5 ms·

Musk really is the ultimate deadbeat. Does he think these obligations just go away if you stop meeting them?

ramesh31 3y ago
>Does he think these obligations just go away if you stop meeting them? When you have enough money, they do. There are two completely separate justice systems in this world.
- positr0n 3y ago
  Can you expand on the mechanism behind this other justice system? If it takes more money than rent, why do it. If it takes less money than rent, then everyone could not pay rent then have access to the money to access the separate justice system.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    The “two justice systems” is a common rhetoric in class aware propaganda. The point is not that it you can buy your way into the “other justice system” it is that crimes committed by the owning class is prosecuted differently—if at all—than by the working class. The most clear cut example of this is how crack and cocaine possession had different punishments, crack popular among the working poor had harsher sentences than cocaine—which was popular among the rich—even thought it is the same drug. Today you can see an equally clear cut example in e.g. Seattle’s attempt at re-criminalizing drug consumption. It is only public use which is being recriminalized, meaning this is basically just legislation against the homeless, The housed have a safe space where they can safely use and not be arrested. Relating to OP, the two justice systems is simply how differently failure to meet financial obligation is prosecuted between the two classes. If a working person owed this much in rent, they would be forced into bankruptcy, or worse. Wage theft is allowed to fester unhindered without consequences. A working person who commits financial fraud and steals only a fraction of what their bosses have stolen from them, is usually met with a SWAT raid.
  - naet 3y ago
    If a layperson stops paying rent they may be evicted and indebted for the back rent that they didn't pay. If a large wealthy person stops paying for rent, the landlord might worry about a long and expensive legal and settle for a lot less than was owed. The layperson is less likely to have the capital to prolong a legal battle and so is more likely to get stuck with the bill. There are other economies of scale. If I stop paying for Google cloud my account quickly gets deactivated, but when Twitter stops paying they don't shut off service right away, they try to keep the client around and might offer discounts. If payment continues to be denied they may eventually shut off the service and settle for a portion of the cost of services extended during that time as above.
    - iJohnDoe 3y ago
      @naet 100% this. Well said. Wealthy people are given a ton of leeway until all the leeway immediately stops. You’ll see this throughout history. Elizabeth Holmes, etc. A point made elsewhere, wealthy landlords have zero sympathy for those that cannot pay their bills. Their mightier than thou attitude that they didn’t get where they are in life by giving anything away for free or themselves getting any free lunches, so why should they cut anyone slack if they don’t pay their bills. However, they’ll be the first to not pay their bills if if the going gets tough because they have the knowledge of how the systems works.
keyraycheck 3y ago
It is actually a common practice, if you want to terminate the lease, to stop paying and get evicted. However, they may still be liable to pay for the three or four months they used.
- ender341341 3y ago
  most leases say your responsible for the remainder of the lease unless they're able to rent it out again, at least for residential, (though I'm not sure how eviction effects that).
  - etchalon 3y ago
    Very, very, very few commercial leases have such a clause and local tenant laws generally do not apply to commercial leases. If you're lucky, you can negotiate an "out" clause, where, given sufficient notice, you can terminate the lease early, but commercial landlords are very hesitant to do it. There's a reason Start-ups love month-to-month co-working spaces.
- TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
  This is why that strategy does not make sense to me. I don’t refute it _is_ a strategy that would undoubtedly work. But if you’re on the hook for the full amount either way, why not just leave early and hand over the key? There’s less that could go wrong that you’d be responsible for, the space isn’t just sitting unused, and the owner has an opportunity to market it earlier. Everyone walks away better for it. Plus you don’t have the negativity and expense of a lawsuit or an eviction or whatever else. Ninja edit: am I missing something?
  - beanjuiceII 3y ago
    >Ninja edit: am I missing something? ya the lease agreement
    - TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
      What kind of lease agreement requires that you be in the building? I am genuinely asking because I’m not familiar with that kind of stipulation.
nikanj 3y ago
So far he seems to be right. NB I’m not Musk fan, but it’s pretty amazing how far vendors and landlords are willing to bend to maintain the prestige of having Twitter as a client
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > the prestige of having Twitter as a client Wait, what? There's prestige in that?
  - rnk 3y ago
    At some point of course they were a publicly lauded company, a known silicon valley brand. Now they're a trash dumpster company.
    - bruceb 3y ago
      Twitter still seems to be used by entertainment stars, sports stars, politicians, and business leaders around the world. Hating Musk doesn't change this.
      - rnk 3y ago
        But it's much less used than before ;-)
        lost_tourist 3y ago
        Do you have stats to back that up? Seriously I'd be curious and not disappointed at all, but when I go to twitter it looks as active as ever in my feed.
        bruceb 3y ago
        what does much less used mean? Allegedly there is slight down tick in users, but nothing of real note.
- x0x0 3y ago
dgant 3y ago
They don't, in full, but does create leverage for settlement, and anything repaid months later in court is an aid to cash flow.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
I think he's just looking at this rationally, as he should as a major share holder. His job is not to be nice but to deliver share holder value. That seems to be a thing that people just don't get. The debate around Twitter seems very emotional and opinionated. But it's really quite simple: Twitter had a spending problem. The history of that is actually not all that relevant. The ugly handover did not help of course and that caused a dip in advertising that combined with macro economic circumstances is just causing a massive cash flow problem. Like it or not, that problem added up to negative a few billion per year. Apparently things have recovered somewhat since Elon Musk started 'fixing' things but it's still not a great situation. The bottom line is that an expensive office in Boulder Colorado is probably pretty high on the list of things to immediately cut. No matter how you look at what happened in Twitter, paying lots of cash for office space you don't need is not a great thing. Office leases normally run for several years. So, a simple way to force the issue is to freeze the payments. You'll get evicted and sued, naturally. But what does this really mean in a situation where you just downsized staff by two thirds and they were reluctant to come back to the office anyway after Covid? Just making the point that the value of that office for Twitter was probably very low. Not nice to do business like that, of course. But it is what it is and being nice is not the main job right now. Fixing the cash flow issues is. Paying for a mostly empty office in Colorado just isn't a high priority. I don't actually see this having an unhappy end for Twitter. There will be some kind of settlement at some point and that will be it. The real estate market is imploding everywhere. So, the building owners might cut their losses at some point depending on how deep their pockets are and how big their stamina for pursuing this in the courts is. I have actually no idea how the real estate market in Colorado is but I imagine that won't be the only empty office in the area. Or judging from recent other articles on HN, everywhere else. Real estate is not a great business to be in right now. There's more than a bit of a bubble there. Get a big fancy office, put a lot of overpaid staff in it, ????, profit. That ship has sailed. Twitter fired two thirds of their people and they are still there and they need a lot less office space now. Was that ugly: yes. How could it not be. But it happened and the situation needs fixing. These are not the only creditors of course and I'm sure most are counting their cards right now and are going to be a lot more open to settling sooner rather than later. Not a bad outcome for Twitter if that works.
- 3y ago
asah 3y ago
> Musk really is the ultimate deadbeat. Donald Trump has entered the chat.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  AIUI ol’ mini-hands is now so notorious for this behaviour that some of his lawyers require payment upfront, which would be very unusual for high end white collar crime stuff. Musk probably has a ways to go to catch up.

