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Can the SEC stand up to the richest man on the planet?
- slifin 4y agoAgain not the richest man in the world Forbes publishes the "rich list" but it explicitly excludes royal families, oligarchs and many other sources of wealth/power
- kylebenzle 4y ago
- sureglymop 4y agoWhat difference does it make here?
- sieabahlpark 4y agoThey would change who the "richest" people are?
- smegma2 4y agoIt undermines their credibility when they can't get a simple fact correct. If an article led with "the earth is flat", it may not relate to the article but it nevertheless makes me less likely to believe the rest.
- ss108 4y ago1) It's not incorrect just because there may be other ways of calculating wealth. 2) It doesn't matter if he's actually 1st, 3rd, or 10th in terms of wealth. Him being literally the richest is not a necessary assumption or premise of the rest of the article.
- krageon 4y ago"Can the SEC stand up to this random rich person" doesn't quite have the same punch as the current title. It's a hook to get you to read it, which is apparently something they do. This is a practice you should not reward with attention, in much the same way as you should not give a lot of attention to pets doing bad things.
- ss108 4y agoa) The point is, it's not a "random rich person", and we all know it's not. He's not some random guy with 200m net worth. He one of the richest and most powerful tech entrepreneurs in the world. Like among the top 5 in that category. b) The rest of us can accept the incentive structure that induces publications to write clickbaity titles like adults, rolling our eyes, and seeing judging the article on its merits. The publications aren't going to miss your attention anyways.
- sureglymop 4y agoOkay, that makes sense. But I mean semantically speaking if it was the second richest or even the tenth richest person, doesn't really matter. The question is whether the SEC can go up against an insanely rich entity. I get it though, the title was click bait.
- iancmceachern 4y agoIs there a list that includes those folks?
- AbrahamParangi 4y agoAlso, the smart money doesn’t let Forbes (or anyone else really) know.
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- Overtonwindow 4y agoCan one of the richest men in the world stand up to the SEC?
- EddieDante 4y agoHe's only a man. Just seize his assets under civil forfeiture laws.
- klyrs 4y agoWell that's one way to get civil forfeiture reform to happen sooner than later...
- EddieDante 4y agoI'm OK with that outcome.
- kwonkicker 4y agoLooks like SEC had it's priorities straight. They did great job on punishing senators for getting rich on insider informations. Heroes i say
- paulryanrogers 4y agoIs this sarcasm? I haven't followed the Senate closely
- umrashrf 4y agoWork hard in America just for a day to get it seized. That’s what America has become.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoNo one becomes a billionaire through solely their own hard work, but by capturing the value of hard work of others at scale.
- leobg 4y ago1) Elon works a lot. Show me one pic of him on vacation. 2) Working hard means little. You can dig holes in the ground all day long. 3) Value is created by finding an unmet market for the labor that is available. It’s knowing where to dig that makes the digging valuable.
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- boeingUH60 4y ago> Elon works a lot. Show me one pic of him on vacation. https://pagesix.com/2022/05/31/elon-musk-and-girlfriend-natasha-bassett-have-lunch-in-st-tropez/ https://pagesix.com/2022/05/31/elon-musk-and-girlfriend-nata... That's not to say he doesn't work a lot, but come on...
- leobg 4y agoThe point I was making is, this guy doesn’t work so he can afford to take a vacation. And he certainly doesn’t let other people work for him so that he can sleaze off at the beach. That’s a strawman argument, and I just can’t see how it applies here.
- mirceal 4y ago> Elon works a lot. Show me one pic of him on vacation. You literally used this as an argument. Also, I don't think the problem is how much Musk works. If you ask me at the CEO level working "so hard" shows you don't really understand basic delegation techniques. He does work really hard to project the image he's working hard - I'll give you that. Also, no matter how hard you work you will never make billions off solely just your work. Ain't gonna happen. At some point you need to start exploiting people.
- nojito 4y agoDefinitely not. The SEC is grossly underfunded.
- sieabahlpark 4y agoThe SEC is a weak organization that can barely figure out the issues that surround shorting non-existent shares. Whatever "justice" seething liberals think would happen from a fine is literally cheaper than him paying the $1b backout fee. I swear the amount of useless drivel that goes around in a "journalists" head is fever dreams. Elon is apparently the equivalent of Satan and his purchase of Twitter is the "end of democracy" when Trump being president was the "end of democracy". Any speculation or forcing of various branches of government to stop the purchase of Twitter is just petty and begs the question just how valuable Twitter is to the political left.
- iancmceachern 4y agoThere has been this whole ongoing debate over the last few years as to of we've transitioned from a democratic society to an autocratic one ruled by the rich like Musk, etc. It's interesting to me to think back to my history lessons and all the big industrial revolution companies, and their downfall. There was a time where nearly all the steel in the US and a large part of the world was controlled by one man. From the coal to the iron ore to the rail cars. Same with meat, same with so many other things. At that time it would have seemed impossible to unseat those unbelievably powerful and rich men and companies would be taken down I the way they were. Perhaps we're about to live through a similar time in history.
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- rayiner 4y ago“Can an arm of the world’s most powerful government stand up to an individual whose lifetime net worth is what that government spends in a few months?” Yes, NPR.
- loeg 4y agoIt sure seems like they ought to be able to, yeah. But they've been pretty spineless about Musk's repeated violations. And their actual enforcement power is pretty weak relative to Musk's wealth, which is the criticism the headline is making.