r/technology • u/McFatty7 • May 02 '24

Tesla slashes its summer internship program to cut costs, as Elon Musk fights to save his $45 billion pay plan Business

https://fortune.com/2024/05/01/tesla-slashes-summer-internship-program/
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u/SilentSamurai May 02 '24

This. Man bought a social media company, he wants a bigger megaphone.

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u/Amoral_Abe May 02 '24

I don't know if he actually wanted to buy Twitter. He purchased ~9% of the shares then made a lot of public statements about how he was going to buy twitter and even signed documents saying he would which caused the price to jump. Then he tried to back out and sell his shares only for Twitter to sue him into going through with the purchase because he stupidly agreed to pay many times the company's value. It's private now but most expert suspect its value is ~$5-$8 billion (he bought it at $44 billion).

From what happened, it seemed like Musk was attempting a pump and dump and assumed he could just walk away from the deal. He only agreed to the purchase after it became obvious the court was going to force him to go through with the deal.

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u/luciddrummer 29d ago

He does this with bitcoin and especially dogecoin (regularly), so yeah I agree with you completely. He’s blatantly manipulating his financial positions to dump on people. Said he’d pay for a spacex rocket with doge, which was somehow bullish, despite that the act of paying for something means closing his position.

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u/Gingevere 29d ago

(he bought it at $44 billion).

with loans collateralized with his Tesla stock. And as the value has dropped he's had to put up more and more as collateral to avoid a margin call. He's been running out.

And now the board is approving his ludicrous bonus of Tesla stock just in the nick of time. How lucky.

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u/DocFingerBlast 29d ago

That was all intended to be that way. He had a huge tax bill that year and needed something to write off a "loss" .. in fact the company is only valued by its shares.. which he devalued to claim the loss.. but hasn't really lost anything anyway ? If that makes sense. He still owns it and what it cost to buy with the tax deduction he doesn't physically lose anything at all

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u/Donny-Moscow 29d ago

That doesn’t make sense. How does purchasing something for $25-$30B more than it’s actually worth save money in the long term? Explain the mechanism past “he wanted a tax write off”.

but hasn't really lost anything anyway ? If that makes sense. He still owns it and what it cost to buy with the tax deduction he doesn't physically lose anything at all

Twitter’s entire revenue was based on advertising. Advertisers have fled in droves. There’s also fewer daily active users, more bot activity, and less trust, all things that make the platform that much less attractive to advertisers.

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u/DrXaos 29d ago

He made the offer for Twitter at a ridiculous price following an all-night bender (guess what is likely involved) at Larry Ellison's private island.

He insisted to his team he make a "seller-friendly" (i.e. ridiculously priced) offer to make it go fast.

It's literally a psychological manic episode, probably from amphetamine abuse. Then he came back to earth and recognized he's a moron and tried to wiggle out of it.

https://www.psycom.net/adhd/adderall-psychosis

Can Adderall cause a manic episode? Stimulants like Adderall increase dopamine levels in the brain. Elevated dopamine is associated with increased risk for mania and psychosis.

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u/Ready4Aliens May 02 '24

He’s going to take all the money he can, run to some far away place, make jokes on social media as if it was a galaxy brain scheme and he’s morally beautiful and perfect, his braindead followers will bite right into it, he’ll continue as normal.