this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
2486 points (97.9% liked)
Technology
59412 readers
3397 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Lol. "Negative cash flow."
You're broke. You're f*cking BROKE.
But he's not. He'll be fine. He'll always be fine.
It's hard to comprehend just how vastly, mind-bogglingly rich the ultra rich are, so consider: according to Wikipedia, Musk's net worth in July 2023 was about $239 billion. That means that he could lose 99% of everything he owns, and then lose 99% of what was left, and be left with over $20 million, more money than most of us will see in a lifetime.
He's not going to be applying for EBT any time soon. Hell, he's not going to be selling off the spare Lamborghini any time soon.
Yeah he personally isn’t broke and no matter how much debt Twitter racks up, it can’t put him in the red. That’s just how corporations work.
Still, he borrowed that $44bil and will have to face the people who lent it to him. Apparent the service on that debt is already equal to Twitter’s total operating expenses. That’s real money.
WhY he’s lost by this is prestige. He lost the court case and demonstrably got taken to the cleaners. He hasn’t been able to turn the business around and in fact has made it worse. And his creditors are left holding the bag. That’s some real humiliation for someone like him.
I have to believe that those who gave him that loan knew exactly the kind of shit show he would bring to Twitter and that was their goal - to make it wholly less relevant and less able to undermine them.
Maybe to make it more conservative friendly. I can’t believe capitalists feared Twitter’ great journalistic power to hold them to account. But you’re right.
@scarabic I was also thinking about foreign illiberal governments
Oh like the Saudis? Good point
Maybe the Saudis will Kashoggi him for losing their money. A man can dream, anyway
Ooh an optimist!
I lead a rich fantasy life.
Oh, just for contrast: imagine someone who graduates from med school, immediately gets a job as a neurosurgeon making $200,000/year — No, let's say she really works hard, and is very good at her job, and spends wisely, and actually manages to save $200,000/year. Let's say she manages to keep this up every year for 50 years. How much does she have when she retires? $20 million, less than if Elon Musk lost 99% of everything, and then lost 99% again.
Negative cash flow means they are spending more than they are earning.
It doesn't mean they don't have money already.
I mean, this is about twitter, why bring up Tesla?
well, wasn't me, also you can't tell if he said that about Musk or Twitter, since he used "you're" which applies to both and since it's about Twitter it makes more sense that it's Twitter who is the "you" in the comment.
As someone else said, I think it's pretty clear they meant Twitter.
By my memory of the news at the time he had to take out a significant amount of debt to complete the purchase of Twitter, meaning that failing to make those mind boggling number of millions of dollars per month in debt payments would put him at risk of his assets being seized, such as his significant stake in Tesla.
The overwhelming majority of his wealth is tied up in Tesla stocks, so Tesla doing well while the vanity project he over-borrowed to complete crashes and burns just means either a painfully slow bleeding dry of Elon, or best case for Elon, Tesla manages to increase in value so much that it completely eclipses the loans for Twitter and he can cut his losses. I suppose there's also the possibility that some insane windfall comes to Twitter and it can gain enough value to not be entirely overburdened by Elon's debt
Elon likely had enough paper wealth to buy Twitter out right. He chose to court outside funding. I am guessing because he won't be on the hook if Twitter goes bankrupt. Still after he sold his Tesla stock his net worth dropped by like 140 billion or something? Such a stupid thing to do, though I am not a money genius and my net worth is negative due to credit card debt
Hmm... Knocks on wood
Those debts most likely belong to Twitter, not Elon personally. That's the "high debt load" he's talking about.