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Elon’s Out

bloomberg.com

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Re: Elon’s Out

#451

Post by b112 »

kortilla wrote: post #421
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…

> There are remedies for people who disobey court orders. A Delaware court doesn’t have as much reach as you might think if most of Musk’s assets are not there.

Good lord, registering judgements in jurisdictions is trivial.

Not to mention, how many corporations which Musk has shares in, are Delaware companies?

All of this, how to assess and collect damages, goes back to Roman law.

Re: Elon’s Out

#452

Post by Consultant32452 »

Court can't force Elon to buy Twitter. Worst case scenario is Musk pays Twitter $1 Billion "pull out" fee which is in the contract and the article mentions. More likely Musk is able to reasonably prove in court that Twitter isn't reporting bots/spam accounts correctly, he gets out of the contract, only pays millions in court cost, data scientist, and lawyer fees.

Re: Elon’s Out

#453

Post by [deleted] »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #174
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…

Levine has addressed this in past columns. Of course the courts have such authority, but individual people have to enforce the court's decisions, and sometimes those people are reluctant to take on Musk. Musk is a special case because he has done things like threatening to ruin the careers of SEC lawyers who have come after him, and he has the power to make that happen. Is this illegal? Probably. Does Musk get away w…

[deleted]

Re: Elon’s Out

#454

Post by phrz »

b112 wrote: post #439
genocidicbunny wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but if the court orders it and he refuses, can that not be construed as contempt of court? People definitely go to jail for that.

That's criminal, not civil court. Civil court works on fiscal, property to mitigate damage. If he is found to breach contract, a court could order seizure of assets (cash or property). There could be punitive damages assessed too, if his actions are seen as purposefully malign.

Are you under the impression that judges presiding over civil cases cannot exercise their inherent power (in some jurisdictions) to jail those in (severe) contempt of court?

Re: Elon’s Out

#455

Post by smitty1110 »

Victerius wrote: post #441
Volundr wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you? Just seize and liquidate his Telsa stock, and pay it to Twitter. Done, no jail needed. Courts are entirely capable of seizing such assets.

How would the Delaware Chancery seize $44B worth of Elon Musk's TSLA shares?

Well, Tesla is a Delaware company[1], so I assume they have some leverage.

1: https://sec.report/CIK/0001318605

Re: Elon’s Out

#456

Post by hdctambien »

HWR_14 wrote: post #189
haliskerbas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me is a Wu-Tang song (C.R.E.A.M.)

Re: Elon’s Out

#457

Post by throwaway09223 »

Victerius wrote: post #441
Volundr wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you? Just seize and liquidate his Telsa stock, and pay it to Twitter. Done, no jail needed. Courts are entirely capable of seizing such assets.

How would the Delaware Chancery seize $44B worth of Elon Musk's TSLA shares?

They wouldn't. Here's how it works:

1) The court would issue a judgement for Twitter, against Musk, for $44b.

2) Musk would either voluntarily pay it by selling his own assets, or he would refuse. If he refuses, then:

3) Twitter would go about seizing and selling Musk's assets, until they have raised funds to cover the $44b judgement.

Twitter could levy whatever brokerage or account Musk uses to hold his shares. Somewhere there is an account which records the shares. Twitter would serve the entity managing the account with a levy, and order the shares be liquidated.

Re: Elon’s Out

#458

Post by erosenbe0 »

avalys wrote: post #393
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…

From the Wall Street Journal this afternoon: "“What are they going to do if there is a judgment and he says, ‘Well, I’m still not going to buy it’?” said Zohar Goshen, professor of transactional law at Columbia Law School. “They don’t really have tools to force him to go through with it. You don’t put people in jail because they don’t buy something.”" https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-elon-musk-set-for-unpre...

Twitter's lawyers will pursue billions in remedies through every conceivable route, for decades if necessary.

Re: Elon’s Out

#459

Post by roenxi »

hotpotamus wrote: post #150
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…

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.

The tax & plane seizures are

1. A surprising departure from the rules and norms - I assume probably illegal.

2. Part of a campaign designed to ruin Russia.

You might have misunderstood the argument the anti-taxers (pro-property?) people are bringing up. There isn't a physical problem with taking wealth away from people, that part is very easy to execute. The problem is the 2nd order effects where it will turn into an unfair confiscation and do substantial damage to the ability of the host country to invest and prosper, bringing general ruin to us all. The fact that wealth confiscation is being deployed against Russians is no surprise from that perspective and not undermining the core argument.

However, if it makes you feel better, I do agree that given that the War on Terror was pointed inwards fairly quickly I expect the techniques used in the War on Russia's Economy will also move to US home soil in the next decade and there may well be large scale wealth confiscation in the US.

Re: Elon’s Out

#460

Post by scaramanga »

bandyaboot wrote: post #392
abirch wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter employees are watching the board force a lunatic to buy their company.

The Twitter board would have a tough time explaining why they didn’t enforce the rock solid agreement allowing the shareholders to sell their shares for an extreme premium.

Not just an extreme premium but an "unconditional offer" lol.

Imagine I go to mcodnalds and offer $10 for a big-mac unconditionally, lol. I'm going to get a half eaten shit sandwich and a broad grin.

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