[minwcnt5]

This also lets all of his co-investors in X, who were likely pissed that their shares tanked, exchange their shares at an inflated value (but one that still sees them losing 25% of their original investment) for shares in a trendy yet likely overvalued AI company that they consider to have more upside.

The other part of this is that if TSLA stock drops to $100-ish he'll be at risk of being margin called on the loans he took against his holdings to buy X. I wouldn't be surprised if this deal involves some X shares being sold for cash (that was raised from VCs) to pay down those loans, and/or the lenders agreeing to take xAI stock in lieu of cash.

This whole thing seems like a big pyramid scheme. I don't think this is the last time we've seen this type of move: he'll keep starting companies that are at the forefront of whatever the current hype cycle is, then leverage the extremely inflated valuations to benefit himself.

[jeff_carr]

> This whole thing seems like a big pyramid scheme.

That's because his scam of charging $8k over the price of a Tesla for "self driving" was complete vaporware. It never worked and it never was going to work. I am disappointed I fell for it.

There should be a class action lawsuit against TESLA for everyone that purchased the $8k self driving "feature". We were all told it was "being rolled out". It was a total lie.

[geertj]

You must not have tried FSD 13.x with AI4 hardware. I commute to work every day from the suburbs to the city with a ~25 min one-way commute with zero disengagements.

Edit: Elon mentioned in the last earnings call that if you are on AI3 hardware and bought FSD that they will have to upgrade you free of charge to AI4.

Edit 2: To clarify, FSD 13.x is only available with AI4 hardware.

[intuitionist]

The outside investors in X made a profit on paper; Twitter was bought for $44B but the deal was financed with like $31B in equity and $13B in debt. It’s not a big profit (in fact it’s worse than you would have done in T-bills), and of course they’re swapping one illiquid and hard-to-value asset for another, but Elon isn’t giving them a 25% haircut at all.

[echelon]

Even if he made the Twitter investors whole, I wonder how the investors in xAI feel.

[zahlman]

Isn't Twitter's stock price higher than it was at acquisition?

[bravetraveler]

Feeling mighty 2008/subprime in here

[onlyrealcuzzo]

He's simply moving Twitter losses to xAI investors - because he's the largest Twitter loser - and would prefer those losses go to other patsies instead.

[cellwebb]

I don't think he's going to be able to spin up hype on anything after this. He's burned a lot of bridges.

[sitkack]

When you Godwin your own thread, you are by definition done.

[silisili]

He didn't leverage Tesla stock to buy X.

These Reddit level takes with zero research are making threads like this really annoying to read. All emotions, zero facts.

[acdha]

Speaking of threads with zero facts, can you cite your research? Here’s mine showing $12.5B secured by TSLA shares:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465...

That wasn’t the only funding, of course, but it’s a big chunk:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220422035052/https://www.bloom...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/technology/musk-twitter-s...

[HWR_14]

How did he get the tens of billions in cash he personally put in if not leveraging Tesla. Yes he had minority investors and put some debt on the acquisition itself, but he put up a lot of money.

[IrishTechie]

You haven’t added any facts either, it’s just one more statement from a random Interneter like those Reddit posts. I’m intrigued to hear some fact on this point though?