>Does he think these obligations just go away if you stop meeting them? When you have enough money, they do. There are two completely separate justice systems in this world.

positr0n 3y ago
Can you expand on the mechanism behind this other justice system? If it takes more money than rent, why do it. If it takes less money than rent, then everyone could not pay rent then have access to the money to access the separate justice system.
- runarberg 3y ago
  The “two justice systems” is a common rhetoric in class aware propaganda. The point is not that it you can buy your way into the “other justice system” it is that crimes committed by the owning class is prosecuted differently—if at all—than by the working class. The most clear cut example of this is how crack and cocaine possession had different punishments, crack popular among the working poor had harsher sentences than cocaine—which was popular among the rich—even thought it is the same drug. Today you can see an equally clear cut example in e.g. Seattle’s attempt at re-criminalizing drug consumption. It is only public use which is being recriminalized, meaning this is basically just legislation against the homeless, The housed have a safe space where they can safely use and not be arrested. Relating to OP, the two justice systems is simply how differently failure to meet financial obligation is prosecuted between the two classes. If a working person owed this much in rent, they would be forced into bankruptcy, or worse. Wage theft is allowed to fester unhindered without consequences. A working person who commits financial fraud and steals only a fraction of what their bosses have stolen from them, is usually met with a SWAT raid.
- naet 3y ago
  If a layperson stops paying rent they may be evicted and indebted for the back rent that they didn't pay. If a large wealthy person stops paying for rent, the landlord might worry about a long and expensive legal and settle for a lot less than was owed. The layperson is less likely to have the capital to prolong a legal battle and so is more likely to get stuck with the bill. There are other economies of scale. If I stop paying for Google cloud my account quickly gets deactivated, but when Twitter stops paying they don't shut off service right away, they try to keep the client around and might offer discounts. If payment continues to be denied they may eventually shut off the service and settle for a portion of the cost of services extended during that time as above.
  - iJohnDoe 3y ago
    @naet 100% this. Well said. Wealthy people are given a ton of leeway until all the leeway immediately stops. You’ll see this throughout history. Elizabeth Holmes, etc. A point made elsewhere, wealthy landlords have zero sympathy for those that cannot pay their bills. Their mightier than thou attitude that they didn’t get where they are in life by giving anything away for free or themselves getting any free lunches, so why should they cut anyone slack if they don’t pay their bills. However, they’ll be the first to not pay their bills if if the going gets tough because they have the knowledge of how the systems works.

