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Elon Musk: Correcting the Record About My Divorce
- aresant 16y ago"The legal and accounting bills for the divorce total four million dollars so far, which is an average of roughly $170,000 per month for the past 24 months." Wow.
- abstractbill 16y agoThe lawyers always win.
- Retric 16y agoHe is paying for both party's so she has no reason to skimp on legal fee's. But assuming a 50/50 split it works out to ~500$ / hour * 40 hours a week, for each of them. Which is probably just 1 full time layer + some part time help for each of them.
- russell_h 16y agoSerious question, does a divorce like that really require 2 years of full time work for each party?
- philwelch 16y agoIf you think you can get hundreds of millions of dollars out of a divorce, of course you'll spend tens of millions of dollars of legal fees to get it. Especially if some of those tens of millions of dollars essentially pay someone else to tell you you'll get hundreds of millions of dollars out of it.
- wmf 16y agoDupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1498914 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1498914 Curiously, neither site says where this comes from.
- faramarz 16y agoWhat do you mean? The Huffington post is written by Musk himself.
- wmf 16y agoDid he spam this to a bunch of news sites or did he send it to one and the others copied it? Usually there's more attribution. e.g. if BusinessInsider copied it from HuffPo then they should probably give credit.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- faramarz 16y agoI don't know either, and I don't know why he's getting voted down :S Anyway, looks like there is a time difference. The Huffington post seems to be from earlier in the day (possibly an original).
- tspiteri 16y agoThe dupe-caller is being downvoted because of incorrectly saying that "neither site says where this comes from," and the replier is being upvoted for pointing that out.
- mcantor 16y agoThe Huffington Post post?
- bhellman1 16y agoNow that's what you call an entrepreneur
- alanh 16y agoFor shame. I don’t understand how someone can be so greedy as to try to take wealth their ex-parter created after explicitly agreeing not to do so! Edit: And due to lawyers’ fees, the couple’s net worth is decreased by millions in the process.
- pavs 16y agoFor this reason I don't see myself ever getting married. I can't even fully understand my childhood friend, how will I know if the women I married will not drastically change 10-15 years from now and use it against me knowing very well that the system is in her favor? There is nothing you can do, even a pre-nup is not safe. Thanks to the divorce culture of USA, why would any sane person would want to get married? For me the worst part of this case is that she was offered 80 million, 4 times more than what she was entitled for.... and she wants more? Utterly despicable.
- loewenskind 16y ago>after explicitly agreeing not to do so! This wasn't done in a prenup, it was done at a later stage in a legally (at this point anyway) ambiguous manner.
- acangiano 16y agoThe lesson here is: marriage is a very risky proposition, particularly if you are male or much richer (even just potentially) than your partner. (PS: Much respect for Musk.)
- petercooper 16y agoThe lesson here is: marriage is a very risky proposition That depends who you are, who you're marrying, and where you live. Divorces are only this expensive and drawn out in a handful of countries, and milking your ex-partner for all they're worth is a similarly non-universal trait. Further, some people simply don't have this mentality or a single retributory bone in their body. Those are the people you marry.
- FluidDjango 16y agoGuess you'd better be psychic enough or psychologist enough to be able to assess someone's "retributory bones" ...or their ability to grow them when they feel aggrieved against you.
- petercooper 16y agoPsychic or just being a perceptive partner in a long term relationship heading toward a life-long commitment. People can change over time in ways you wouldn't anticipate, but if you marry someone only once you know them deeply (and if you don't, you deserve what you get), you should be reasonably confident of what sort of person they are or could become.
- defen 16y ago> People can change over time in ways you wouldn't anticipate, but if you marry someone only once you know them deeply (and if you don't, you deserve what you get), you should be reasonably confident of what sort of person they are or could become. "Reasonably confident" is a remarkably weak threshold for putting half of one's future wealth on the line. What else does one deserve to get, as "punishment" for not being sufficiently perceptive of a future spouse's character?
- barmstrong 16y agoThis whole thing is a bit surprisingly to me since it seems like Elon covered his bases with the separate property agreement. Yet it still has been a major hassle for him money wise. Gene Simmons (from the band kiss) has an interesting approach to this which he wrote about in his book. He never married his long time partner and playboy playmate Shannon Tweed. But he took it even a step further having her and other live in girlfriends sign documents stating that despite living together they would not become common law married. Trump is ok with marriage, but puts strong pre-numps in place. Anyway, it's reading articles like this that can really turn you off to marriage as an entrepreneur. It's hard to say whether you're going to be in love with someone in 20 years, much less 1 year, so why put a legal contract on it? It might make more sense to vest your marriage over time or just take your partnership one day at a time without a contract.
