WOW. That's interesting. Kinda brilliant if it works. Wouldn't work in the US, unfortunately.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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It's the same thing Brazil did.
He's rich enough that he's kind of a parent corporation by himself, so:
X was previously accused of violating the Digital Services Act (DSA), which could result in fines of up to 6 percent of total worldwide annual turnover. That fine would be levied on the "provider" of X, which could be defined to include other Musk-led firms.
But yeah, American law has been limited so the buck stops at the company which declares bankruptcy and the money starts a new company.
Not everyone else system is as shitty
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fine the fucker for 20% of his net "worth", that should give him some pause
Not really billions is beyond being halved
(Was drinking when I wrote this, was saying billions is a so much money it’s difficult to conceptualize, seems like folks understood for the most part, but someone said musks money is in stocks etc which is a factor, anyways be well)
Hi I'm a mathematician.
What the actual fuck are you talking about?
I think they're just saying that if you're a multi billionaire and get a 50% net worth fine, you're still a billionaire once it's done.
I'm a mathematician too. They're probably speaking from an intuitive grasp of utility.
While I disagree that "billions is beyond being halved", there is some truth to the idea that numbers can get so big that halving doesn't make much difference. That seems very very counter-intuitive, so I'll try to briefly explain.
Consider (10^10 + 2). That's 10000000000+2. I think it's fair to say that the +2 doesn't make a lot of difference. It's still approximately 10^10.
So then, consider 10^(10^10)×100. That's a huge number, too big to type here, then multiplied by 100. So the result is 100 times bigger than the huge number. But... writing it down we see this:
10^(10^10)×100 = 10^(10^10+2) ≈ 10^(10^10).
So although ×100 does make it one hundred times bigger... that just doesn't really make a lot of difference to a number as big as that one. As numbers get bigger and bigger, they start to take on properties a bit like 'infinity'. Addition stops being important, then multiplication, then for even bigger numbers exponentiation doesn't huge much of an impact either.
Mathematically, I think this is really cool and interesting. But I don't think 1 billion is that big. 10^9 is big enough that +2 doesn't matter much, but not so big that ×2 doesn't matter.
[edit] (I'm struggling to get the nested powers to look right... So hopefully my meaning is clear enough anyway.)
A single billion, when put in terms of money, is enough that - simply invested in GICs and bonds, earning a very, very conservative 1% interest - it would earn you ten million dollars a year in interest alone.
I would challenge you to even come up with a reasonable way to spend ten million dollars a year. By my back of the napkin math you could vacation every single day, living in hotels and eating at fancy restaurants, and still not make a dent in that.
Musk has an estimated net worth of $247 billion. You could fine him 99% of his current wealth, and he would still struggle to spend enough that he wouldn't end up increasing his remaining wealth every year.
And this is why it is ludicrous to believe that ultra-rich people earn their fortune with hard work or good ideas. Being rich generates its own money. Being poor is expensive. There should be no billionaires, for any reason. Such concentrated wealth is very bad.
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Do it. The crimes are almost entirely by him personally, and had unprecedented damage. He should be responsible with all his money - a Twitter-sized blow would be a slap on the wrist as the platform is worth just $5B or thereabouts.
Less considering more doing
That would be extra funny, considering at least some motivation behind his initially bidding on Twitter, was to cash out his absurdly overvalued Tesla stock, without causing it to crash.
Clearly he signed that initial Delaware contract while he was still riding high on mania, but still, his desire to convert his overpriced Tesla stock played no small part. The remaining rationale was mostly drug-induced psychosis, but I digress.
So, calculating fines based on his overpriced assets, forcing him to sell off a bunch of those shitty assets, and risking their price falling closer to their true worth, would be hilarious.
It's also why I am skeptical that they'll do it, or at least I'm skeptical they'll do it in a way that would trigger a domino effect, or market contagion.
How about making them such a high percentage that it would genuinely impact their bottom line and not a measly amount calculated as "cost of doing business"
4% of gross revenue is not a negligible amount. For no company.
Probably, but it would depend on how much gross revenue they make on said practice, and how often they get a fine.
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It's finally time to hold the people hiding behind the companies accountable!!
woohoo!
break his ability to finance the orange felon
DO IT!
As much as I hate musk, I don't think this is correct, or even legal..?
He's free to leave the EU at anytime. They are allowed to create appropriate punishments to deter further misuse. They are saying here that they need to be able to punish more to deter him, as he's an asshole who says fuck you to everyone.
legality i don't know, but guess who has an infinite supply of lawyers? Musk was able to secure loans for his Twitter misadventure based on all his other shit. Everything he does is entangled with his other stuff. The Hyperloop? lies.
While I have no idea about legality, it is quite obvious that X/Twitter is not really run as a company run as a public communications platform, but rather as a fever dream of Musk.
Especially the Eli Lily Co. disaster should've been a wake up call for X of how much harm the fake checkmarks can bring, yet nothing was done. Most likely because Elon Musk didn't care. He basically runs it like it's how little service that he fully owns and controls with full disregard to anything but his own vision.
Therefore including his other businesses makes sense, as the fine that is only based on X's income would probably be negligible in his opinion, as he runs it on a loss anyways. Only bigger fines would actually have any effect in my opinion.
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It’s easy to support when Elon is the recipient, but is this a good precedent to set?
Unironically, yes. You shouldn't be able to shield your actions under a different corporate umbrella.
"Oh, guess we can't fine them much because Twitter is a money pit, so they'll get to continue breaking the law for cheap"
Nah, make the fine off of his entire net worth, make him cash in some of that stock so he can finally pay taxes and fines. Make it hurt enough for him to consider not breaking the laws of countries he wants to do business in.
Sounds good in principle, but isn't the one of the main purposes of creating an LLC or Corporation to shield your personal assets from the company's finances? Everyone cheers for these policies until you're the one they're coming for. I hope you're as cheerful when the government wipes your personal bank account as consequence of your company's affairs.
The problem is if we give major companies a way out, on the off chance that it might have a benefit for the little guy... those major companies end up stepping on the little guy anyway.
So why let them shield themselves from the consequences of their action?
There’s no need to give a company a “way out”. The government can be as harsh as it wants to be within the limits of the law. But as soon as you start targeting the owner when he is supposed to be financially protected by the law, there are worse consequences in the long term. No matter how much they personally fine Elon, he has infinite money, this doesn’t really hurt him and I doubt he cares since he seems more focused in helping Trump win than helping X (or himself) succeed.
Gotta ask, what would you propose that would curb Elon from willfully committing crimes as he is?
He continues to do so because he's proven the system is broken as soon as someone is sufficiently wealthy. He fights the charges, then when that runs out he fights the amounts, and even when he does get his comeuppance to the tune of 44 billion, he's an even bigger brat cause he finally got stood up to. Do you think that there's a way to systematically even the playing field?
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isn't the one of the main purposes of creating an LLC or Corporation to shield your personal assets from the company's finances?
It is but it is not written in stone for all eternity. If people are abusing this law, like Musk, then it gets amended or rewritten.
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LLCs shouldn't exist in the first place.
A companys owner should always be liable for the laws its company breaks.
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Absolutely and without question yes
Yes. Next question.
Why not? Which person owning multiple companies would be disadvantaged in a way that could be considered unfair in this way?
Shipping companies setup separate LLC's for their ships so of they have an accident the ship goes bankrupt and they keep their profits shielded.. that kind of stuff is bullshit
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