16 ms·

I guess HN was wrong (top comments) that Musk couldn't possibly have a way to finance his deal. And here we are.

greatpostman 5y ago
Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. Somehow people still think he’s just a showman. At some point in time, accomplishments can’t be explained away
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  He’s not just a showman, but he is a showman. And it’s not like you have to dig back into ancient history to find instances where he invented a bid like this, he basically made up a bid for Tesla a few years ago and lied about having secured financing.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    Yeah that's why there is such a long history of showman starting successful rocket company and other successful high capital businesses. Musk has never admired to having made up the funding. He settled the dispute because it lead to problems with Tesla credit rating, banks didn't want an outstanding dispute with SEC.
  - AlchemistCamp 5y ago
    > lied about having secured financing. He says he did have funding secured. He elaborated on the details in the recent TED talk. Do you have any privileged information about the incident or are you just casually calling someone a liar based on third-hand news you read online?
    - evthrowaway 5y ago
    - vba616 5y ago
      A judge recently said he was a liar and it was so far beyond dispute that a jury would not be allowed to decide for themselves, as they might be influenced by Musk's ongoing public BSing such as with the TED talk. So, no, informed people are not "casually" calling him a liar.
      - AlchemistCamp 5y ago
        > A judge recently said he was a liar I sincerely doubt that. Judges don’t tend to talk that way, regardless of the case at hand.
        Toboe 5y ago
        >> A judge recently said he was a liar >I sincerely doubt that. Judges don’t tend to talk that way, regardless of the case at hand. GP is probably refering to this (in which case you are right, judge didn't use words like liar) https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/judge-in-musk-trial-will-tell-jury-that-funding-secured-tweets-were-false/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/judge-in-musk-tr... "Judge in Musk trial will tell jury that “Funding secured” tweets were false" and "[T]hough 'jury instructions are often an ineffective remedy,' the Court finds that unlikely to be true for the instant case where the jury will be told that the Court has already found that the August 2018 tweets were false and made with the requisite scienter [knowledge of wrongdoing]," Chen wrote.
        dwighttk 5y ago
        >false and made with the requisite scienter Those are words like liar.
        skinnymuch 5y ago
        So the judge said he’s a liar. Just without using the exact word lie or liar
        vba616 5y ago
        True, and that is why I didn't write 'A judge recently called him a "liar"'.
  - samuelstros 5y ago
    Internal chat between Musk and the Saudi investors just popped up on my twitter feed https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1518353213283442688 https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1518353213283442688 Doesn't seem like the funding secured thing was an outright lie.
    - gamblor956 5y ago
      Nowhere in the emails do the Saudi investors pledge funding. At best, they say they might be interested in investing. Therefore, "funding secured" was absolutely an outright lie, unless words don't have meaning anymore.
      - matthewdgreen 5y ago
        It’s much worse than that. I had previously assumed Musk knew what he was doing and was fooling around on Twitter in an effort to (unethically) crush short sellers. Now it appears like he’s an utterly inept businessman who took the first verbal sign of interest, rushed it to Twitter as though the deal was complete, and then blew up the deal in a hissy fit. I still think what he’s done at SpaceX and Tesla is admirable, but after reading those emails I’m definitely a few percent less confident that there will still be a Tesla to service my Model 3 in the future.
        mlindner 5y ago
        He's not an inept businessman. He's someone with aspergers who takes someone at face value at all times. If someone says something is the case he believes them. He doesn't handle being deceived well nor does he know when it's happening. And actually he's not a "businessman" at all. He's an engineer at heart. "Businessman" would require strong social skills, not something someone with aspergers has good ability at.
        fxtentacle 5y ago
        Very interesting theory. But do you have a source?
  - mlindner 5y ago
    He's never been a showman. It's a ridiculous internet myth that thinks that he is. Anyone who says he's a showman really has no understanding of the guy and hasn't looked at what he's said outside of the stuff he's put on twitter. Listen to his speeches, and not the one where it's some bland interviewer that constantly interrupts him.
    - skulk 5y ago
