Elon & Twitter

[ZenRockGarden]

We need a poll. Maybe Elon should do one.
Is Elon = Tesla? I've always felt he is/was.

I think the problem is people have an issue with supporting, making a person richer/more successful when you might be completely against everything they stand/stood for. Everyone is different and you can keep supporting Tesla/him (debatable by you), but everyone has their own views/opinions even if you don't agree with them.

Elon owns more Tesla stock (probably even after his recent sales I assume) than Zuck and I think most people would relate Meta/Facebook is Zuck. Course, Zuck got that 10 votes to 1 stock power.

Top Tesla Shareholders

The top Tesla shareholders are Elon Musk, Kimbal Musk, Jeffrey Straubel, Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street.

www.investopedia.com

"Elon Musk owns 193.3 million Tesla shares, representing 20.7% of total shares outstanding, according to a 13G filing for the period ending December 31, 2019."

Who Owns Facebook Now?

Facebook's long history has seen rebrands, acquisitions, and the establishment of a new parent company. So, who owns the company now?

www.makeuseof.com

"Zuckerberg owns roughly 13% of Meta stocks, Bloomberg notes."

Yeah, but Zuck arranged for his shares to have special voting priveleges so no chance of anyone voting him out simply because he's a moron and thinks the metaverse is cool.

Not sure where Elon stands relative to TSLA board and major shareholders attempting a revolt. It would be nice to have non-tribal-lunatic leadership at a perfectly good electric car company

 

[STS-134]

Who Owns Facebook Now?

Facebook's long history has seen rebrands, acquisitions, and the establishment of a new parent company. So, who owns the company now?

www.makeuseof.com

"Zuckerberg owns roughly 13% of Meta stocks, Bloomberg notes."

But Zuck has a majority of the votes so despite not owning a majority of the shares, there's no way for shareholders to hold him accountable for anything. In theory he could call shareholder "votes" to increase the voting power of his shares even as he sells shares off and "win" the vote every time single handedly to ensure that he always has a majority of the votes. Meta shareholders are all just along for the ride and have no real say about what happens.

 

[heltok]

Serious question: is being impulsive/making hasty decisions without thinking them through thoroughly (while blaming poor outcomes on “move fast and break things”) part of Asbergers?

As someone with Asperger I can answer. For some yes, for some the opposite they are afraid of acting before they know enough of the consequences.

People with Asperger generally has a lower need to conform. When everyone else conforming to not to break things, the people who break things will have an ASD overrepresentation.

Peter Thiel: Asperger’s can be a big advantage in Silicon Valley

"If you're less sensitive to social cues, then you're less likely to do the same thing as everyone else around you."

www.businessinsider.com

 

[mrmage]

Elon’s ownership is down to around 13% after his sales IIRC.

That sets an upper bound on how much selling Elon can do. If he's lost 7% so far, he can only repeat the past year one more time at the current SP (assuming the same $ value) before running out of shares.

I'd rather listen to fingernails scraping on chalkboards all day than endure another year of artificially depressed TSLA SP, but there *is* an end to this in sight regardless of what he does.

 

[GreenDriver]

How many billions did Elon get from his TSLA sales?

How much does he still need to pay off the Twitter purchase? Anyone know?

 

[stopcrazypp]

That sets an upper bound on how much selling Elon can do. If he's lost 7% so far, he can only repeat the past year one more time at the current SP (assuming the same $ value) before running out of shares.

I'd rather listen to fingernails scraping on chalkboards all day than endure another year of artificially depressed TSLA SP, but there *is* an end to this in sight regardless of what he does.

Don't forget his options, where he can get shares for a fraction of the going price. It's not a zero sum game.
Elon Musk Likely Getting $23 Billion In Options After Tesla’s Record Quarter

 

[stopcrazypp]

How many billions did Elon get from his TSLA sales?

Around $23 billion ($15 billion of which was before the transaction completed), timing broken down as follows:
$8.5 billion in April
$6.9 billion in August
$3.95 billion in November
$3.58 billion in December
Elon Musk just unloaded $3.6 billion in Tesla stock, his 4th huge sale this year

How much does he still need to pay off the Twitter purchase? Anyone know?

