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He only holds ~15% of Tesla. His real money is in SpaceX... 50% ownership there. I wish people would think just a little before parroting the "hit Musk where it

He only holds ~15% of Tesla. His real money is in SpaceX... 50% ownership there. I wish people would think just a little before parroting the "hit Musk where it hurts" drivel.

kelnos 2y ago
His 15% of Tesla is heavily borrowed against, and if Tesla's share price drops too far, he's gonna get margin calls. That will both destroy his wealth, and hurt Tesla's stock price even more.
0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
My quick search is showing Tesla is worth some $800B. 15% of that is real money.
- kelnos 2y ago
  15% of that is paper money, heavily levered against. If he tries to sell even 2% of that in order to turn it into actual real money, the remaining 13% will be worth less, because a sell-off will lower the stock price.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    Of course, just selling a single stock will lower the price of other stocks. But the dropoff is nowhere close to what you are implying. He has sold lots of stock over the years and somehow Tesla stock price didn't drop that much. I feel like you used 'worth less' to imply 'worthless'. But this is far from the case, 13% would still be a gigantic pile of 'money'.
sorcerer-mar 2y ago
At the rate he's going, SpaceX is probably on its way to being nationalized within the next few elections. And that would make sense totally aside from punitive response: it is pretty dangerous to have such vital defense infrastructure controlled by such a mercurial personality.
- fallingknife 2y ago
  Yes let's just have a fascist government that can seize private property because they declare it "dangerous." I see no way that could go bad.
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    Some research may be warranted on your part before you have a kneejerk reaction. The US has nationalized businesses in the past even when those business were solvent [1]. SpaceX would of course be a larger case and much more politically fraught, but I don’t think nationalizing SpaceX automatically makes it a fascist government. Oh, and you may want to look up eminent domain. The government regularly seizes private property and even does so effectively on behalf of other private entities. If you’re actually consistent on your framing then you’d have to admit you’ve lived your whole life under what you consider a fascist government regardless of political affiliation. For example, here’s [2] Trump using the government’s eminent domain power (before he was president) to take property from another private entity. And here he is doing the same thing [3] as president. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_the_United_States#Federal-government-acquired_corporations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_the... [2] https://www.cato.org/commentary/donald-trumps-eminent-domain-love-nearly-cost-widow-her-house https://www.cato.org/commentary/donald-trumps-eminent-domain... [3] https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol84/iss2/3/ https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol84/iss2/3/
    - fallingknife 2y ago
      Your source states that the nationalization was done either in the case where the government was owed a debt by the nationalized company or in the case of the railroads, where they were seized to ensure the continuation of a vital service where the company providing it was insolvent. Neither of these conditions apply to any of Elon Musk's companies. Eminent domain is a process where the private property is seized (with the government required to pay fair market value) in order to use that land for some public purpose that it is not currently being used for. This could potentially be done to property owned by Elon Musk, but not for the justification that he has too much power. And also it must be specifically land that is seized, not equity in a company. If congress passed a law seizing his property, or the government initiated eminent domain against all of his company's properties, it would be obvious that it was Elon Musk being targeted and not any legitimate public need for a piece of land. This is a called a bill of attainder and is unconstitutional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder
AppleAtCha 2y ago
SpaceX is worth less than 10% of what Tesla is valued at, so 15% is still a larger holding and very much "where it hurts". You should consider pausing before calling the popular position drivel.
anigbrowl 2y ago
This is correct, but there are plenty of Tesla dealerships to protest outside and cars for people to remember they don't like him. People could protest outside a SpaceX facility but it's unlikely they would garner any attention by doing so.

He only holds ~15% of Tesla. His real money is in SpaceX... 50% ownership there. I wish people would think just a little before parroting the "hit Musk where it hurts" drivel.

kelnos 2y ago

His 15% of Tesla is heavily borrowed against, and if Tesla's share price drops too far, he's gonna get margin calls. That will both destroy his wealth, and hurt Tesla's stock price even more.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago

My quick search is showing Tesla is worth some $800B. 15% of that is real money.

kelnos 2y ago
15% of that is paper money, heavily levered against. If he tries to sell even 2% of that in order to turn it into actual real money, the remaining 13% will be worth less, because a sell-off will lower the stock price.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Of course, just selling a single stock will lower the price of other stocks. But the dropoff is nowhere close to what you are implying. He has sold lots of stock over the years and somehow Tesla stock price didn't drop that much. I feel like you used 'worth less' to imply 'worthless'. But this is far from the case, 13% would still be a gigantic pile of 'money'.

sorcerer-mar 2y ago

At the rate he's going, SpaceX is probably on its way to being nationalized within the next few elections. And that would make sense totally aside from punitive response: it is pretty dangerous to have such vital defense infrastructure controlled by such a mercurial personality.

fallingknife 2y ago
Yes let's just have a fascist government that can seize private property because they declare it "dangerous." I see no way that could go bad.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  Some research may be warranted on your part before you have a kneejerk reaction. The US has nationalized businesses in the past even when those business were solvent [1]. SpaceX would of course be a larger case and much more politically fraught, but I don’t think nationalizing SpaceX automatically makes it a fascist government. Oh, and you may want to look up eminent domain. The government regularly seizes private property and even does so effectively on behalf of other private entities. If you’re actually consistent on your framing then you’d have to admit you’ve lived your whole life under what you consider a fascist government regardless of political affiliation. For example, here’s [2] Trump using the government’s eminent domain power (before he was president) to take property from another private entity. And here he is doing the same thing [3] as president. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_the_United_States#Federal-government-acquired_corporations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_the... [2] https://www.cato.org/commentary/donald-trumps-eminent-domain-love-nearly-cost-widow-her-house https://www.cato.org/commentary/donald-trumps-eminent-domain... [3] https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol84/iss2/3/ https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol84/iss2/3/
  - fallingknife 2y ago
    Your source states that the nationalization was done either in the case where the government was owed a debt by the nationalized company or in the case of the railroads, where they were seized to ensure the continuation of a vital service where the company providing it was insolvent. Neither of these conditions apply to any of Elon Musk's companies. Eminent domain is a process where the private property is seized (with the government required to pay fair market value) in order to use that land for some public purpose that it is not currently being used for. This could potentially be done to property owned by Elon Musk, but not for the justification that he has too much power. And also it must be specifically land that is seized, not equity in a company. If congress passed a law seizing his property, or the government initiated eminent domain against all of his company's properties, it would be obvious that it was Elon Musk being targeted and not any legitimate public need for a piece of land. This is a called a bill of attainder and is unconstitutional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder

AppleAtCha 2y ago

SpaceX is worth less than 10% of what Tesla is valued at, so 15% is still a larger holding and very much "where it hurts". You should consider pausing before calling the popular position drivel.

anigbrowl 2y ago

This is correct, but there are plenty of Tesla dealerships to protest outside and cars for people to remember they don't like him. People could protest outside a SpaceX facility but it's unlikely they would garner any attention by doing so.