      Here's Musk being a pure showman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcfi8HK1i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcfi8HK1i8 Even though there's a bunch of people (including Carmack) that claim that he's a great engineer, it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this. Like, did he use up all of his thinking fuel on designing rockets that he didn't understand why the boring company's mission was a total non-starter?
      - mlindner 5y ago
        A CNN 2 minute video chopping up what he says to make it sound more grand is not him being a "showman". It's called video editing. You can tell the video has been HIGHLY edited because it's not how he talks. > it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw?t=122 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw?t=122 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8ZBJWo73E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8ZBJWo73E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zlnbs-NBUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zlnbs-NBUI This is how Musk actually talks. > Like, did he use up all of his thinking fuel on designing rockets that he didn't understand why the boring company's mission was a total non-starter? He doesn't spend a lot of time working on the boring company to be frank. It's a small side project. He's doing it to see if it's possible.
        skulk 5y ago
        The point is, building tunnels underground for personal transport vehicles as a "solution" to traffic is a terrible idea, and something only a showman can sell. Even if he has an awkward 2 hour speech about it, he succeeded as a showman because Vegas funded this terrible idea (just look how it ended up).
- FinNerd 5y ago
  It’s largely cope. Love him or hate him, insanely talented, hard-working, and intelligent. Calling him a showman and conman is great way to posture superiority over the guy shooting rockets into space and hiring 100k+ people
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    It is also a simplification to highlight his achievements without also acknowledging that he doesn’t seem to be a very moral or stable person. Some of the criticism of his behavior is clearly sour grapes that he doesn’t act “properly” for a billionaire, but there are also many examples of him being a bad person a la Steve Jobs. We tolerate the characteristics because of the perceived value, but it would also be nice to highlight genuinely good people with significant accomplishments for being successful as well as kind.
    - panick21_ 5y ago
      How is he 'unstable' exactly? He has been leading successful companies for 30 years and pretty much every company he has been involved in has been highly successful. He has never been unstable, just opinionated. And people don't like that so they call him psychologically unstable instead. What he has done that is bad and why people hate him: - Called somebody something bad on twitter once. - Twits dumb memes with dumb humor sometimes - Twitted about cryptocurrencies. People claim this is market manipulation to enrich himself without any evidence. - Twitter 'Funding secured'. People believe this is made up, however it was conclusively settled. And even if it was not fully secured, there is little question he could have found the money. So not sure why people are so angry about that. That seems to be most of the criticism I read. If that is the worst thing, I don't know what people are so worked up about. Some leftists are angry he doesn't support unions, but of course almost no rich person (and many non rich people don't either).
      - mdoms 5y ago
        > Called somebody something bad on twitter once I assume you're talking about the time he called a diver (and actual hero) a pedophile. It went a bit further than that - he hired a private investigator who tried (and failed) to dig up dirt on the man.
- financetechbro 5y ago
  To be fair - it’s more about twitter than musk. Twitter just isn’t the best social media platform out there in terms of financial performance, and they also don’t have the ability to take too much debt, making the financing even more challenging bc it can be a pretty risky asset. Still tho, the financing is complex. It will be interesting if Musk (read: Morgan Stanley) can actually pull it off.
- alephnan 5y ago
  Talk is cheap. Stock market is the place to test convictions. Pretty sure most of those people didn’t have skin in the game, long or short, either ways
- SpikeDad 5y ago
  Accomplished? He's got money and hired some smart people. And tech media is more than happy to ignore all the stupid shit he's done and tried.
  - dijit 5y ago
    > He's got money and hired some smart people. Definitely not a fan of his but hiring smart people and enabling them is an accomplishment. As wealthy as he is, he didn’t inherit all of what he has today. He’s definitely done more than many people who come from wealth.
    - native_samples 5y ago
      He didn't inherit any of what he has today, did he? And he didn't come from wealth. He grew up in South Africa.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - dijit 5y ago