There isn't an indication he wants to "pay off" the purchase. It seems he is content with the loan existing and paying on the interest. The $13B loan also is now put on the company itself.

Here's how the financing went through (even though purchase price was $44 billion, total plus closing costs was $46.5 billion):

$13 B in debt financing by banks

$33.5 B in equity, broken down as below:
$4 B from his original 9.6% Twitter stake
$7.1 B from equity investors (for example Larry Ellison, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal)
$22 Billion from Elon or other sources ($15.5 billion accounted for from most recent TSLA sales before Twitter purchase, but Reuters estimated Musk had $20 billion in cash total, and then needing to raise $2 billion elsewhere)
Explainer: How Elon Musk funded the $44 billion Twitter deal

That $13B in debt is loaded on Twitter now, increasing their debt load from the previous $1.7 billion. Annual interest expense for Twitter was about $0.1B before, now it's estimated to be about $1.2 billion. This makes the margin for error very little.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...671b64-62b9-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html

So for people up thread that suggest everything is all sunshine and rainbows at Twitter, because supposedly activity went up, they ignored that Twitter is in a much worse situation financially in terms of debt. This would be fine if revenue stayed steady (or only dropped tracking the economy) added with the cost cutting Elon did. But all indications is revenue had dropped significantly beyond that level (otherwise Elon would not stay silent on that, and instead focus on relatively meaningless activity stats).

 

[mrmage]

Don't forget his options, where he can get shares for a fraction of the going price. It's not a zero sum game.
Elon Musk Likely Getting $23 Billion In Options After Tesla’s Record Quarter

That would bump it up quite a bit. I didn't include it because he's unlikely to exercise while the SP is depressed. He'd have to sell TSLA to pay for those, so I assume he'd hold on until SP price reverses. Still, I should never say never when it comes to Elon...

 

[STS-134]

There isn't an indication he wants to "pay off" the purchase. It seems he is content with the loan existing and paying on the interest. The $13 loan also is now put on the company itself.

Pretty sure you meant $13B. If it was $13, one of the employees could pay it off with his or her lunch money.

Here's how the financing went through (even though purchase price was $44 billion, total plus closing costs was $46.5 billion):
$13 B in debt financing by banks
$33.5 B in equity, broken down as below:
$4 B from his original 9.6% Twitter stake
$7.1 B from equity investors (for example Larry Ellison, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal)
$22 Billion from Elon or other sources ($15.5 billion accounted for from most recent TSLA sales before Twitter purchase, but Reuters estimated Musk had $20 billion in cash total, and then needing to raise $2 billion elsewhere)
Explainer: How Elon Musk funded the $44 billion Twitter deal

That $13B in debt is loaded on Twitter now, increasing their debt load from the previous $1.7 billion. Annual interest expense for Twitter was about $0.1B before, now it's estimated to be about $1.2 billion. This makes the margin for error very little.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...671b64-62b9-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html

So basically, Elon put $26B into the purchase, borrowed $13B from the banks, and $7.1B was from equity investors. So if he wanted to pay off the debts he owes to banks and other investors, he'd have to come up with another $20.1B or so. That's almost as much as he's already paid.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Pretty sure you meant $13B. If it was $13, one of the employees could pay it off with his or her lunch money.

So basically, Elon put $26B into the purchase, borrowed $13B from the banks, and $7.1B was from equity investors. So if he wanted to pay off the debts he owes to banks and other investors, he'd have to come up with another $20.1B or so. That's almost as much as he's already paid.

That would be the price tag for total buy out for full ownership, but for the equity investor portion, they essentially have a stake in the company (some like the Saudi Prince just carried over their existing stake), it's not really a loan Elon has to pay off. It's the $13B bank portion that really has to be paid off.