- wmf 16y agovest your marriage over time AFAIK some state laws have this feature; the wife only gets half after ten years or something.
- rumpelstiltskin 16y agothe wife only gets half after ten years or something You mean 'spouse' right? Edit: Granted, there may not be very many instances (or any for that matter) where the man is going after the woman's wealth, but the point is that the provision applies to both parties.
- alanh 16y agoYes, in theory. But anecdotes of the opposite case happening do not readily come to mind (though this is a cognitive bias). It’s my understanding courts favor women in divorce proceedings.
- dgabriel 16y agoI am a woman who pays my ex-husband a small amount of alimony, and a significant amount of child support even though we have 50-50 physical custody. The courts do not favor the woman, they favor the spouse in the weaker position financially, especially if that spouse was the primary caregiver. In most cases, this is the woman.
- cullenking 16y agoIt's amazing that someone could have enough genius to revolutionize the internet (paypal enabling easy ecommerce), revolutionize space flight and are attempting to revolutionize personal transpost, but can not successfully navigate the california legal system. All jokes aside, Elon Musk is a freaking inspiration and it sucks to see their creative potential squandered by a lame court battle.
- lionhearted 16y ago> What caught me by surprise, and forced me to seek emergency loans from friends, were the enormous legal fees I had to pay my ex-wife's divorce lawyers. In a California divorce, the wealthier spouse must pay both sides of the battle even if they are not the aggressor. > The legal and accounting bills for the divorce total four million dollars so far, which is an average of roughly $170,000 per month for the past 24 months. Journalists were quick to mock the poor "broke" guy that had $200k a month expenses, failing to note that legal fees constituted the majority. That's utterly despicable - Grellas, can you help us put together a plan to disbar and exile everyone involved in the divorce racket or something? Talk about a destruction of wealth, energy, time, and life - it's embarrassing that we let this happen to people in the United States. Our family/divorce courts and the associated personnel are destructive, vindictive, and capricious. This needs to change. Why do people stand for it? What can we do?
- pohl 16y agoWhat can we do? Abandon the institution of marriage entirely. Nuke it from orbit, as it were. It's the only way to be sure. The legal end of it is a mere wealth-redistribution mechanism. The social end of it is made of community who loves to witness people getting into marriages, but they scatter during the demise. So what function does it perform? From my perspective, it only serves to weaken commitment by trying to offload the responsibility of staying together to a legal framework. Can anybody make a good case for continuing the charade?
- commanda 16y agoActually, yes. Many marriages are entered into by two parties with the agreement that one party will be the primary caretaker of the children (home-maker), which is a profession that is unpaid. The other party will work outside the home and provide money for the family. In that case, the years of work that the home-maker has put in should be recognized as valid work, and in the event of a break-up of the marriage, the home-maker should continue to receive monetary support from the other party, as they (often) have no viable other professional skills. This needs to be enforceable in court in the interest of people whose profession is home-maker. This is also why gay marriage (and gay divorce) should be legally codified like straight marriage is. People need legal recourse to persist their own standards of living. If someone entering into a marriage does not want to take on the lifetime of responsibility of providing for the person who is promising to take on the role of home-maker in their household, perhaps they shouldn't enter into a marriage.
- neilc 16y agoWhy is this on HN, and the top story no less? Gossip about celebrities is boring, even if the celebrity happens to be a famous geek. I'm not one to bitch about off-topic stories, but I'm genuinely curious why people find this story to be interesting.
- andreyf 16y agoElon Musk co-founded PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
- neilc 16y agoYes, I am aware of who he is. Why is his divorce any more interesting because of the companies he has founded?
- jboydyhacker 16y agoTo be honest I have never been what you would call a huge Elon Musk fan but this was a very well laid out case. The amazing part of course is even though he had a prenup, the judges and lawyers have allowed this to go on so long he has huge legal fees. I have seen this happen to several entrepreneur friends of mine--in fact (true story)-- I know what entrepreneur who had a prenum and divorced and remarried the same woman TWICE. Got soaked both times even w/ prenup. People should be able to get married in the United States without the risk of massive wholesale wealth transfer.
