I've heard a few tales of some CEO's (of very small companies) here in the Nordics actually being generous to their employees. Like it's most definitely a rarity, but I believe it is possible.
Like a CEO who values profits but values employees and paying their fair share more and isn't blinded by greed and addicted to money. A socialist, literally. A market socialist, but a socialist nonetheless.
Everyone could have their basic needs met, and we could still have rich people. Just not filthy rich, not "rich-to-the-point-no-one-else-has-anything" rich.
Or an asshole, Being X from Saga of Tanya the Evil Comes to mind. Hell both Being X and Musk are petulant children who damand praise, I fucking hate it.
I think he was trying to dump Tesla stock without making it look like he didn’t have faith in the company. His plan was always to say he was buying it. sell a bunch of Tesla stock. Back out of the Twitter deal and walk away with a ton of cash.
He tried to get out of it based on a bunch of bullshit and then was surprised when a judge actually forced him to buy Twitter.
I can't find the exact quote right now, but I saw in another article he said something like, "If they don't pay for advertisements, X will be gone. How sad!"
It seems Musk thinks he's tending another Mona Lisa or some other world cultural artifact that society would hate to lose. Not some website that's fairly easily recreated by, say, a bunch of hobbyists.
What's absolutely insane to me, is that other CEOs think that's fair and fine and that Elon is very smart and not a con artist? No wonder Elizabeth Holmes got so far. It's just so obvious he's not above board
To me it's mental that stock holders would approve such package when company itself for its entire existence had income that is smaller than his "bonus". Some people are downright stupid.
Theyre wealthy not smart. The smart wealthy ones fade into obscurity, like Tom or that one distant uncle who lives in a cabin in the woods and juat kinda vibes.
“I hope they stop. Don’t advertise, If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is." - Elon Musk, November 27th 2023
The problem is that his payout, like the rest of his fortune, is in exceedingly overvalued Tesla stock. So using that to finance Twitter means selling, and every time he sells the price takes a hard dip because Tesla investors know they're standing on a soap bubble and they are extremely nervous about it bursting. Any sudden uptick in sales pressure is liable to cause a small avalanche of investors abandoning ship.
The process of buying Twitter alone cut his net worth by half because of how much it cratered the Tesla stock price.
Imagine being the wealthiest person on the planet and deciding to burn half of it to ensure that Nazis have an audience for their hot takes. Elon could have bought entire parks of grass to touch instead.
It wouldn't kill Tesla, per se. A company's stock price only really matters insofar as it helps them to carry debt. The company doesn't actually directly gain or lose money based on the stock price. What it affects, primarily, is the shareholders of the company.