        Are you implying that there are no wealthy people in South Africa? Not to sound “attacky” but that seems extremely naive. Truthfully, he comes from wealth, but not close to the wealth he has today; his father owned half of an emerald mine for example. He is quoted as saying (about his youth): "We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe"
        stormbrew 5y ago
        No one on the planet at the time was as wealthy as the current crop of ultra-rich, including Musk. Perhaps no one in all of history, really, though that becomes a complicated comparison really fast. But yes, he absolutely comes from wealth. Just like most of them do.
        5y ago
- darkteflon 5y ago
  I thought this[1] was one of the most accurate (and succinct) takes on him I’ve read: “Elon Musk is a bullshitter who delivers. This breaks a lot of people's pattern-matching, in both directions.” [1](https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1358760338724974594?s=21&t=eU-2Uwrx3CfvUJxNz5fdKw https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1358760338724974594...)
- isitmadeofglass 5y ago
  > Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. You don’t have to imagine. It literally already happened once when he claimed he had funding secured to take Tesla private. As such, if you can’t imagine him not having funding secured this time, you’re severely lacking in imagination.
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    Yes, relying on the word of Saudi Arabia without a written agreement was pretty dumb. Especially for 70B. This time the plan seems to have better foundations.
    - xorcist 5y ago
      Especially considering Saudi Arabia is well known for cannabis jokes.
      - hef19898 5y ago
        That, and human rights.
  - WatchDog 5y ago
    Elon claims that in that case the funding was indeed secured.
  - shafyy 5y ago
    In his latest TED interview [0], Musk said that he had the funding secured for that Tesla private offering. He said that he needed to settle with the SEC so that they wouldn't freeze Tesla's bank accounts, and as part of the settlement he needed to publicly say that he hadn't secured funding. I don't think he's lying. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdZZpaB2kDM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdZZpaB2kDM
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Why would the SEC block Tesla accounts? The SEC is imposing fines. I call Musks statement a lie.
- bollox 5y ago
  > most accomplished dude on the planet No, just the most famous braggart. Other people, i.e. actual experts and professionals, did all the actual work that he likes to lay claim to accomplishing.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  The problem with lending to him is most of his assets are TSLA shares. It's arguably absurdly overvalued as an automaker, and any effort to liquidate his position would be expensive since it would drive the price down. Someone did it, but I'm sure some people passed. As someone else pointed out, TWTR isn't a great purchase, either. Its ad revenue isn't great, so if he defaults on the loan, the lender is stuck with an asset they don't want.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    They did it at a 5x multiple. They can cover the loan as long as Tesla stays above 203.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Was a similar loan among the reasons why a Tesla "bankrupcy" a couple of years ago wasn't that unlikely? It seems that the 203 $ are a reasonable valuation.
    - dehrmann 5y ago
      That would be a bit lower than Toyota's value. Toyota sold 10.5M vehicles last year. Tesla sold 930k. Yes, Tesla's growth is solid, but the valuation is because of the true believers. I avoid investing in anything Elon touches because valuations get weird.
      - logifail 5y ago
        > Tesla's growth is solid, but the valuation is because of the true believers I'm really not what you'd call a believer in Tesla - although had my first ever ride in a one (a model 3) recently, quite an eye-opening experience. It's not as thought Tesla is the only company where the current valuation doesn't appear to make much sense looking at the numbers...
        EtienneK 5y ago
        > eye-opening experience How so? I've had rides in Model S's before and it was totally... fine? What made the Model 3 experience so much better than a conventional car?
- fjkal 5y ago
  Yes, Tesla is very good at securing funding: https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-s-main-product-isn-t-cars-it-s-subsidies-14769263 https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-s-mai... "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Heartland America, you have just subsidized a bunch of millionaires living in California's most expensive coastal ZIP codes to the tune of $10,197 per car. I'm sure they are sending you a thank-you card." It would be hilarious if it turns out that the government is interested in a private Twitter for "enhanced" data collection and analysis.
  - mcv 5y ago