- jacquesm 16y ago> I know what entrepreneur who had a prenum and divorced and remarried the same woman TWICE. Got soaked both times even w/ prenup. That doesn't sound too clever to me. Once bitten twice shy right ?
- jboydyhacker 16y agoThe guy married her before his first startup...sold it for 800m...she divorced him. He was on is back. Did another startup--remarried same woman. Divorced again. Taken to bank both times. Prenup thrown out both times. It ain't right.
- loewenskind 16y ago>even though he had a prenup He didn't have a prenup. If he did the case would probably already be over.
- yardie 16y agoPrenups can be disregarded for all types of reasons. The main one I've heard is when one spouse makes, whats considered to be, unreasonable conditions, ie., "Sign this contract or I won't marry you". That's why Elon put in their that little line that witnesses and council were there for the postnup. If one spouse has council and the other doesn't when they sign a prenup. that prenup is toast.
- edw519 16y agoYou'd think someone as smart as Elon Musk would have followed the advice of Felix Dennis: "If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it.. it’s cheaper in the long run."
- thaumaturgy 16y agoMy girlfriend has been an amazing source of support while I've been working on my business. I won't say I couldn't've done it without her, but it would certainly be less fun and a bit more challenging.
- 9oliYQjP 16y ago"My girlfriend..." So you're following Felix's advice then :-)
- d0m 16y agoPlease don't flame me, but that's the kind of post doesn't really interest me on hacker news. (There are really few of them thought). If all news were like this, I would stop using HN.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jmm 16y agoOh, come on. Elon is one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs of our generation and it /is/ news that he's been run through the wringer by Justine. This has to be distracting from companies that are aiming to do truly great things... solar energy, electric cars, privatized space flight. So I'm OK with a little solidarity here, and allowing him to clear his name before a pretty appropriate audience, given the technologies he's involved in and has been involved in.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jmm 16y agoI get what you're saying. Even this exchange we're having is not productive in the truer sense of the word. But I do think titles of articles here are for the most part honest and direct, and that should provide some decent filter for avoiding tech gossip. Like, "Correcting the Record from my Divorce" on Huffington Post will pretty clearly not link to an article that is edifying in the way that you want. Funny about the PG article... I've been coworking a bit and some of the guys have put up multiple barriers to accessing Hacker News. I'm moving towards that, too. The illusion that I'm getting things done by reading tech related articles a couple hours a day is, er, being disillusioned.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- araneae 16y agoI should have just seen that this was from Huffington Post and not bothered clicking.
- winzie 16y agoI feel bad for the guy. I would buy Tesla stocks if I had the money.
- bluethunder 16y agoMusk is an icon I cannot admire enough. His ex-wife is a gold-digger blogger I cannot hate enough. The least she could do is to leave him alone with his work.
- impeachgod 16y agoCan you end a marriage without requiring the services of predatory divorce lawyers? As in, a wife and husband having a "gentleman's agreement" to divide children and property?
- dagw 16y agoVaries from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but in many places yes (with a caveat). You both show up at the relevant office, fill in some paper work, pay a small filing fee and you're basically done (many places have a separation period between the paperwork being filed and the actual divorce kicking in). The caveat being that even if you do it this way there is nothing stopping one of the spouses suing the other after the fact for access to the children or more money, so you're not completely off the hook if your spouse later decides to get vindictive.
- binarray2000 16y agoWould you enter a business agreement in which your partner has the right to break the deal whenever he wants and take at least the half of the things that you brought into the relationship (prior and post agreement)?
- mkramlich 16y agowhy is divorce so complicated that lawyers can justify charging so much? at it's simplest it could be a form that the two spouses sign and date, perhaps with witnesses, then you submit it somewhere. i realize there can be disagreements about who gets what and that may take time to negotiate, but why would that require thousands of billable hours by lawyers? This is not rocket science, no programming needed, just people talking to each other, and only 2 needed at a minimum. Plus divorces are so common and have been happening for over a century I imagine, so you'd think it would be highly standardized and streamlined by now. UNLESS perhaps lawyers/lawmakers were themselves trying to keep it complex and manual to preserve job security. anybody? anybody? grellas?