this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2026
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A jury has found Elon Musk liable for misleading investors by deliberately driving down Twitter's stock price in the tumultuous months leading up to his 2022 acquisition of the social media company for $44 billion. But it absolved him of some fraud allegations, finding that he did not "scheme" to mislead investors.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 22 points 1 day ago

That's it, again?

JAIL TIME!

If I steal a bread to feed my hungry children I'll go to jail, but this guy ficks around with billions and all he gets is a tiny slap on his fingers?

[–] brownsugga@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Oh No, point 2 % of his net worth

0.2%

literally less than a traffic ticket in terms of scale

[–] sunbeam60@feddit.uk 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

I mean I dislike the guy as much as you, but almost all of his “wealth” is paper wealth. He may very well not be able to liquidate 2% of his wealth (fine with me).

[–] iglou@programming.dev 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He doesn't have to liquidate shit, none of them do. They borrow against their holdings.

[–] sunbeam60@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

Yes of course. But a lot of it ain’t vested and so the terms may not be great or downright unpalatable.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

Point is that if I commit fraud or steal anything over 10 dollars I might go to jail

This guy lies steals and cheats by the billions and he gets a hug

Jail the motherfucker already

[–] brownsugga@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

0.2% not 2%

[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Reminds me of the same defense some people make in divorce court

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[–] drislands@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

...is Musk worth a trillion dollars now?

I mean, financially, yeah I think so. Which is ironic, since as a person he's worth about as much as a large turd in a small bag.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

Money no longer talks. You need hard time for these societal meddlers.

[–] quarkquasar@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

He must pay a pittance, to be paid in 20 equal installments of one-twentieth of a pittance each.

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 257 points 3 days ago (20 children)

If the punishment is a fine, it's only illegal for poor people.

The only war is class war.

[–] cannedtuna@lemmy.world 116 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Considering he’s made $400B since acquiring Twitter, this was just a minor cost of doing business.

[–] oyo@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

And there is almost zero chance he actually pays this. If anything, it will be a fraction of the amount in 20 years after he exhausts appeals and pushes deadlines to the max.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 57 points 3 days ago (6 children)
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[–] LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip 15 points 3 days ago (8 children)

Considering he’s made $400B since acquiring Twitter...

Serious question: How?

AFAIK, Twitter wasn't terribly profitable before they sold to Musk. Then after he purchased it, the enshittification accelerated.

How on earth does this result in $400 Billions in profit?!?

[–] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 28 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

He made $400B, not Twitter. That's almost entirely from Tesla and other ventures, not Twitter.

Last I've been able to find Twitter was valued at $33B when xAI bought it. But that was clearly an overvalued sale. Just look at the valuation over time.

And that's just raw valuation which is easily manipulated, not revenue or profit, which can be easily manipulated.

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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Serious question: How?

He didn't actually "make" any money. He just stole it from workers, humanity, the planet, etc.

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[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 58 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (6 children)

I don't understand why these courts charge a set fine for stuff like this. This is clearly an extremely unique case. The man is 20% shy of being a trillionaire.

What really needs to be done is they need to charge a percentage of his profits. Say 20 to 30%.

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This idea needs to be fine tuned. The problem is that parasitic oligarchs don’t have a real income.

For those who don’t know, the parasite oligarchs take the vast amount of stock that they own and take it to a bank. The bank gives the parasite a loan with the stock as collateral. Right off the vat, the parasite gets to claim debt on their taxes. The parasite will then take the loan and use it to buy more stock or companies or anything that generates more wealth.

Loan gets paid off with the generated wealth. Due to generous tax loop holes put into place by politicians). The parasite gets to claim that they didn’t make any money and get a tax bill of zero and sometimes a refund.

[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

This scheme is called “buy, borrow, die.” It’s legal. The stocks are typically not sold off, so capital gains taxes are avoided. Loans and debt are not taxable. It’s effectively profit with relatively low risk. The point is that the level of entry is extremely high. One must already have large amounts of money to qualify for these kinds of loans.

The problem, of course, is that if you start taxing debt, like people taking out loans, it’s not just going to be millionaires, as you called them “parasites,” paying those taxes. It will be everybody taking out a loan, including the poor and the middle class.

The proposed solution is to tax people based on net worth. If you’re worth above a certain amount, then you get taxed at a very high percentage.

With that being said, if that were the case and Elon Musk were taxed like this, he would only pay around $12–$13 billion out of the roughly $800 billion he already has. In essence, it would still be pocket change to him.

At this point, wealthy people not paying taxes has become a kind of game, who can pay the least.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

What really needs to be done is they need to charge a percentage of his profits. Say 20 to 30%.

Lol. That's not how the state serves capitalism. Fixed fines!!! Gotta put the burden the poor every time.

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 days ago

Antonin Scalea capped punative damages

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[–] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Cool, so when this reaches Appeals court (which is where it's absolutely going next because they'll definitely appeal it), that 2.1B$ fine will get knocked down to 10$ and a blowjob (for Elon).

But hey, the Washington Post or whatever can get a nice little headline out of it where they pretend billionaires face any sort of punishment in this Capitalist hellscape for 5 seconds so that's nice.

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 1 points 1 day ago

To be clear, the punishment wasn't him loosing 2B, he wouldn't even notice the difference. The punishment was being told he was wrong by a jury of his "peers".

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

Drop in a bucket. He should be fined of the money he paid to buy Twitter.

[–] MrSulu@lemmy.ml 76 points 3 days ago (2 children)

For the rest of us, there would be a seizure of assets and a prison term.

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[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 107 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So that's like me paying a $20 fine. GOOD JOB

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 53 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Except he almost certainly won't be paying anywhere near that amount, if anything.

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[–] CovfefeKills@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago

That is the price of new phone for him compared to us...

[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 46 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Spoiler alert: he won’t pay or admit any wrongdoing.

[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

admit any wrongdoing.

So, the Trump school of leadership.

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[–] Insekticus@aussie.zone 52 points 3 days ago

That's a fine of $2 out of a total of $800.

I'd speed past cameras if I was running late, and that was the fine.

[–] rogsson@piefed.social 30 points 3 days ago (5 children)

It should be % based of his income. Otherwise it’s not a punishment 

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Is this your first time in capitalism? That's how every fine works. There are no punishments for the privileged.

The president is a pedophile who has been prosecuted for like 30 felonies. They're not fining the creep at all. That's reality.

[–] yabbadabaddon@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This does not work because he will find a way to have 0 income (legally). I don't know how we can make the billionaires pay, but we should tax the assets not the incomes.

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[–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)
[–] Etterra@discuss.online 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's assuming they can even get him to pay it.

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[–] stephen@lazysoci.al 38 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I wish “massive white color crime” for the expediency that a “Black dude swelling a bit of weed” got.

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[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 28 points 3 days ago (4 children)

He's made billions more after and because of it so he doesn't give a shit about a meaningless, billion dollar fine.

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[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Nothing ever happens though, so he'll just take a loan and still be just as wealthy as he already was

[–] 13igTyme@piefed.social 14 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I wasn't invested in Twitter, but when I heard he was trying to get out of it I bought some stock. I knew he couldn't get out of the deal because it doesn't work like that and he's a dumb ass.

My only regret was not buying more. Thanks for the money, idiot.

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[–] 1984@lemmy.today 17 points 3 days ago

So the public paid to see another billionaire do things nobody else can do and get away with it. Nice.

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