    If the government wants to stimulate electric vehicles, those subsidies are incredibly well spent. Tesla popularised them and grew the market for them like nobody else has done. Mr and Mrs Heartland America should be more concerned about the subsidies for oil companies; what are those meant to accomplish exactly?
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    (2018)
- gigatexal 5y ago
  It's still a huge gamble for him and his backers. Twitter while immensely important to the world in terms of reach -- it got Trump elected -- does not make money well... let's see what he does. I've come to terms with him buying it. I'll go elsewhere if it gets shitty.
pxx 5y ago
I don't know of people saying that he had "no possible way" to finance a deal. Quoting the excellent Matt Levine, the situation is more like the following: '''the answer to the question “might Elon Musk have made an offer to take a large public company private, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, without giving any real thought to where the money would come from?” is “absolutely yes, and he’s done it before.”'''
- panick21_ 5y ago
  And that's not actually accurate. Even if you take the extreme interpretation of 'funding secured' he certainty didn't just wholesale make up the claim.
- HillRat 5y ago
  When all is said and done, this is likely to be a Thoma Bravo deal, not a Musk deal — too much OPM (and too much of Musk’s Tesla equity) is at stake to let Musk go all rabid ferret on the company. I’d expect him to get some high-profile and low-impact personal wins out of this (whatever those might be, since it’s still not clear to me what he actually wants out of this), TB tears the dev organization down to the studs to get opex under control, they spin it back to the market within a few years for a tidy profit, and the company collapses shortly thereafter, with its assets sold off to Red Ventures for a fraction of a cent on the dollar to serve as a lead-generator for prepaid mobile operators.
rvz 5y ago
Of course they were wrong. Just like how they buy the stock AFTER the announcement hoping that it goes up, but instead it falls. [0] Typical. Always be skeptical of what is widely reported on the news and don't blindly listen to what is being said by the brainless parrots on twitter re-tweeting everything that they think is 'going' to happen. Especially even if this deal goes through. As I said before. [1] As always, not even the most upvoted or top comments are correct either. It's yet another bias projection. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984349 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984397
FFRefresh 5y ago
I'm finding media coverage and opinions on trending news topics to be increasingly superficial and partisan. It has certainly always been the case to some degree, but as someone who does truly want to understand how things work and are, it's become more difficult to make sense of things. It seems like media entities feel they need to be entrenched on their side of the American culture war, and show no empathy/humility/curiosity or attempt to take a holistic view on issues. The mainstream media takes on Musk and Twitter have certainly been something. For some reason, he's been coded as 'right wing' by many among the media set, and is getting the treatment that those coded that way get. The available evidence doesn't support that coding, and it all shouldn't matter anyway.
- chrischattin 5y ago
  Anyone who doesn't fall in line and support the "current thing" is labeled a far-right extremist these days. Ironically, they do this even to people with traditionally liberal views like free speech being a good thing, like Elon in this case.
  - yucky 5y ago
    >Anyone who doesn't fall in line and support the "current thing" is labeled a far-right extremist these days. I Support The Current Thing 5 words that drive the Twitterati nuts because it encapsulates their whole online existence.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - pseudo0 5y ago
      I'm surprised they haven't banned that phrase already like they did with "learn to code".
      - skulk 5y ago
        If the phrase is used to harass people in a targeted manner, then sure. Running a platform that excludes those who harass people is quite reasonable, and necessary if you want to keep those sweet advertising numbers up.
mzs 5y ago
Looks like the difference could be structured in a stock swap. https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/elon-musk-holding-companies-twitter https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/elon-musk-holding-compan...
mcv 5y ago
I would expect Musk sold at least some of his Tesla stock during its ridiculously high valuation of the past year.
sangnoir 5y ago
He hasn't financed the full amount and is still short. He'll have to unload Tesla shares to raise the balance; I'm very curious if he'll do that. Maybe in being overly cynical, but it feels like it may be the board calling his bluff rather than prolonging the process/having to find a white knight. I'm morbidly curious about what a private Twitter will look like in 2 years (both the company[1] and product)

Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. Somehow people still think he’s just a showman. At some point in time, accomplishments can’t be explained away

matthewdgreen 5y ago
He’s not just a showman, but he is a showman. And it’s not like you have to dig back into ancient history to find instances where he invented a bid like this, he basically made up a bid for Tesla a few years ago and lied about having secured financing.
- panick21_ 5y ago
  Yeah that's why there is such a long history of showman starting successful rocket company and other successful high capital businesses. Musk has never admired to having made up the funding. He settled the dispute because it lead to problems with Tesla credit rating, banks didn't want an outstanding dispute with SEC.
- AlchemistCamp 5y ago
  > lied about having secured financing. He says he did have funding secured. He elaborated on the details in the recent TED talk. Do you have any privileged information about the incident or are you just casually calling someone a liar based on third-hand news you read online?
  - evthrowaway 5y ago
  - vba616 5y ago
    A judge recently said he was a liar and it was so far beyond dispute that a jury would not be allowed to decide for themselves, as they might be influenced by Musk's ongoing public BSing such as with the TED talk. So, no, informed people are not "casually" calling him a liar.
    - AlchemistCamp 5y ago
      > A judge recently said he was a liar I sincerely doubt that. Judges don’t tend to talk that way, regardless of the case at hand.
      - Toboe 5y ago
        >> A judge recently said he was a liar >I sincerely doubt that. Judges don’t tend to talk that way, regardless of the case at hand. GP is probably refering to this (in which case you are right, judge didn't use words like liar) https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/judge-in-musk-trial-will-tell-jury-that-funding-secured-tweets-were-false/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/04/judge-in-musk-tr... "Judge in Musk trial will tell jury that “Funding secured” tweets were false" and "[T]hough 'jury instructions are often an ineffective remedy,' the Court finds that unlikely to be true for the instant case where the jury will be told that the Court has already found that the August 2018 tweets were false and made with the requisite scienter [knowledge of wrongdoing]," Chen wrote.
        dwighttk 5y ago
        >false and made with the requisite scienter Those are words like liar.
        skinnymuch 5y ago
        So the judge said he’s a liar. Just without using the exact word lie or liar
      - vba616 5y ago
        True, and that is why I didn't write 'A judge recently called him a "liar"'.
- samuelstros 5y ago
  Internal chat between Musk and the Saudi investors just popped up on my twitter feed https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1518353213283442688 https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1518353213283442688 Doesn't seem like the funding secured thing was an outright lie.
  - gamblor956 5y ago
    Nowhere in the emails do the Saudi investors pledge funding. At best, they say they might be interested in investing. Therefore, "funding secured" was absolutely an outright lie, unless words don't have meaning anymore.
    - matthewdgreen 5y ago
      It’s much worse than that. I had previously assumed Musk knew what he was doing and was fooling around on Twitter in an effort to (unethically) crush short sellers. Now it appears like he’s an utterly inept businessman who took the first verbal sign of interest, rushed it to Twitter as though the deal was complete, and then blew up the deal in a hissy fit. I still think what he’s done at SpaceX and Tesla is admirable, but after reading those emails I’m definitely a few percent less confident that there will still be a Tesla to service my Model 3 in the future.
      - mlindner 5y ago
        He's not an inept businessman. He's someone with aspergers who takes someone at face value at all times. If someone says something is the case he believes them. He doesn't handle being deceived well nor does he know when it's happening. And actually he's not a "businessman" at all. He's an engineer at heart. "Businessman" would require strong social skills, not something someone with aspergers has good ability at.
        fxtentacle 5y ago
        Very interesting theory. But do you have a source?
- mlindner 5y ago
  He's never been a showman. It's a ridiculous internet myth that thinks that he is. Anyone who says he's a showman really has no understanding of the guy and hasn't looked at what he's said outside of the stuff he's put on twitter. Listen to his speeches, and not the one where it's some bland interviewer that constantly interrupts him.
  - skulk 5y ago
    Here's Musk being a pure showman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcfi8HK1i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQcfi8HK1i8 Even though there's a bunch of people (including Carmack) that claim that he's a great engineer, it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this. Like, did he use up all of his thinking fuel on designing rockets that he didn't understand why the boring company's mission was a total non-starter?
