5 ms·

I'm not sure you are following the Elon-Solar City case if you think Elon's only sin is being a dick on Twitter. Or the original $420 funding a share saga. Elo

by xkjkls 5y ago

I'm not sure you are following the Elon-Solar City case if you think Elon's only sin is being a dick on Twitter. Or the original $420 funding a share saga. Elon Musk's repeated fake-it-till-you-make-it behavior and the unwillingness of regulators to crack down on it spawns Trevor Miltons.

djmips 5y ago
This has been going on since time immemorial. A part of me thinks it's a necessary evil in a world where people won't fund revolutionary ideas. However, that also means Milton and Holmes etc.
- xkjkls 5y ago
  I would agree that fraud is always going to happen; how much though is up for debate, and I would tend to argue that more fraud makes the world worse at funding revolutionary ideas. More revolutionary ideas happen and get funded in the US, which while I believe has become rife with fraud over the past decade, is no where near the scale the number of frauds in China or Africa or less well monitored markets. Trust is fundamental part of markets and is basically its own interest rate. The more people can trust one another, the riskier investments people are willing to partake in.
slownews45 5y ago
The SEC did enforce against tesla - when Elon tweeted "Tesla’s stock price is too high imo" - they began an investigation and subpoenaed records because they felt this this had not been approved by attorneys (it wasn't - elon claimed it was his personal opinion). So they went after him for this. They also went after him for a lot of other stuff. Note that they haven't gone after folks for failure to deliver issues on sales which is usually caused by shorting stocks such as Tesla's and others. Even though you'd think the basics of a regulated market is that folks selling shares actually own and will deliver them if someone buys them.
- xkjkls 5y ago
  > They also went after him for a lot of other stuff. Like lying about a buyout offer for his company. Which he received a incredibly small punishment for.
  - TheParkShark 5y ago
    Are you sure he was lying?
    - xkjkls 5y ago
      I mean, similarly to my certainty Donald Trump was lying that his taxes are under audit, and thats why he can't release them. Do I have exact knowledge of Elon's head state, no, but I can make inferences from all his actions since. If a buyer truly existed to facilitate that transaction, that would be public knowledge at this point.
      - onethought 5y ago
        If you muck in the private equity world at all you'd know that this isn't true at all. Lots of deals and nearly deals happen everyday and they only reach the public sphere if the parties want it too.
        xkjkls 5y ago
        This was an $100 billion deal at the time. It would have been the largest LBO of all time. If there hasn't been any institution revealed to have been financing it at this point then there wasn't one.
        slownews45 5y ago
        I think it was pretty clear that he was thinking about Saudi / middle east / Norwegian / sovereign wealth type funding on equity side. Then debt for rest if needed. These funds are looking to diversify away from oil - so for them a play in EV space makes sense. The Saudis in particular planned to do an IPO in oil industry - but that ended up not happening which really changed their decision making. If it had they were explicit about desire to diversify (smart in my view). It wasn't a $100B deal. Many larger investors would rolled their holdings into the private entity - Elon alone would have. $40 - $50B. If debt is in mix equity portion even smaller. It would have been the deal of the century. "Saudi’s Public Investment Fund built the undisclosed stake of between 3 and 5 per cent of Tesla’s shares this year, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. At Tesla’s current share price the position is worth between $1.7bn and $2.9bn. The stake, which is below the 5 per cent threshold that requires public disclosure, makes the PIF one of Tesla’s eight biggest shareholders, according to Bloomberg data. The PIF, which has more than $250bn in assets, initially approached Tesla and chief executive Elon Musk to express interest in purchasing newly issued shares in the electric vehicle company. However, Tesla did not act on the interest, one person informed on the matter said. Instead, the Saudi state fund acquired the position in secondary markets with the help of JPMorgan." - Financial Times. Someone's just chased down $2B of your stock on SECONDARY market - yeah - that's actually more interest than many deal talks even get to. And yes - discussions like this happen with some frequency - and it's not a scandal if the deal doesn't close - you just don't usually read about them. Elon says he wanted to talk to Apple about buying tesla as well, he's on twitter more than most. That said, folks on the deal side - there tends to be movement in stock prices 3 days before deals are announced - so someone is making money on the normally secret considerations.

