this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 341 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

It was the paid blue checkmark for $8 back in 2022.

Kinda old article info without much current stuff except the lawsuit against the ad trade group.

[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 59 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Still makes me gleeful reading about his stupidity.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 77 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

It does, until you realise that his monstrous wealth insulates him from any consequences, deflecting them onto the heads of mortals. No matter what he does, he’ll be alright.

[–] billiam0202@lemmy.world 19 points 4 weeks ago

Not only that, but there are thousands of people insulating him from those consequences. People at Xitter working to keep what functionality they can, despite years of knowing what a shithead Musk is. People who keep the operation of SpaceX separate to make it successful despite his involvement. The Russian and Saudi investors who gave him the money to buy Twitter when he ran his mouth off about it.

[–] Infynis@midwest.social 13 points 4 weeks ago

He's so insecure though, all the mocking he receives online is pretty satisfying

[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 13 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I felt a little better reading today how many of his children are conceived IVF or surrogate. I can’t fathom having anyone having sex with him.

[–] finley@lemm.ee 5 points 4 weeks ago

And now we don’t have to!

[–] hightrix@lemmy.world 53 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

And that's why I never click. At this point getting Rick rolled would be fresher news.

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

That's the kind we all come to expect🙄🤣🤣🤣🤣

[–] tilefan@lemm.ee 170 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

please just put the interesting part in the title.

[–] bcgm3@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

But then there would be no title.

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[–] frunch@lemmy.world 80 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 31 points 4 weeks ago

The fact that this tweet caused their stock price to dive really shows what a joke the stock market is .

[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 80 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

This a beautiful story. Bankers get shafted lending money to apex capitalist.

🤌

[–] tja@sh.itjust.works 35 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Some days ago I read an article here that said that a lot of the money came from Russia and that they are getting exactly what they wanted: chaos

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 23 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

No one has ever explained how bankers are losing. They say they've lost money. Yet the only details are Musk has to make payments and put up Tesla stock as collateral. That a no lose for the banks. They don't care if Tesla stock crashes, they are making money from selling it.

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 29 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

If Tesla's stock crashes, then the value the banks could get from selling it is much lower.

If Twitter and Tesla go bankrupt, the banks will have loaned out billions to own something worthless.

At least I would assume that's how it works.

[–] Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

The bankruptcy scenario is correct but the first part isn't: you don't have X shares as collateral that you can liquidate. Instead, you have collateral to cover sum Y.

As long as the collateral contract covers enough stock positions the bank won't lose.

That said all of this is assuming standard contracts. If y bank wrote "0% interest and instead 50% of the revenue growth of Twitter" then this would be an easy way to lose money.

Haven't heard of a stupid banker yet, though, so what would the chances be?

[–] femtech@midwest.social 16 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I mean, the 2008 housing market was done by greedy and stupid bankers.

[–] curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 weeks ago

Who also made massive profits.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 8 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

Stupid? It was a masterstroke by them.

They made a fortune, then governments had to throw more money at them or risk a complete economic crash.

After the crash, people were poorer, and credit was cheap, so they came to banks for loans and financed everything more and more, handing even more to the financial sector.

Houses temporarily crashed in price, but the poorest were too risky for banks to lend to, leading to houses being bought up en-mass by people who were already wealthy.

Bankers in 2008 were greedy, yes. But certainly not stupid.

[–] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 3 points 4 weeks ago

IMO they should not have been bailed out. For most people the economy has already failed and it should be allowed to crash fully so that it can be rebuilt and restructured in full. That might sound extreme but I don't see many other alternatives. Something has to be sacrificed for the sake of the vast majority of people and the real economy and I think it should be the financial sector.

[–] femtech@midwest.social 2 points 4 weeks ago

I mean, I feel like the banks that failed still should have done some research on what they were putting their money into. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banks_acquired_or_bankrupted_during_the_Great_Recession

[–] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Ah! Thank you for the explanation

[–] Vanth@reddthat.com 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Careful there, bud, you're singing the siren song of bank bailouts.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

The proletariat is still sore about the ones in 2008. They revealed plain the stratified economic system.

[–] lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

It's because when banks make loans, they sell of the debt, but nobody has wanted to buy the debt for Musk's loans. My understanding of this is essentially, if someone takes out a loan of $100 million, the bank will sell that debt to an investor for $101 million, and the investor will make back $102 million once the loan is paid off due to interest. But no investors are confident enough that Musk will pay back his loan so no one is ponying up the dough to buy it.

[–] ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

That's easy, just give him a AAA credit rating and call it a bond, some pension fund will buy it.

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago

Take it a step further, bundle it with a bunch of other subprime loans and then pass it around like a hot potato.

[–] walter_wiggles@lemmy.nz 8 points 4 weeks ago

I remember reading that the banks who loaned him the money haven't been able to sell off the debt.

[–] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 54 points 4 weeks ago

I'm GLAD we don't tax Billionaires like Musk! Imagine if instead of buying a Website for $44BILLION he instead bought kids $44BILLION worth of School Lunch! The HORROR!

[–] spyd3r@sh.itjust.works 25 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Watching Twitter die the slow agonizing cancerous death it deserves makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

[–] wurstgulasch3000@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Is it dying though? It is getting worse and worse but I don't think people are leaving in huge numbers

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[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 21 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (5 children)

Ugh... it drives me nuts!

Musk had to borrow around $13 billion for his doomed $44 billion acquisition.

Had he spent that ~~$57~~ $44 billion on developing space hardware instead of going insane and squandering it on social media bullshit, he might have done something worthwhile. I mean... fifty seven billion! What even is that much money? He could have had his own space station for that much money! He could fly up there for weekends, just for funzies.

[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 26 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

That $13 billion is part of the $44 billion, you don't add them together.

He spent $31 billion of his own capital, and borrowed $13 billion to cover the rest.

[–] androogee@midwest.social 17 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Oh great, I added all the numbers in your comment together and now it's $101 billion?? When will this madness end???

[–] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

With all that money, he could have given every person in the world $12.625 billion!!! It's unfathomable!

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[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 weeks ago

You've bamboozled my attempt to make the same joke at your expense by only mentioning one number in your comment, giving me nothing to add to it. From this point on, I conclude we should only ever mention one number in each comment, for clarity.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago

Oh thank you, my mistake. Still the numbers are huge!

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

"own capital" probably more like stocks from Tesla, I doubt any actual money moved

[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That's why I used the word "capital" instead of "money", but I had a feeling someone still was going to deliberately misunderstand me to try to sound smart.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 10 points 4 weeks ago

Why didn’t he just spend his own billions to prop up his venture? Oh, because he doesn’t want to pay taxes.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I do English, but your math is wrong

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Haha everyone keeps saying that! But it's pretty funny how wrong everyone is about where the mistake was.

The math is just fine, I did the simple addition correctly. It's the reading comprehension that I got wrong, I misunderstood what the sentence was saying.

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[–] Liz@midwest.social 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

That's not how math works.

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[–] masquenox@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

he might have done something worthwhile

No, he wouldn't have. Musk is an incompetent billionaire parasite, even more incompetent than the average billionaire parasite, and would have simply squandered his ill-gotten money on something else.

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