A jury has found Elon Musk liable for misleading investors by deliberately driving down Twitter’s stock price in the tumultuous months leading up to his 2022 acquisition of the social media company for $44 billion. But it absolved him of some fraud allegations, finding that he did not “scheme” to mislead investors.

  • mechoman444@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    I don’t understand why these courts charge a set fine for stuff like this. This is clearly an extremely unique case. The man is 20% shy of being a trillionaire.

    What really needs to be done is they need to charge a percentage of his profits. Say 20 to 30%.

    • wewbull@feddit.uk
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      5 hours ago

      I don’t know how much he has liquid. The article says that “most” of his 814B is tied up in Tesla stock. Selling a couple of billion worth of stock isn’t trivial.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.ml
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    13 hours ago

    For the rest of us, there would be a seizure of assets and a prison term.

  • 13igTyme@piefed.social
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    10 hours ago

    I wasn’t invested in Twitter, but when I heard he was trying to get out of it I bought some stock. I knew he couldn’t get out of the deal because it doesn’t work like that and he’s a dumb ass.

    My only regret was not buying more. Thanks for the money, idiot.

    • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      That’s the problem with Mr. musketeer he doesn’t actually show income. That’s why we’re always complaining about how billionaires don’t pay income tax.

    • yabbadabaddon@lemmy.zip
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      9 hours ago

      This does not work because he will find a way to have 0 income (legally). I don’t know how we can make the billionaires pay, but we should tax the assets not the incomes.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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      3 hours ago

      It should be the amount he made from it + a fine. It’s how the middle class gets handled.

  • Triumph@fedia.io
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    17 hours ago

    If the punishment is a fine, it’s only illegal for poor people.

    The only war is class war.

    • cannedtuna@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Considering he’s made $400B since acquiring Twitter, this was just a minor cost of doing business.

      • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
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        5 hours ago

        I could change the world for the better with this sum. Hell, even with the fee. Oh well, I’m sure it’s best that he has that money 🙄🤮.

      • LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip
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        13 hours ago

        Considering he’s made $400B since acquiring Twitter…

        Serious question: How?

        AFAIK, Twitter wasn’t terribly profitable before they sold to Musk. Then after he purchased it, the enshittification accelerated.

        How on earth does this result in $400 Billions in profit?!?

        • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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          13 hours ago

          He made $400B, not Twitter. That’s almost entirely from Tesla and other ventures, not Twitter.

          Last I’ve been able to find Twitter was valued at $33B when xAI bought it. But that was clearly an overvalued sale. Just look at the valuation over time.

          And that’s just raw valuation which is easily manipulated, not revenue or profit, which can be easily manipulated.

        • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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          10 hours ago

          It’s not real money, and Musk isn’t the richest person in truth, not by a long shot. This is theoretical money based on overpriced companies that are propped up by what I suspect are some rather shady practices and investors using it as a casino stock.

          • DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Actually worst than imaginable if you delve deep the psychology of the rich is akin to tumour development. Never forget these rich fuckheads would bet over your misery like a game.

          • theolodis@feddit.org
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            8 hours ago

            The money doesn’t have to be real for Elon to be able to use his stock as collateral for billion dollar loans. So he in fact has real money, that banks gave him, and that he will never pay back.

              • theolodis@feddit.org
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                8 hours ago

                It will only restrict his ability to get new loans, and make his collaterals worthless. But he probably spent most of the money they gave him, and like with twitter, he shifted the assets around in his network of companies, like a thimblerigger.

                But that’s kind of like saying that inflation will make the rich poor, which is also not true.

                • teyrnon@sh.itjust.works
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                  6 hours ago

                  When stocks crash, his loans that are backed by those stocks get margin called, and he will have to sell other stock. If the government didn’t bail him out, and they will so this is academic, although he will have to pay them bribes secretly obviously that goes without saying, he would see a cascading effect from a recession because his companies are all so overpriced.

        • then_three_more@lemmy.world
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          13 hours ago

          Some are, but they often have maximum caps.

          So for a UK speeding fine he’d get a £1000, but if it’s wasn’t capped it would be somewhere in the region of 340 million.

          Your Speeding Offence Details

          Speed Limit: 30 mph Recorded Speed: 35 mph Excess Speed: 5 mph Offence Band: A Road Type: Standard Road What This Means For You

          Your offence falls into Band A, which carries a fine of 50% of your weekly income. Based on your weekly income of £640,000,000, your calculated fine is £320,000,000. This has been capped at the maximum of £1000 for standard road offences.

          • IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz
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            9 hours ago

            Finland has similar thing, but it is not capped. There’s a ton of 100 000+€ fines given around here. Obviously with Musk it would be a bit different, since the fine is based on actual income, not some imaginary monopoly money on the stock market.

          • slevinkelevra@sh.itjust.works
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            16 hours ago

            Disclaimer: I know you’re probably only trolling, but I’ll answer anyway:

            …not assessed in a way to be of sufficient size to not just be considered a cost of doing business. In other words, pricey enough to take away the incentive to not only take away the profit but to also deal a significant blow to the wealth of the richest person on earth.

            • Ulrich@feddit.org
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              7 hours ago

              Just because they’re currently assessed that way doesn’t mean they can’t be assessed a different way…

  • 1984@lemmy.today
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    12 hours ago

    So the public paid to see another billionaire do things nobody else can do and get away with it. Nice.

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      Except he almost certainly won’t be paying anywhere near that amount, if anything.

      • org@lemmy.org
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        17 hours ago

        Right, he’s just not gonna pay. It’s not like they’re gonna go get the money from his bank account. Can you imagine Elon Musk being garnished? Never gonna happen

  • minorkeys@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    He’s made billions more after and because of it so he doesn’t give a shit about a meaningless, billion dollar fine.

  • Insekticus@aussie.zone
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    17 hours ago

    That’s a fine of $2 out of a total of $800.

    I’d speed past cameras if I was running late, and that was the fine.

  • stephen@lazysoci.al
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    18 hours ago

    I wish “massive white color crime” for the expediency that a “Black dude swelling a bit of weed” got.