But as per article linked, it's a leveraged buy out, so that debt is pretty much loaded on the company. So if Elon gave up and wanted to take his ball hole, Twitter would go bankrupt and he wouldn't be personally liable for the outstanding loans.

 

[Raisin45567]

So many posts/opinions/analyst notes like this. Will we have to wait for the book to find out what Tesla directors think about this or will they finally communicate with shareholders and employees?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1605176123188445188

 

[ohmman]

As someone with Asperger I can answer. For some yes, for some the opposite they are afraid of acting before they know enough of the consequences.

And as they say - if you've met one person with Asperger's, you've met.. one person with Asperger's. It definitely presents differently in different people. It is also represented in my family.

 

[daniel]

This morning's NY Times email newsletter reports that Elon is remaining silent about the results of the Twitter poll, where he said he would abide by the results, and in which a clear majority (a super-majority?) called for him to step down as CEO of Twitter.

Personally, I'd like him to step down as CEO of Tesla. Let him stay on at Twitter and continue to run it into bankruptcy. Or better yet, retire completely and go away.

 

[thx1139]

Some of us aren't surprised in the least. Customers used to be brand ambassadors for Tesla, now more and more are actively telling people to avoid the brand because of Elon.

They dont need to 100% turn on Tesla. I never had negative conversations with people about our Tesla's now I do so I dont talk to anyone about them because conversation turns to Elon being sugar.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

As someone with Asperger I can answer. For some yes, for some the opposite they are afraid of acting before they know enough of the consequences.

People with Asperger generally has a lower need to conform. When everyone else conforming to not to break things, the people who break things will have an ASD overrepresentation.

Peter Thiel: Asperger’s can be a big advantage in Silicon Valley

"If you're less sensitive to social cues, then you're less likely to do the same thing as everyone else around you."

www.businessinsider.com

Peter Thiel who has been so right on business decisions but so wrong and poor at reading the American electorate and picking an unelectable candidate ... business fortune doesn't always equal societal skills

 

[texas_star_TM3]

That would be the price tag for total buy out for full ownership, but for the equity investor portion, they essentially have a stake in the company (some like the Saudi Prince just carried over their existing stake), it's not really a loan Elon has to pay off. It's the $13B bank portion that really has to be paid off.

But as per article linked, it's a leveraged buy out, so that debt is pretty much loaded on the company. So if Elon gave up and wanted to take his ball hole, Twitter would go bankrupt and he wouldn't be personally liable for the outstanding loans.

that's true. but banks and investors would also not touch him anymore for future deals and his ability to raise $ would greatly diminish.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

Pretty sure you meant $13B. If it was $13, one of the employees could pay it off with his or her lunch money.

So basically, Elon put $26B into the purchase, borrowed $13B from the banks, and $7.1B was from equity investors. So if he wanted to pay off the debts he owes to banks and other investors, he'd have to come up with another $20.1B or so. That's almost as much as he's already paid.

that's a lot of $$$ wasted for troll posting, re-instating some folks, and suppressing reports about the location of your private jet(s)...

 

[Crutonius]

And as they say - if you've met one person with Asperger's, you've met.. one person with Asperger's. It definitely presents differently in different people. It is also represented in my family.

Ditto.

I really hate it when people try to attribute any odd behavior to someone because of an autistic spectrum disorder.

 

[ElectricIAC]

suppressing reports about the location of your private jet(s)...

You can’t put a price on security.

 

[texas_star_TM3]

You can’t put a price on security.

for the 100th time...it takes you 2min on google to look up the position of ElonsJet ... and not even using the site from Sweeney. All transponder data tells you is where that private jet is parked and/or flying. It doesn't tell you where in the airport building or where on the premises Elon is... heck... it doesn't even tell you if Elon is on the plane. Mark Zuckerberg and Taylor Swift or Russian oligarchs (all tracked by folks online) don't make such a scene just because you know someone is flying from London to Austin... (Elon also lied about the stalking incident which apparently occurred nearly a day - after - ElonsJet reported the plane location and quite ways away from the airport. still no police report filed and apparently those TeslaCams didnt work either...)