• NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Also when you own as much of a company like he does, and try to cash out, you cause the stock to plummet rapidly as you increase the available amount of shares. Basic supply and demand.

    It was quite dramatic as he was selling shares to buy Twitter.

    Whatever number gets thrown around as his wealth is just a paper number. It’s a fraction of that if he sold it all.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Yup, and he’d have to get approvals for any stock sales since he’s in an executive position, and he also has an obligation to not tank the stock price either. So a lot of his wealth is inaccessible.

      He’s still super rich, but if Tesla tanks, he’d be a lot less rich.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I still feel like the way he sold all that stock for Twitter on the open market wasn’t in the best interest of the shareholders.

        Why didn’t he try to negotiate a sale with Blackrock or someone and give them a 25% discount or something and do a large block sale.

        Pretty sure something like that is an option if done right. It still would have hurt the stock price, but the Twitter sale was pretty brutal with it going on for weeks.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          There’s only so much you can do to move $40B of stock, and he didn’t think Twitter would actually accept, so he had to scramble a bit. He was caught between various SEC rules, which was his own doing, but it does explain the behavior.