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This move makes it more likely that the internal number for TSLA is not good, and Elon is expecting the price to go down. He has access to the real revenue num

This move makes it more likely that the internal number for TSLA is not good, and Elon is expecting the price to go down. He has access to the real revenue number. If it's going well, he wouldn't have to perform this maneuver. xAI was relatively separated from X and TSLA, and wasn't having the backlashes associated with the two. Now he risks having the xAI branding tarnished too. He wouldn't do this unless the TSLA internal numbers are bad and he has to protect himself first, at the cost of xAI brand.

deeth_starr_v 2y ago
This is my feeling too. Good chance of a margin call coming for all his loans backed with TESLA shares
ripped_britches 2y ago
This doesn’t seem like a branding related deal, it seems like wanting to further marry their operations for strategic reasons.
- n1b0m 2y ago
  What was stopping him doing that before? He owned both companies.
- mcmcmc 2y ago
  I don’t see how this is anything other than financial engineering to protect Musk’s personal wealth
redox99 2y ago
I don't understand the relation with TSLA.
- kansface 2y ago
  Musk leveraged TSLA stock to buy Twitter.
  - redox99 2y ago
    Elon sold 19B in stock, took a loan for 6.25B, and the rest was other investors. The 6.25B loan, assuming he still has it, is really not an issue considering his net worth. He can add more collateral or sell a bit. In fact TSLA stock is higher now than when he bought Twitter.
    - thethimble 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - j16sdiz 2y ago
      "Net Worth" can be misleading. Wikipedia say Musk has repeatedly described himself as "cash poor" -- most of his worth are not in cash. How much of his net worth are in $TSLA?
- mandeepj 2y ago
  There's a margin on TSLA stock at $112 or $115; Like some other commentator said as well - he collateralled TSLA stock to take a loan to buy Twitter.
  - baby 2y ago
    his margin call level is not public right?
    - mandeepj 2y ago
      > his margin call level is not public right? But you do know “things” have a way to find path to get in public :-). Also, as stated in the following article, Tesla filed with SEC how much of stock was used and you can use the timing to find the stock price during the period of acquisition. https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-facing-margin-call-tesla-stock-2047059 https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-facing-margin-call-tesla-...
  - ksynwa 2y ago
    What happens if you collateral a stock for loan and the stock somehow becomes worthless?
    - kelnos 2y ago
      Same thing that happens if you put up any kind of collateral that later becomes worthless: the lender doesn't get their money. That's the risk of collateral. This is why mortgage lenders require you to maintain insurance on your property: if the house burns down or something, the lender still wants that money. If a house gets destroyed in a way that's not covered by insurance (say, by an earthquake in California, where most people don't have earthquake insurance), then the lender loses their money. (The former homeowner probably stops payments and gets their credit ruined.)
  - qudat 2y ago
    I’m not an expert in this but as far as I can tell there will never be a margin call. There’s only a margin call if he defaulted on his loans. All the banks will do is ask to restructure the loan to compensate for the loss in the collateral. Further, it’s just $6bn which musk can easily cover. > The funding included $7 billion of senior secured bank loans; $6 billion in subordinated debt; $6.25 billion in bank loans to Musk personally, secured by $62.5 billion of his Tesla stock; $20 billion in cash equity from Musk, to be provided by sales of Tesla stock and other assets; and $7.1 billion in equity from 19 independent investors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon...
epgui 2y ago
None of this is really related to TSLA.
pityJuke 2y ago
xAI was seperated from X in what sense? xAI employees were X employees [1]. X reportedly had a stake in xAI, although The Verge says that hasn't materialized yet [0]. xAI's primary UI was X. (This is primarily around your backlash comments, I'm sure some shareholder malarkey could make them technically separate). [0]: https://www.theverge.com/news/638933/elon-musk-x-xai-acquisition https://www.theverge.com/news/638933/elon-musk-x-xai-acquisi... [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/10/24339249/elon-musk-xai-x-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/10/24339249/elon-musk-xai-x-...
maxlin 2y ago
This sounds as tinfoily a take as I've heard here. TSLA is not related to this in any way.
- tills13 2y ago
  The purchase of Twitter was leveraged using TSLA stock.
Hasnep 2y ago
> more likely that the internal number for TSLA is not good The external number for TSLA is not doing very good either
- franktankbank 2y ago
  Still higher than just 1 year ago. Still vastly overpriced.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  To put it in perspective, over the past 6 months TSLA has performed as well as META and much better than GOOG and MSFT.
  - Hasnep 2y ago
    That's true, and in the last two months it's done worse than all of those put together!
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      Yes I guess if you bought TSLA two months ago you're hurting. If you bought it 6 months ago you're doing better than the S&P 500.
    - 1oooqooq 2y ago
      even despite the white house showroom ad, no less
rich_sasha 2y ago
It's interesting in conjunction with the SEC/DOGE move. For ever, companies wanted to cook their own profitability metrics - see the famous (pre-Musk) Twitter revenue per click or something, or adjusted by size of community. Public company disclosure rules, however, dictate fairly strictly what is and isn't revenue, profit, capital and so on. Right now, you can publish any wacky statistics you like, so long as you also provide the GAAP ones - "generally accepted accounting practice". But who knows, perhaps DOGE in SEC relaxes that, giving companies more scope to hide bits of their business they don't like.
javier2 2y ago
It sounds more like a way to save whats left of X, and leave xAI investors holding the $12B bag of debt that X is struggling to service.
xdavidliu 2y ago
> xAI was relatively separated from X and TSLA, and wasn't having the backlashes associated with the two. I don't understand this point: why would these backlashes care about the on-paper separation? (I'm assuming by backlash, you mean that of public opinion, which already knows about the xAI-Musk association).

