Was this all calculated stock manipulation? It feels like Musk’s modus operandi:
1: Invest in something,
2: Tweet about it.
3: Grossly violate FTC regulation,
4: profit
Also, he's too strong minded.
A recap of his ideas:
* A limited edit button. * Move it to a paid service * No ads to avoid corp pressure to censor voices.
My guess - he'd be in a conflicted position if he ever wanted to start / do his own social network. And these changes are WAY outside of the comfort zone of FTC etc.
That would likely take his time away from other things he cares more about, such as Tesla and SpaceX. Whereas buying up Twitter stock – even buying 100% and taking it over completely – doesn't take up much of his time at all. Even a board seat would have only been a modest time commitment, far less than starting a new social media company from scratch would be.
> And these changes are WAY outside of the comfort zone of FTC etc.
Why would those changes be outside the FTC's "comfort zone"?
FTC's chief concerns are (1) consumer protection, (2) antitrust/competition. I don't see how the changes you mention would impact either.
I am also confused. Perhaps foregoign Ad-tech revenue would be against the supposed fiduciary duty?
Otherwise, you can always make some stuff up about it being a long-term strategy. But, fundamentally, making a bad call isn't a violation of fiduciary duty (unless there's documents saying you know it will tank beforehand and you do it anyway).
I'm not sure how the FTC would be involved here. My understanding is that the exchange between twitter and most of its users doesn't rise to the legal designation of "trade" (excluding twitter blue users, of course), unless the OP meant the FTC would get involved between Twitter and their advertisers.
The collateral would be a huge portion of his Tesla stock, enough that a crash in TSLA could put the whole loan at risk.
Also, Musk may be able to find some co-investors (fellow billionaires, private equity, etc) who believe that Twitter would do better with a Musk-selected executive leadership team than with its current one, and so would be willing to support Musk in taking control.
(b) A social network full of only Elon Musk fans (maybe call it Government-Subsidized Emerald Mine) would be a pretty thin slice of humanity.
What did he Invest in something/Tweet/Violate FTC/Profit from?
If you're referring to Tesla, you missed the part where he: Lead the delivery of a ridiculous amount of value to the company unrelated to any tweets.
He lost $20 million personally for that. Also isn't he suing the SEC over that, claiming he did have funding secured, and claiming he only settled because he was worried about the court cases given he wanted to raise more money?
Dogecoin and Bitcoin.
He pumped and dumped the former pretty directly. He pumped and dumped Bitcoin by saying that Tesla would start to accept it as payment, and then he said that the price was too volatile and they wouldn't actually do that anymore.
He pumped and dumped Bitcoin again later, but I forget the circumstances.
Did Elon profit from that? i.e. He bought at the bottom and sold at the top? Or did he lose along with everyone else in the "dump" phase?
Bitcoin: You don't have to trust anyone... except Elon.
That same quarter, Tesla reported almost $500 million in realized capital gains on BTC.
And Elon owns Tesla stock.
The rest is left as an exercise to the reader.
It’s not just the hours of interviews but also the ability to see how his actions play out over time.
This is why I can state confidently that he doesn’t give a rats ass about money or profit (other than using that wealth towards making humanity multi-planetary species). If you feel that is a greedy goal, than so be it, but he is not interested in money for himself
Is that why he keeps lying on Twitter that SEC has had to go after him?
SEC regulation, not FTC.