[goldcd]

I was wondering why he got so many voting shares in SpaceX. Then worked out it was just enough to get overall control of a combined company (assuming SpaceX remains at or above IPO valuation and Tesla stays under his beloved 420).

Suspect it also means all pumping from now on out will be Space X, whilst Tesla will be "less bullish" than normal.

[ant6n]

Interesting. So if there's a merger of SpaceX and Tesla, he gets back more Tesla.

[goldcd]

Precisely.

Whilst he owns a lot of Tesla, he doesn't have majority control - and has to get shareholders to vote on stuff like "Whether Elon should be given ridiculous bonus packages" and similar.

He's previously said both that he wants a single company and that he needs complete control of it.

Merge of companies at values I mentioned wouldn't give him over 50% ownership, but gives 51% of the votes (Although I'd suggest you check my maths, people on the internet are sometimes wrong..)

I've also ignored the Tesla bonus plan - as it could be argued (and I'm sure it will be), that if it's Tesla that consumes SpaceX, then he's increased the market cap of Tesla. This then triggers new Tesla shares to be minted and given to him (last bonus plan), which both moves both more cash and voting out of the hands of the public into his.

Some might suggest this sounds like outright fraud - but his little fans will undoubtedly cheer this all through again..