by xkjkls 5y ago

djmips 5y ago

This has been going on since time immemorial. A part of me thinks it's a necessary evil in a world where people won't fund revolutionary ideas. However, that also means Milton and Holmes etc.

xkjkls 5y ago
I would agree that fraud is always going to happen; how much though is up for debate, and I would tend to argue that more fraud makes the world worse at funding revolutionary ideas. More revolutionary ideas happen and get funded in the US, which while I believe has become rife with fraud over the past decade, is no where near the scale the number of frauds in China or Africa or less well monitored markets. Trust is fundamental part of markets and is basically its own interest rate. The more people can trust one another, the riskier investments people are willing to partake in.

slownews45 5y ago

The SEC did enforce against tesla - when Elon tweeted "Tesla’s stock price is too high imo" - they began an investigation and subpoenaed records because they felt this this had not been approved by attorneys (it wasn't - elon claimed it was his personal opinion). So they went after him for this. They also went after him for a lot of other stuff. Note that they haven't gone after folks for failure to deliver issues on sales which is usually caused by shorting stocks such as Tesla's and others. Even though you'd think the basics of a regulated market is that folks selling shares actually own and will deliver them if someone buys them.

xkjkls 5y ago
> They also went after him for a lot of other stuff. Like lying about a buyout offer for his company. Which he received a incredibly small punishment for.
- TheParkShark 5y ago
  Are you sure he was lying?
  - xkjkls 5y ago
    I mean, similarly to my certainty Donald Trump was lying that his taxes are under audit, and thats why he can't release them. Do I have exact knowledge of Elon's head state, no, but I can make inferences from all his actions since. If a buyer truly existed to facilitate that transaction, that would be public knowledge at this point.
    - onethought 5y ago
      If you muck in the private equity world at all you'd know that this isn't true at all. Lots of deals and nearly deals happen everyday and they only reach the public sphere if the parties want it too.
      - xkjkls 5y ago
        This was an $100 billion deal at the time. It would have been the largest LBO of all time. If there hasn't been any institution revealed to have been financing it at this point then there wasn't one.
        slownews45 5y ago
        I think it was pretty clear that he was thinking about Saudi / middle east / Norwegian / sovereign wealth type funding on equity side. Then debt for rest if needed. These funds are looking to diversify away from oil - so for them a play in EV space makes sense. The Saudis in particular planned to do an IPO in oil industry - but that ended up not happening which really changed their decision making. If it had they were explicit about desire to diversify (smart in my view). It wasn't a $100B deal. Many larger investors would rolled their holdings into the private entity - Elon alone would have. $40 - $50B. If debt is in mix equity portion even smaller. It would have been the deal of the century. "Saudi’s Public Investment Fund built the undisclosed stake of between 3 and 5 per cent of Tesla’s shares this year, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. At Tesla’s current share price the position is worth between $1.7bn and $2.9bn. The stake, which is below the 5 per cent threshold that requires public disclosure, makes the PIF one of Tesla’s eight biggest shareholders, according to Bloomberg data. The PIF, which has more than $250bn in assets, initially approached Tesla and chief executive Elon Musk to express interest in purchasing newly issued shares in the electric vehicle company. However, Tesla did not act on the interest, one person informed on the matter said. Instead, the Saudi state fund acquired the position in secondary markets with the help of JPMorgan." - Financial Times. Someone's just chased down $2B of your stock on SECONDARY market - yeah - that's actually more interest than many deal talks even get to. And yes - discussions like this happen with some frequency - and it's not a scandal if the deal doesn't close - you just don't usually read about them. Elon says he wanted to talk to Apple about buying tesla as well, he's on twitter more than most. That said, folks on the deal side - there tends to be movement in stock prices 3 days before deals are announced - so someone is making money on the normally secret considerations.