on your perspective. As far as I'm concerned the whole target advertising industry is a blight on society. The more click fraud undermines it, the better.

On then other hand, bot accounts help get bozos elected, encourage mass shootings, etc.

Come to think of it, I don't think it depends on your perspective. Bot accounts are a much bigger issue than click fraud.

Re: Elon’s Out

#188
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if the court orders Musk to close the deal and he says no? I can't believe people are taking this very silly statement seriously. This is utter nonsense. There are remedies for people who disobey court orders. Having assets makes you more vulnerable to a court's authority because you have something to lose. If a court orders specific performance and he doesn't do it then he's liable and the court will take his…

>the court will take his assets to compensate. How do you seize billions of dollars of stock without affecting share prices?

You just continue seizing assets until the accumulated cash value realized from the sale of the assets matches the value of the financial judgement against the guilty party.

The drop in share prices as you do this is not your concern.

Re: Elon’s Out

#189
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those things that could genuinely cause problem for the entire US (corporate) legal system. There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”.

> There’s a genuine danger that the result of this case will be “some people are too powerful to be regulated by the US system, and this is now obvious”. This should have been obvious by now. Cash rules everything around me.

> Cash rules everything around me.

Serious question: Are you in the US? Any Western European country?

There's a tendency for people in corrupt areas to assume the whole world works like that.

Re: Elon’s Out

#190
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk owns about 25% of Tesla, mostly after investing about $50M in Tesla's early funding rounds. His wealth today comes largely because Tesla (under his leadership as CEO) has become a company that investors now believe is incredibly valuable, and they've driven up the stock price. At what point in this process did Musk "accumulate" this ownership of Tesla, and exactly what do you propose should have happened to stop…

It has become so valuable, more valuable than the rest of the auto industry combined at one point despite much lower revenue and sales numbers, because of loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve creating artificially inflated asset prices. The Federal Reserve is directly responsible for Musk’s disproportionate wealth as Tesla stock zoomed past ridiculous levels. Tesla has been successful in many of its lines of…

> loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve creating artificially inflated asset prices

You can buy shares in other car manufacturers. Why would Tesla disproportionately benefit from inflated asset prices?

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