deeth_starr_v 2y ago

This is my feeling too. Good chance of a margin call coming for all his loans backed with TESLA shares

ripped_britches 2y ago

This doesn’t seem like a branding related deal, it seems like wanting to further marry their operations for strategic reasons.

n1b0m 2y ago
What was stopping him doing that before? He owned both companies.
mcmcmc 2y ago
I don’t see how this is anything other than financial engineering to protect Musk’s personal wealth

redox99 2y ago

I don't understand the relation with TSLA.

kansface 2y ago
Musk leveraged TSLA stock to buy Twitter.
- redox99 2y ago
  Elon sold 19B in stock, took a loan for 6.25B, and the rest was other investors. The 6.25B loan, assuming he still has it, is really not an issue considering his net worth. He can add more collateral or sell a bit. In fact TSLA stock is higher now than when he bought Twitter.
  - thethimble 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - j16sdiz 2y ago
    "Net Worth" can be misleading. Wikipedia say Musk has repeatedly described himself as "cash poor" -- most of his worth are not in cash. How much of his net worth are in $TSLA?
mandeepj 2y ago
There's a margin on TSLA stock at $112 or $115; Like some other commentator said as well - he collateralled TSLA stock to take a loan to buy Twitter.
- baby 2y ago
  his margin call level is not public right?
  - mandeepj 2y ago
    > his margin call level is not public right? But you do know “things” have a way to find path to get in public :-). Also, as stated in the following article, Tesla filed with SEC how much of stock was used and you can use the timing to find the stock price during the period of acquisition. https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-facing-margin-call-tesla-stock-2047059 https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-facing-margin-call-tesla-...
- ksynwa 2y ago
  What happens if you collateral a stock for loan and the stock somehow becomes worthless?
  - kelnos 2y ago
    Same thing that happens if you put up any kind of collateral that later becomes worthless: the lender doesn't get their money. That's the risk of collateral. This is why mortgage lenders require you to maintain insurance on your property: if the house burns down or something, the lender still wants that money. If a house gets destroyed in a way that's not covered by insurance (say, by an earthquake in California, where most people don't have earthquake insurance), then the lender loses their money. (The former homeowner probably stops payments and gets their credit ruined.)
- qudat 2y ago
  I’m not an expert in this but as far as I can tell there will never be a margin call. There’s only a margin call if he defaulted on his loans. All the banks will do is ask to restructure the loan to compensate for the loss in the collateral. Further, it’s just $6bn which musk can easily cover. > The funding included $7 billion of senior secured bank loans; $6 billion in subordinated debt; $6.25 billion in bank loans to Musk personally, secured by $62.5 billion of his Tesla stock; $20 billion in cash equity from Musk, to be provided by sales of Tesla stock and other assets; and $7.1 billion in equity from 19 independent investors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon...

epgui 2y ago

None of this is really related to TSLA.

pityJuke 2y ago

xAI was seperated from X in what sense? xAI employees were X employees [1]. X reportedly had a stake in xAI, although The Verge says that hasn't materialized yet [0]. xAI's primary UI was X. (This is primarily around your backlash comments, I'm sure some shareholder malarkey could make them technically separate). [0]: https://www.theverge.com/news/638933/elon-musk-x-xai-acquisition https://www.theverge.com/news/638933/elon-musk-x-xai-acquisi... [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/10/24339249/elon-musk-xai-x-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/10/24339249/elon-musk-xai-x-...

maxlin 2y ago

This sounds as tinfoily a take as I've heard here. TSLA is not related to this in any way.

tills13 2y ago
The purchase of Twitter was leveraged using TSLA stock.

Hasnep 2y ago

> more likely that the internal number for TSLA is not good The external number for TSLA is not doing very good either

franktankbank 2y ago
Still higher than just 1 year ago. Still vastly overpriced.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
To put it in perspective, over the past 6 months TSLA has performed as well as META and much better than GOOG and MSFT.
- Hasnep 2y ago
  That's true, and in the last two months it's done worse than all of those put together!
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    Yes I guess if you bought TSLA two months ago you're hurting. If you bought it 6 months ago you're doing better than the S&P 500.
  - 1oooqooq 2y ago
    even despite the white house showroom ad, no less

rich_sasha 2y ago

It's interesting in conjunction with the SEC/DOGE move. For ever, companies wanted to cook their own profitability metrics - see the famous (pre-Musk) Twitter revenue per click or something, or adjusted by size of community. Public company disclosure rules, however, dictate fairly strictly what is and isn't revenue, profit, capital and so on. Right now, you can publish any wacky statistics you like, so long as you also provide the GAAP ones - "generally accepted accounting practice". But who knows, perhaps DOGE in SEC relaxes that, giving companies more scope to hide bits of their business they don't like.

javier2 2y ago

It sounds more like a way to save whats left of X, and leave xAI investors holding the $12B bag of debt that X is struggling to service.

xdavidliu 2y ago

> xAI was relatively separated from X and TSLA, and wasn't having the backlashes associated with the two. I don't understand this point: why would these backlashes care about the on-paper separation? (I'm assuming by backlash, you mean that of public opinion, which already knows about the xAI-Musk association).