    - mlindner 5y ago
      A CNN 2 minute video chopping up what he says to make it sound more grand is not him being a "showman". It's called video editing. You can tell the video has been HIGHLY edited because it's not how he talks. > it's really hard to believe when he's put out stuff like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw?t=122 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t705r8ICkRw?t=122 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8ZBJWo73E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA8ZBJWo73E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zlnbs-NBUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zlnbs-NBUI This is how Musk actually talks. > Like, did he use up all of his thinking fuel on designing rockets that he didn't understand why the boring company's mission was a total non-starter? He doesn't spend a lot of time working on the boring company to be frank. It's a small side project. He's doing it to see if it's possible.
      - skulk 5y ago
        The point is, building tunnels underground for personal transport vehicles as a "solution" to traffic is a terrible idea, and something only a showman can sell. Even if he has an awkward 2 hour speech about it, he succeeded as a showman because Vegas funded this terrible idea (just look how it ended up).
FinNerd 5y ago
It’s largely cope. Love him or hate him, insanely talented, hard-working, and intelligent. Calling him a showman and conman is great way to posture superiority over the guy shooting rockets into space and hiring 100k+ people
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  It is also a simplification to highlight his achievements without also acknowledging that he doesn’t seem to be a very moral or stable person. Some of the criticism of his behavior is clearly sour grapes that he doesn’t act “properly” for a billionaire, but there are also many examples of him being a bad person a la Steve Jobs. We tolerate the characteristics because of the perceived value, but it would also be nice to highlight genuinely good people with significant accomplishments for being successful as well as kind.
  - panick21_ 5y ago
    How is he 'unstable' exactly? He has been leading successful companies for 30 years and pretty much every company he has been involved in has been highly successful. He has never been unstable, just opinionated. And people don't like that so they call him psychologically unstable instead. What he has done that is bad and why people hate him: - Called somebody something bad on twitter once. - Twits dumb memes with dumb humor sometimes - Twitted about cryptocurrencies. People claim this is market manipulation to enrich himself without any evidence. - Twitter 'Funding secured'. People believe this is made up, however it was conclusively settled. And even if it was not fully secured, there is little question he could have found the money. So not sure why people are so angry about that. That seems to be most of the criticism I read. If that is the worst thing, I don't know what people are so worked up about. Some leftists are angry he doesn't support unions, but of course almost no rich person (and many non rich people don't either).
    - mdoms 5y ago
      > Called somebody something bad on twitter once I assume you're talking about the time he called a diver (and actual hero) a pedophile. It went a bit further than that - he hired a private investigator who tried (and failed) to dig up dirt on the man.
financetechbro 5y ago
To be fair - it’s more about twitter than musk. Twitter just isn’t the best social media platform out there in terms of financial performance, and they also don’t have the ability to take too much debt, making the financing even more challenging bc it can be a pretty risky asset. Still tho, the financing is complex. It will be interesting if Musk (read: Morgan Stanley) can actually pull it off.
alephnan 5y ago
Talk is cheap. Stock market is the place to test convictions. Pretty sure most of those people didn’t have skin in the game, long or short, either ways
SpikeDad 5y ago
Accomplished? He's got money and hired some smart people. And tech media is more than happy to ignore all the stupid shit he's done and tried.
- dijit 5y ago
  > He's got money and hired some smart people. Definitely not a fan of his but hiring smart people and enabling them is an accomplishment. As wealthy as he is, he didn’t inherit all of what he has today. He’s definitely done more than many people who come from wealth.
  - native_samples 5y ago
    He didn't inherit any of what he has today, did he? And he didn't come from wealth. He grew up in South Africa.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - dijit 5y ago
      Are you implying that there are no wealthy people in South Africa? Not to sound “attacky” but that seems extremely naive. Truthfully, he comes from wealth, but not close to the wealth he has today; his father owned half of an emerald mine for example. He is quoted as saying (about his youth): "We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe"
      - stormbrew 5y ago
