VaughanJB
Scrappy VIP
Firstly, this isn't intended as a hit piece on Musk. What I'm going to do is mention a money-go-round that occurs, and to understand how and why billionaires are about to steadily manipulate the stock market, and stock market valuations, to increase their wealth further.
You may or may not think this is a problem. You may think this is perfectly fine, and is just how business works. No laws are being broken, so what's the problem? Others might ask, is anything truly real? How can you tell a sleight of hand against some kind of nepotism.
For example. The Cybertruck. Sales of the Cybertruck fell 62% in the third quarter of 2025. In other words, sales are falling off a cliff. You can find pictures of row upon row upon row of finished (unsold) Cybertrucks parked up. Tesla are using old parking lots to do this, there's an example in Detroit. What to do? Well, how about dictating that the entire fleet of company vehicles at SpaceX be converted to Cybertruck?
This is exactly what is happening. Current vehicles are being swapped out for Cybertrucks, meaning 100's of Cybertrucks show as being bought - but while they are going from one company to another, they're both Musk companies. NOTE: there is nothing illegal about this, and I'm not insinuating there is.
Now let's look at the company formerly known as Twitter. Musk bought Twitter for 44bn after his attempt to get out of his agreed deal failed in court. Since then a lot has happened, and it's estimated that the platform has lost 75% of its value. What to do?
Enter XAI, another musk business. In short, XAI shares were issued (albeit it is a privately held company, and not publicly traded). These were declared to have a value of over $44bn. This share value was used to buy Twitter for..... you guessed it.... $44bn. This meant that although the value of Twitter was estimated to have fallen 75%, the buyout ignored this, and investors into twitter (which is also privately held, but numbered about 100 other people) were able to see a return on investment.
At the same time, SpaceX invested $2bn into XAI, keeping the money, as it were, in the family. To complete the circle, XAI is now taking deliveries of Cybertrucks for its staff.
Of course, some corporate welfare also plays a part. So for example, a lot of money flows from the public purse to SpaceX. Essentially, NASA gets the funds, and then subcontracts with SpaceX. SpaceX are often painted as being this strong in dependent business in competition with NASA, but in reality, billions are flowing from one to the other.
And then there are the so called "Carbon Credits". These are awarded to environmentally conscious businesses as a reward for loving the air we breath. But because the world is never what it appears, these credits can be sold to less efficient businesses to essentially, "balance the books". This is exactly what Tesla has done. They have pulled in a couple billion just by selling these credits, credits given to Tesla by the US government. It is estimated that 40% of Tesla's profits last year was through the same of Carbon Credits.
So, is that it? No, of course not. In 2022 the US Government (which has a different leader then) introduced a program called "Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit". This gave anyone buying a suitable vehicle being able to claim up to $40K of tax credits. This applied not only when you had the vehicle in hand, but even when you put down a deposit to buy in the future. The program is now ending, when a deadline for the deal was given as end September of this year.
Which was enough time for all the XAI and SpaceX sales to be done. Since the purchasers are Musk owned businesses, the tax credits enter the big pot of money. It is estimated that millions of dollars of tax breaks are now heading their way through the now defunct program.
Again - there is nothing illegal going on here. But I do wonder how many people think these companies are big profit generators, when large chunks of the money is simply stacks being moved in a circular swirl of Musk owned companies.
I expect there will be a large number of people who think this is just smart business. But at the very least, we should acknowledge that when we look at revenue for the likes of Tesla, we're not talking only of sales of cars.....
You may or may not think this is a problem. You may think this is perfectly fine, and is just how business works. No laws are being broken, so what's the problem? Others might ask, is anything truly real? How can you tell a sleight of hand against some kind of nepotism.
For example. The Cybertruck. Sales of the Cybertruck fell 62% in the third quarter of 2025. In other words, sales are falling off a cliff. You can find pictures of row upon row upon row of finished (unsold) Cybertrucks parked up. Tesla are using old parking lots to do this, there's an example in Detroit. What to do? Well, how about dictating that the entire fleet of company vehicles at SpaceX be converted to Cybertruck?
This is exactly what is happening. Current vehicles are being swapped out for Cybertrucks, meaning 100's of Cybertrucks show as being bought - but while they are going from one company to another, they're both Musk companies. NOTE: there is nothing illegal about this, and I'm not insinuating there is.
Now let's look at the company formerly known as Twitter. Musk bought Twitter for 44bn after his attempt to get out of his agreed deal failed in court. Since then a lot has happened, and it's estimated that the platform has lost 75% of its value. What to do?
Enter XAI, another musk business. In short, XAI shares were issued (albeit it is a privately held company, and not publicly traded). These were declared to have a value of over $44bn. This share value was used to buy Twitter for..... you guessed it.... $44bn. This meant that although the value of Twitter was estimated to have fallen 75%, the buyout ignored this, and investors into twitter (which is also privately held, but numbered about 100 other people) were able to see a return on investment.
At the same time, SpaceX invested $2bn into XAI, keeping the money, as it were, in the family. To complete the circle, XAI is now taking deliveries of Cybertrucks for its staff.
Of course, some corporate welfare also plays a part. So for example, a lot of money flows from the public purse to SpaceX. Essentially, NASA gets the funds, and then subcontracts with SpaceX. SpaceX are often painted as being this strong in dependent business in competition with NASA, but in reality, billions are flowing from one to the other.
And then there are the so called "Carbon Credits". These are awarded to environmentally conscious businesses as a reward for loving the air we breath. But because the world is never what it appears, these credits can be sold to less efficient businesses to essentially, "balance the books". This is exactly what Tesla has done. They have pulled in a couple billion just by selling these credits, credits given to Tesla by the US government. It is estimated that 40% of Tesla's profits last year was through the same of Carbon Credits.
So, is that it? No, of course not. In 2022 the US Government (which has a different leader then) introduced a program called "Commercial Clean Vehicle Credit". This gave anyone buying a suitable vehicle being able to claim up to $40K of tax credits. This applied not only when you had the vehicle in hand, but even when you put down a deposit to buy in the future. The program is now ending, when a deadline for the deal was given as end September of this year.
Which was enough time for all the XAI and SpaceX sales to be done. Since the purchasers are Musk owned businesses, the tax credits enter the big pot of money. It is estimated that millions of dollars of tax breaks are now heading their way through the now defunct program.
Again - there is nothing illegal going on here. But I do wonder how many people think these companies are big profit generators, when large chunks of the money is simply stacks being moved in a circular swirl of Musk owned companies.
I expect there will be a large number of people who think this is just smart business. But at the very least, we should acknowledge that when we look at revenue for the likes of Tesla, we're not talking only of sales of cars.....
