I think a more plausible description is that he's using shady financial engineering to prop up failing firms at the expense of investors to his other companies:

I think a more plausible description is that he's using shady financial engineering to prop up failing firms at the expense of investors to his other companies: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/18/solarcity-teslas-solar-boondoggle.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/18/solarcity-teslas-s... > The logic of the buyout never made much sense in the first place, unless you looked at the hundreds of millions of dollars Elon Musk, Peter Rive, and Lyndon Rive would lose in stock and bond value if SolarCity went under. This is looking more and more like a bailout and Tesla may eventually have to take a massive loss on solar operations.