        No one on the planet at the time was as wealthy as the current crop of ultra-rich, including Musk. Perhaps no one in all of history, really, though that becomes a complicated comparison really fast. But yes, he absolutely comes from wealth. Just like most of them do.
        5y ago
darkteflon 5y ago
I thought this[1] was one of the most accurate (and succinct) takes on him I’ve read: “Elon Musk is a bullshitter who delivers. This breaks a lot of people's pattern-matching, in both directions.” [1](https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1358760338724974594?s=21&t=eU-2Uwrx3CfvUJxNz5fdKw https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1358760338724974594...)
isitmadeofglass 5y ago
> Really hard to imagine the richest and most accomplished dude on the planet not being able to secure funding. You don’t have to imagine. It literally already happened once when he claimed he had funding secured to take Tesla private. As such, if you can’t imagine him not having funding secured this time, you’re severely lacking in imagination.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Yes, relying on the word of Saudi Arabia without a written agreement was pretty dumb. Especially for 70B. This time the plan seems to have better foundations.
  - xorcist 5y ago
    Especially considering Saudi Arabia is well known for cannabis jokes.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      That, and human rights.
- WatchDog 5y ago
  Elon claims that in that case the funding was indeed secured.
- shafyy 5y ago
  In his latest TED interview [0], Musk said that he had the funding secured for that Tesla private offering. He said that he needed to settle with the SEC so that they wouldn't freeze Tesla's bank accounts, and as part of the settlement he needed to publicly say that he hadn't secured funding. I don't think he's lying. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdZZpaB2kDM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdZZpaB2kDM
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Why would the SEC block Tesla accounts? The SEC is imposing fines. I call Musks statement a lie.
bollox 5y ago
> most accomplished dude on the planet No, just the most famous braggart. Other people, i.e. actual experts and professionals, did all the actual work that he likes to lay claim to accomplishing.
dehrmann 5y ago
The problem with lending to him is most of his assets are TSLA shares. It's arguably absurdly overvalued as an automaker, and any effort to liquidate his position would be expensive since it would drive the price down. Someone did it, but I'm sure some people passed. As someone else pointed out, TWTR isn't a great purchase, either. Its ad revenue isn't great, so if he defaults on the loan, the lender is stuck with an asset they don't want.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  They did it at a 5x multiple. They can cover the loan as long as Tesla stays above 203.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Was a similar loan among the reasons why a Tesla "bankrupcy" a couple of years ago wasn't that unlikely? It seems that the 203 $ are a reasonable valuation.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    That would be a bit lower than Toyota's value. Toyota sold 10.5M vehicles last year. Tesla sold 930k. Yes, Tesla's growth is solid, but the valuation is because of the true believers. I avoid investing in anything Elon touches because valuations get weird.
    - logifail 5y ago
      > Tesla's growth is solid, but the valuation is because of the true believers I'm really not what you'd call a believer in Tesla - although had my first ever ride in a one (a model 3) recently, quite an eye-opening experience. It's not as thought Tesla is the only company where the current valuation doesn't appear to make much sense looking at the numbers...
      - EtienneK 5y ago
        > eye-opening experience How so? I've had rides in Model S's before and it was totally... fine? What made the Model 3 experience so much better than a conventional car?
fjkal 5y ago
Yes, Tesla is very good at securing funding: https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-s-main-product-isn-t-cars-it-s-subsidies-14769263 https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/tesla-s-mai... "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Heartland America, you have just subsidized a bunch of millionaires living in California's most expensive coastal ZIP codes to the tune of $10,197 per car. I'm sure they are sending you a thank-you card." It would be hilarious if it turns out that the government is interested in a private Twitter for "enhanced" data collection and analysis.
- mcv 5y ago
  If the government wants to stimulate electric vehicles, those subsidies are incredibly well spent. Tesla popularised them and grew the market for them like nobody else has done. Mr and Mrs Heartland America should be more concerned about the subsidies for oil companies; what are those meant to accomplish exactly?
- HPsquared 5y ago
  (2018)
gigatexal 5y ago
It's still a huge gamble for him and his backers. Twitter while immensely important to the world in terms of reach -- it got Trump elected -- does not make money well... let's see what he does. I've come to terms with him buying it. I'll go elsewhere if it gets shitty.

