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Elon Musk to Owe Estimated $2.1 Billion After Jury Finds He Misled Twitter Investors Before 2022 Buyout (text.npr.org)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A jury has found Elon Musk liable for misleading investors by deliberately driving down Twitter's stock price in the tumultuous months leading up to his 2022 acquisition of the social media company for $44 billion. But it absolved him of some fraud allegations, finding that he did not "scheme" to mislead investors.

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[–] 15 points 6 months ago (10 children)

Considering he’s made $400B since acquiring Twitter...

Serious question: How?

AFAIK, Twitter wasn't terribly profitable before they sold to Musk. Then after he purchased it, the enshittification accelerated.

How on earth does this result in $400 Billions in profit?!?

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  • [–] 28 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    He made $400B, not Twitter. That's almost entirely from Tesla and other ventures, not Twitter.

    Last I've been able to find Twitter was valued at $33B when xAI bought it. But that was clearly an overvalued sale. Just look at the valuation over time.

    And that's just raw valuation which is easily manipulated, not revenue or profit, which can be easily manipulated.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (5 children)

    It's not real money, and Musk isn't the richest person in truth, not by a long shot. This is theoretical money based on overpriced companies that are propped up by what I suspect are some rather shady practices and investors using it as a casino stock.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    The money doesn't have to be real for Elon to be able to use his stock as collateral for billion dollar loans. So he in fact has real money, that banks gave him, and that he will never pay back.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    While true, a recession will change things.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    It will only restrict his ability to get new loans, and make his collaterals worthless. But he probably spent most of the money they gave him, and like with twitter, he shifted the assets around in his network of companies, like a thimblerigger.

    But that's kind of like saying that inflation will make the rich poor, which is also not true.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    When stocks crash, his loans that are backed by those stocks get margin called, and he will have to sell other stock. If the government didn't bail him out, and they will so this is academic, although he will have to pay them bribes secretly obviously that goes without saying, he would see a cascading effect from a recession because his companies are all so overpriced.

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