(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Prison for Elon? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-20
For those looking for any light during these dark times, take heart: we may be witnessing the beginning of the end for a certain S. African jackass. And this one will make the Pillow guy look like a minor leaguer.
ENRON-STYLE SCANDAL BREWING
As reported online by Elecktra, an article in the Financial Times says Tesla’s accounting practices are raising bright red flags, with $1.4bn seemingly “missing.”
That’s correct: there is a boat load of cash that can’t be located. Maybe this is why he’s angling for a visit to Fort Knox? I digress.
The article compares Tesla’s capital expenditure in the last six months of 2024 to its valuation of the assets that money was spent on, “and $1.4bn appears to have gone astray.” Tesla reports having spent $6.3 billion on “purchases of property and equipment excluding finance leases, net of sales” in the second half of 2024, while property, plant, and equipment rose by only $4.9 billion in that period.
Curious.
While there are factors that may impact those numbers, the article states that Tesla didn’t report any significant enough change in the usual suspects to justify the difference.
Again, curious.
Another interesting tidbit: Tesla claims to be sitting on $37 billion in cash, yet it raised $6 billion in new debt last year. While this in itself is not unusual, raising debt in today’s environment is not ideal — particularly but for a company with significant piles of cash.
Another fact that points to some sort of chicanery, according to the FT report: Tesla is not offering share buybacks or dividends, despite claiming a $15 billion operating cash flow last year, higher than its CAPEX. This is rare for large companies, FT added, and even more curious when you look back to 2022, when Musk said that he would push for Tesla to use some of its cash for share buybacks, but it never happened.
TESLA STOCK USED AS COLLATERAL FOR TWITTER – OOPS
One more thing to give us hope: As reported by Newsweek, fElon used his Tesla shares as collateral to buy Twitter. If the stock drops to $100, it’s margin call time; and he does not have the cash.
Now, Wells Fargo is predicting another 50% drop in the stock’s price, so this ride is about to pick up steam.
Add to all of this the myriad troubles facing Tesla, from being kicked out of auto shows to it’s falling sales, kids burning alive in CyberTrucks, protests at dealerships, not to mention his meddling in European elections, which has earned him and X the scrutiny of the EU, and things could get out of hand quickly for the Muskrat.
In a perfect world the bank swoops in and repos Twitter; Tesla is delisted, Musk is forced into bankruptcy, and maybe prison, for his shady accounting and election meddling.
On a personal aside: I had an ad agency client in Florida years ago for whom I did copywriting. We did such a good job that one of their clients was “bought” by Enron at a trade show – with 100% of the payment in stock, of course. That did not end well. The small manufacturer I did the work for went bankrupt after being in business for 40 years. I will never forget the joy, followed by so much sorrow for those nice people. It was a family business.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/20/2311442/-Prison-for-Elon?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