pxx 5y ago

I don't know of people saying that he had "no possible way" to finance a deal. Quoting the excellent Matt Levine, the situation is more like the following: '''the answer to the question “might Elon Musk have made an offer to take a large public company private, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, without giving any real thought to where the money would come from?” is “absolutely yes, and he’s done it before.”'''

panick21_ 5y ago
And that's not actually accurate. Even if you take the extreme interpretation of 'funding secured' he certainty didn't just wholesale make up the claim.
HillRat 5y ago
When all is said and done, this is likely to be a Thoma Bravo deal, not a Musk deal — too much OPM (and too much of Musk’s Tesla equity) is at stake to let Musk go all rabid ferret on the company. I’d expect him to get some high-profile and low-impact personal wins out of this (whatever those might be, since it’s still not clear to me what he actually wants out of this), TB tears the dev organization down to the studs to get opex under control, they spin it back to the market within a few years for a tidy profit, and the company collapses shortly thereafter, with its assets sold off to Red Ventures for a fraction of a cent on the dollar to serve as a lead-generator for prepaid mobile operators.

rvz 5y ago

Of course they were wrong. Just like how they buy the stock AFTER the announcement hoping that it goes up, but instead it falls. [0] Typical. Always be skeptical of what is widely reported on the news and don't blindly listen to what is being said by the brainless parrots on twitter re-tweeting everything that they think is 'going' to happen. Especially even if this deal goes through. As I said before. [1] As always, not even the most upvoted or top comments are correct either. It's yet another bias projection. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984349 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30984397

FFRefresh 5y ago

I'm finding media coverage and opinions on trending news topics to be increasingly superficial and partisan. It has certainly always been the case to some degree, but as someone who does truly want to understand how things work and are, it's become more difficult to make sense of things. It seems like media entities feel they need to be entrenched on their side of the American culture war, and show no empathy/humility/curiosity or attempt to take a holistic view on issues. The mainstream media takes on Musk and Twitter have certainly been something. For some reason, he's been coded as 'right wing' by many among the media set, and is getting the treatment that those coded that way get. The available evidence doesn't support that coding, and it all shouldn't matter anyway.

chrischattin 5y ago
Anyone who doesn't fall in line and support the "current thing" is labeled a far-right extremist these days. Ironically, they do this even to people with traditionally liberal views like free speech being a good thing, like Elon in this case.
- yucky 5y ago
  >Anyone who doesn't fall in line and support the "current thing" is labeled a far-right extremist these days. I Support The Current Thing 5 words that drive the Twitterati nuts because it encapsulates their whole online existence.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - pseudo0 5y ago
    I'm surprised they haven't banned that phrase already like they did with "learn to code".
    - skulk 5y ago
      If the phrase is used to harass people in a targeted manner, then sure. Running a platform that excludes those who harass people is quite reasonable, and necessary if you want to keep those sweet advertising numbers up.

mzs 5y ago

Looks like the difference could be structured in a stock swap. https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/elon-musk-holding-companies-twitter https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/elon-musk-holding-compan...

mcv 5y ago

I would expect Musk sold at least some of his Tesla stock during its ridiculously high valuation of the past year.

sangnoir 5y ago

He hasn't financed the full amount and is still short. He'll have to unload Tesla shares to raise the balance; I'm very curious if he'll do that. Maybe in being overly cynical, but it feels like it may be the board calling his bluff rather than prolonging the process/having to find a white knight. I'm morbidly curious about what a private Twitter will look like in 2 years (both the company[1] and product)