keyraycheck 3y ago

It is actually a common practice, if you want to terminate the lease, to stop paying and get evicted. However, they may still be liable to pay for the three or four months they used.

ender341341 3y ago
most leases say your responsible for the remainder of the lease unless they're able to rent it out again, at least for residential, (though I'm not sure how eviction effects that).
- etchalon 3y ago
  Very, very, very few commercial leases have such a clause and local tenant laws generally do not apply to commercial leases. If you're lucky, you can negotiate an "out" clause, where, given sufficient notice, you can terminate the lease early, but commercial landlords are very hesitant to do it. There's a reason Start-ups love month-to-month co-working spaces.
TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
This is why that strategy does not make sense to me. I don’t refute it _is_ a strategy that would undoubtedly work. But if you’re on the hook for the full amount either way, why not just leave early and hand over the key? There’s less that could go wrong that you’d be responsible for, the space isn’t just sitting unused, and the owner has an opportunity to market it earlier. Everyone walks away better for it. Plus you don’t have the negativity and expense of a lawsuit or an eviction or whatever else. Ninja edit: am I missing something?
- beanjuiceII 3y ago
  >Ninja edit: am I missing something? ya the lease agreement
  - TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
    What kind of lease agreement requires that you be in the building? I am genuinely asking because I’m not familiar with that kind of stipulation.

nikanj 3y ago

So far he seems to be right. NB I’m not Musk fan, but it’s pretty amazing how far vendors and landlords are willing to bend to maintain the prestige of having Twitter as a client

JohnFen 3y ago
> the prestige of having Twitter as a client Wait, what? There's prestige in that?
- rnk 3y ago
  At some point of course they were a publicly lauded company, a known silicon valley brand. Now they're a trash dumpster company.
  - bruceb 3y ago
    Twitter still seems to be used by entertainment stars, sports stars, politicians, and business leaders around the world. Hating Musk doesn't change this.
    - rnk 3y ago
      But it's much less used than before ;-)
      - lost_tourist 3y ago
        Do you have stats to back that up? Seriously I'd be curious and not disappointed at all, but when I go to twitter it looks as active as ever in my feed.
      - bruceb 3y ago
        what does much less used mean? Allegedly there is slight down tick in users, but nothing of real note.
x0x0 3y ago

dgant 3y ago

They don't, in full, but does create leverage for settlement, and anything repaid months later in court is an aid to cash flow.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

I think he's just looking at this rationally, as he should as a major share holder. His job is not to be nice but to deliver share holder value. That seems to be a thing that people just don't get. The debate around Twitter seems very emotional and opinionated. But it's really quite simple: Twitter had a spending problem. The history of that is actually not all that relevant. The ugly handover did not help of course and that caused a dip in advertising that combined with macro economic circumstances is just causing a massive cash flow problem. Like it or not, that problem added up to negative a few billion per year. Apparently things have recovered somewhat since Elon Musk started 'fixing' things but it's still not a great situation. The bottom line is that an expensive office in Boulder Colorado is probably pretty high on the list of things to immediately cut. No matter how you look at what happened in Twitter, paying lots of cash for office space you don't need is not a great thing. Office leases normally run for several years. So, a simple way to force the issue is to freeze the payments. You'll get evicted and sued, naturally. But what does this really mean in a situation where you just downsized staff by two thirds and they were reluctant to come back to the office anyway after Covid? Just making the point that the value of that office for Twitter was probably very low. Not nice to do business like that, of course. But it is what it is and being nice is not the main job right now. Fixing the cash flow issues is. Paying for a mostly empty office in Colorado just isn't a high priority. I don't actually see this having an unhappy end for Twitter. There will be some kind of settlement at some point and that will be it. The real estate market is imploding everywhere. So, the building owners might cut their losses at some point depending on how deep their pockets are and how big their stamina for pursuing this in the courts is. I have actually no idea how the real estate market in Colorado is but I imagine that won't be the only empty office in the area. Or judging from recent other articles on HN, everywhere else. Real estate is not a great business to be in right now. There's more than a bit of a bubble there. Get a big fancy office, put a lot of overpaid staff in it, ????, profit. That ship has sailed. Twitter fired two thirds of their people and they are still there and they need a lot less office space now. Was that ugly: yes. How could it not be. But it happened and the situation needs fixing. These are not the only creditors of course and I'm sure most are counting their cards right now and are going to be a lot more open to settling sooner rather than later. Not a bad outcome for Twitter if that works.

3y ago

asah 3y ago

> Musk really is the ultimate deadbeat. Donald Trump has entered the chat.

rsynnott 3y ago
AIUI ol’ mini-hands is now so notorious for this behaviour that some of his lawyers require payment upfront, which would be very unusual for high end white collar crime stuff. Musk probably has a ways to go to catch up.