[Quarrel]

I've seen this several times and just not really understood the end game.

Surely they'll be pursued for the rent (plus costs) & evicted along the way. The landlords aren't individual employees he can just shit on and assume they won't sue.

[theanti9]

For me this was the final nail in the coffin for the "Elon's just playing 4D chess we don't understand" argument and really just shows that he's a dude that thinks he can do whatever he wants with no consequences, because so far there haven't really been any.

If there were a logic to it, I'd guess that it's more important he make the interest payments on the billions of dollars in loans he took out for the purchase than it is to not get sued for non-payment of a lease.

[JohnFen]

> he's a dude that thinks he can do whatever he wants with no consequences

That's been clear to me for many years, but for me, the nail in that coffin was the whole "pedo guy" thing. It was a great demonstration of what a despicable person he is.

[1270018080]

Being sort of forced to buy Twitter for 3x what it was worth was a consequence.

[rsynnott]

I assume the "4D chess magical supergenius" people have rationalised that as... having been the plan all along or something?

[TillE]

The rationale at the time was that Musk was refusing to pay so that he could cut a better deal with Twitter, which might even be true, but it was still a stupid waste of time (and money paid to lawyers).

The punchline of all this is that his main argument was that bots devalued Twitter, and the bot problem has become so much worse in recent months, to the extent that it's become a meme to mess with the bots that sell t-shirts.

[rnk]

He wasn't really forced to buy it. There was a $1 billion buyout option of the contract apparently. I believe he paid 44 billion it, when it was clearly worth half that after the stock lost value, so he chose to waste 20 billion instead of 1 billion to save his ego. But instead he's destroyed whatever part of his reputation was left.

[anotherman554]

There was not a 1 billion dollar buyout option, the 1 billion dollar penalty was if he could not obtain financing, which he was perfectly capable of doing, or if a regulator blocked the deal, it wasn't something he had the right to use, just a penalty he would be forced to pay if he couldn't close the deal.

[rnk]

Oh I thank you for the extra information. I think he could have sabotaged the financing if you tried hard. So he agreed to pay for 44 billion odd dollars for Twitter no matter what? That's a very questionable deal.

[anotherman554]

I don't think it was a questionable deal, at least without 20/20 hindsight. Twitter wasn't looking for a buyer, and Musk really, really wanted to buy it (until he didn't). If you have a highly motivated buyer and a not particularly motivated seller, you would expect the deal to be favorable to the seller. In order to convince Twitter owners to sell the company Musk had to essentially make them an offer so good they couldn't refuse. What other outcome would you expect?

If Musk lost in court, was ordered to go through with the deal, and then sabotaged the financing to try to get out of the deal, potentially a court could have thrown him in jail and said, "You are lying about not being able to go through with the financing, we find you in contempt of court and you are staying in jail until you obtain financing and close the deal." It's not very plausible that the world's richest man can't find financing on the deal.

Potentially a court could have also instead said, "Since you sabotaged the financing, you are in breach of contract. Twitter is worth 22 billion dollars today. You offered 44 billion dollars to buy it. You are hereby ordered to pay Twitter 22 billion dollars to make them whole." Presumably the court could have forced him to sell assets to pay up.

I don't think anyone knows for sure what would have happened in court but it seems he had a very weak case.

[rsynnott]

I would suspect that if you sabotage funding to get out of a deal that you otherwise couldn’t get out of, the other party has a pretty good case to come after you for damages.

On it being a questionable deal, it’s not a consumer contract. It is assumed that both sides know what they’re doing in commercial deals; there’s little protection for incompetent participants. It might be questionable, but the participants have largely signed away the right to question it.

[yumraj]

He made the offer. No one forced him to make it.

He can’t cry if he made a bad business decision. Or well he can, but it has no legal bearing.

[noSyncCloud]

I mean I get what you're saying. But nobody forced him to sign his name on a piece of paper with that number on it.

[Ekaros]

Maybe the end game is just to drive it to bankruptcy... And then get someone to swoop in with some marginal value. But paying for things would make it happen faster...

So maybe it is to burn it all down.

[pempem]

They can sue but do you know what the return of the suit is? Do you get your cash or do you spend cash + get less than what you were owed?

Most things settle and they settle for far less than the original amount. "It's just not worth it" the individual says. That's what Musk and others bank on.

[blibble]

does the US not have something like the UKs functioning county court system?

upto about $250,000, you pay a nominal fee, both sides represent themselves, you get whatever's owed + they pay your fees if you win

you have to pay their nominal fee and your own if you lose

and if they don't pay what's owed at that point you can send in the bayliff or begin winding up the company

with something like an unpaid lease for an office it would be over and done more or less instantly

[flutas]

It sounds like you're describing small claims court in the US.

Basically no lawyers, only you and only up to a certain amount (varies by state, usually ~5-10k$).

[rsynnott]

In some countries it really is a lot easier to force a company to pay a debt; it can proceed to winding-up/bankruptcy/whatever pretty quickly if the debtor company is uncooperative.

As I understand it, US small claims court is _not_ like this; practical enforcement powers are usually fairly limited.

[pempem]

Also any commercial lease of this size would easily and immediately outstrip small claims' needs.

In general the attitude of big business or HNI is pay a lawyer, reduce the cost you actually pay to the vendor. Get a bulk pricing on lawyer hours (Retainer, tons of active issues anyway, etc)

It looks bad to us because we spend a lifetime being upfront and on it with obligations. We literally never want to be evicted but like any crime that has a fine, it is not really a crime. It is a price of doing business a certain way and the question is simply whether you can afford it.