[tardy_one]

Yeah.. Everyone should expect every publically traded corporation to end up controlled by someone in the same mental decline as McAfee and never make a long term contract they don't expect to spend millions enforcing internationally.

Ruining such people's future prospects whenever this happens to reduce the future risk has been such a good strategy that countries like the US introduced credit rating bureaus to emulate this for managing risk with less famous people.

We are naturally in a very unusual time, but things will shift back and the facts will stay and reputational meaning will be interpreted correctly then.

There are always enough idiots to do business with if you are a famous connman, but your business is always of a certain limited category.

If he were poor and did this I think you'd admit he is a putz. I live in a free country where I can choose which market participants to deal with and see no reason to feel intimidated by the buying power of a putz I won't ever be foolish enough to depend on. The more significant someone is in the society the more likely they are to be able to afford my position and not risk yours.

[lazide]

Eh, public companies the dynamics are different - the CEO rarely has the shareholders by the balls, it’s usually the other way around. Private Equity or private corps? Always been this way, albeit they’re usually a lot more careful about PR and CYA.

Howard Hughes did things like Musk though. It’s part of his brand. Anyone doing business with him that didn’t expect some kind of shenanigans if things changed was being willfully ignorant.

If he was poor and did things this way, he wouldn’t have leverage and it wouldn’t work. Same if he didn’t have the shareholders by the balls.

What works is what matters eh?

Or as they say, he’s not crazy - he’s eccentric. When/if he ends up poor, we can call him crazy again.

Long term, Karma/reputation wise, I would hope you are correct. It is often how it has worked in the US.

If you were in Russia in the 90’s and assumed that is how it worked going forward, you’d be in pretty bad shape though eh? Hopefully you’d only end up broke/bankrupt and not in a Gulag or thrown out a window.

At the point someone is writing commercial leases, the kid gloves have been off a long time ago, and it’s hard for anyone to shed any tears for the outcomes.