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Elon’s Out

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Re: Elon’s Out

#301

Post by azinman2 »

spullara wrote: post #172
BobbyJo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk has sold billions in stock at this point, so this whole "it's stock that's increased in value independent of Musk" line of thinking is a bad misdirection.

And every time he has sold he has paid huge taxes on those sales.

It’ll entirely be long term gains, so I wouldn’t say huge as a percentage. I would also venture all kinds of other things are being written off to reduce the tax burdens. Typically people like Musk don’t sell stock but use it as collateral to take out low interest loans, which avoids taxes.

Re: Elon’s Out

#302

Post by neither_color »

petilon wrote: post #71

This article says Musk agreed to buy Twitter mostly as a joke. I think there's a far better explanation. This wasn't a joke for Musk because after agreeing to buy Twitter he proceeded to sell billions of dollars' worth of TSLA stock, supposedly to finance the purchase. Even for the richest man in the world that's not a joke. I think a better explanation is that Musk offered to buy Twitter as a cover for selling billi…

>Tesla's market cap is double of Toyota, VW, Mercedes, BMW, GM, Honda, Ferrari and Volvo all combined!

This phrase gets thrown around a lot with dunning-kreuger confidence so I'd like to add context that it's not unusual for a market disruptor to be worth more than the sum of its legacy competitors - you are on a tech website related to startup incubator you should know this already.

Re: Elon’s Out

#303

Post by pc86 »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #275
hotpotamus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anytime the idea of a wealth tax is brought up, I see commenters coming out of the woodwork to say that it would be impossible to actually collect it from the wealthy. Though I will note that it seems like we are able to collect yachts and planes from Russian oligarchs now, so perhaps our techniques have advanced in the last few months.

This is a different problem and has to do with privacy. The government can't compel you to disclose everything you're doing without cause, and without due process. Having a court ordered judgement entered against you is cause and is a result of due process. It's an entirely different scenario.

Assuming that a wealth tax was passed, wouldn't the cause here be proper reporting and collection of said tax? You can declare illegal income on your federal return and pay taxes on it. They're not (in this hypothetical I guess?) asking what you're doing, just how much it's made you.

Re: Elon’s Out

#304

Post by VerminOctopus1 »

georgia_peach wrote: post #160

This is politics masquerading as legal analysis. Twitter, by its own admission, lied about their user count for years. Elon will either go without penalty, or take a slap on the wrist. Levine spends a lot of time shilling on bots because he knows that's a weak spot for the Elon haterz club. https://nairametrics.com/2022/04/28/twitter-says-it-inflated... edit: Not an Elon fan BTW. Just don't appreciate this Levine's a…

You saying that Twitter’s SEC filings over the last several years included knowingly falsified information?

Re: Elon’s Out

#305

Post by henry_bone »

Pulcinella wrote: post #271
henry_bone wrote: post #267

I see the author's scepticism of the bots argument, but I don't think it's one that should be dismissed so easily. I don't know anything, but isn't the value of these big tech properties largely in the number of actual human daily active users? When Facebook acquired whatsapp, I remember reading that it wasn't the tech per se that facebook really wanted. It was the daily active users. Whatsapp had (still has? dunno)…

That’s not how any of this works. E.g. the contract he signed already has the price he agreed to buy Twitter for.

Could it be (& I am asking) that he can invalidate the current contract on the grounds that daily active users aren't what twitter said.

Then could they draft a new contract, complete with a new price and daily active users estimates?

I don't know anything, so I'm asking. If someone out there is a M&A lawyer and can shed light, that would be great.

Re: Elon’s Out

#306

Post by smaudet »

phillipcarter wrote: post #248
throwaway09223 wrote: post #140

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…

Perhaps it's just a general sense of disillusionment, but I've come to see that "court orders X" and "X happens" are entirely orthogonal. I will be personally surprised if Musk pays a single cent.

Depends I guess on how 007 you think the world operates (reference to James Bond) - X will happen, but maybe 2-10 years after various counter-suits.

Case studies are what has happened e.g. with Microsoft, other large businesses - long legal battles are fought, nothing happens while things are in limbo.

When the rubber finally hits the road, things happen fairly quickly, but until then it does look a bit like "nothing happens".

This is of course, a problem, perhaps one that needs innovating around.

Re: Elon’s Out

#307

Post by Teever »

moomin wrote: post #209
towaway15463 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facts. She also just paid a fine for the insider trading. Her criminal case was due to conspiracy, obstruction of justice and lying to federal investigators.

“Lying to a federal official” is one of the most BS things in the entire US penal. It’s practically carte blanche to imprison anyone you come across.

So just don't lie to the feds?

Re: Elon’s Out

#308

Post by dodobirdlord »

loceng wrote: post #294
roca wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking your version of events at face value: Musk hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on someone who merely criticized his rescue plan, received some lies from said investigator, and uncritically repeated them to his massive social media following, thus smearing the person concerned ... and this makes Musk a tireless advocate for the truth and social media sanity. Musk cultists are the worst. PS, if Musk can…

Quoted post unavailable.

> Don't you think someone guiding the development of companies like SpaceX, Tesla, and others, would invest more time into those - rather than say first doing a thorough background check first on a private investigator he newly hired?

If you’re going to hire private investigators to dig up dirt on people who criticize you so that you can smear them to the public, you have a responsibility to be thorough, lest you defame them. It’s not as though Musk has to hire private investigators to smear his critics. If he’s too busy to meet the basic minimum responsibilities of human decency, he could just not hire private investigators to smear his critics.

Re: Elon’s Out

#309

Post by svachalek »

ta8645 wrote: post #285
sroussey wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is the force against himself. No conspiracy required.

To pretend he doesn't have powerful enemies is just silly. It's not some kooky conspiracy theory. The only question is if you think his enemies are justified or not.

How did powerful enemies force him to make a public bid to buy Twitter, and then force him to back out of it? I'd like to hear the non kooky conspiracy explanation for that.

Re: Elon’s Out

#310

Post by maxbond »

loceng wrote: post #294
roca wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking your version of events at face value: Musk hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on someone who merely criticized his rescue plan, received some lies from said investigator, and uncritically repeated them to his massive social media following, thus smearing the person concerned ... and this makes Musk a tireless advocate for the truth and social media sanity. Musk cultists are the worst. PS, if Musk can…

Quoted post unavailable.

Saying "Musk cultists are the worst" was out of line. Otherwise what GP said was correct.

If it helps, I don't think you're a cultist, I'm sure you aren't a stupid person either, but you have this totally backwards. I don't presume to know how that happened, other than that it's something that happens to everyone from time to time, myself included. This is a sincere, no judgement invitation to reconsider your position and realign with reality. People who care about free speech don't respond to criticism with left-field accusations - that's a diversionary tactic. People who make serious buyout offers aren't trying to insert weed jokes in there.

Have you noticed how FSD is always one year off? And now out of left field, there's a robot coming that's one year off? Isn't it weird that, if this technology is in development, it had to be demoed by a dude in a suit? It's pretty obvious to me that FSD is way, way more than a year off, if Tesla ever achieves it at all, and that this robot is a last-minute fiction to cover up some weakness or perceived weakness of Tesla's position.

Musk's basic tactic is a gish gallop. He's just throwing out so much vaguely futurist nonsense that some of it will strike you as brilliant. But it's the illusion of brilliance. There was a time when I found it compelling, too. The world is messed up, and at first glance, he looks like the only one who's proposing solutions that are sufficiently bold to tackle the problems.

But they're hollow and meaningless. He never delivers. What he does deliver is nothing like what was promised.

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