Twitter stiffed us on $2m bill, claim consultants in lawsuit Global consultancy Charles River Associates (CRA) has joined the queue of companies claiming Twitter walked away without paying its tab. The company, hired to provide expert testimony and consulting services to Twitter's old management in litigation against Elon Musk in 2022, prior to the completion of the $44 billion deal, …
Knowing Musk, that's true. But in the real world, a company is responsible for its debts even of the ownership changes, unless they go insolvent. If Musk were to win in these cases, it would have a huge knock-on effect across the entirety of the business world. Want to renege on your debts? Just sell the company to your wife/husband/partner/child/whatever. Musk and Trump would love that, of course :-)
In trump's case, he basically litigates the creditors to the point where they can't afford to continue, or if it's obvious that they'll win, declare bankruptcy, spin that shell company down, and start a new one. Standard abusive tactics and malfeasence.
Personally, I wouldn't work for either one even if I was getting paid up front.
He might be able to wiggle out of paying (part of) some of what he is being sued for but I would have thought that the lower payments would be dwarfed by the legal bills. We know that lawyers do not come cheap.
Then what is the reputational damage ? Or has he decided that he does not have any reputation worth trying to salvage ?
Then what is the reputational damage ? Or has he decided that he does not have any reputation worth trying to salvage ?
I can't presume to speak for Musk, I just don't have an insight into that level of crazy, but I suspect that anyone who has kept an eye on the media coverage of this has long ago concluded that Musk's reputation is now less than worthless.
> Or has he decided that he does not have any reputation worth trying to salvage ?
On the contrary, like many ego-maniacal narcissists, he likely has imagined that he's invulnerable to assault there.
Which would also tend to explain why he reacts so badly when called out in public and exposed for what he is.
as in declare bankwuptcy to avoid paying your debts. I would not put it beyond him to do just that... you know to prove a point.
which is to make it clear that there is one rule for the mega-mega-rich and one for us plebs (i.e. those who don't have a billion in the bank)
The early stages of a planned bankruptcy involve running up as much debt as possible. In the UK, if it counts as trading while insolvent then Musk would be personally liable. Imminent bankruptcy can be spotted when workers do not receive paychecks. As far as I know, we are not there yet, but we are at the point where ex-employees are being promised1 what they are owed in return for signing a promise never to say2 anything bad about Musk for the rest of their lives. According to internet lawyers3 Musk treats twitter as his personal property so creditors will be able to get their money back from Musk instead of trying to squeeze blood out of the bankrupt corpse of Twitter
1) Jam tomorrow!
2) Free speech!
3) Still marginally more credible than Musk!
I'm waiting for the TV News to have live reports of the Bailiffs going into Musk Towers and taking goods or simply impounding his precious private jet although he could probably buy a 747 with the loose change from his sofa.
The same goes for Trump. Send the bailiffs into Mar-al-largo and remove some of that 'tat' to settle the fines imposed on him last week for filing stupid lawsuits. I fully expect that he'd try to stiff the lawyers for the full amount.
No doubt Trump will be appealing that judgment so I doubt he'll be on the hook for paying it for a while until he's run out of appeals. Then he'll wait until the last minute before it must be paid, and only pay if failure to do so would mean he could be arrested as opposed to having more fines assessed he'd drag out in court.
The snag about a Chapter 11 bankruptcy is that it will hit the current owner hardest, so the ownership would functionally pass from Musk to those who lent him the money. There were about $13bn in loans to Twitter (not Musk) which, alongside the landlords, former employees, government entities levying fines etc. would be seen as creditors. Since the value of the biz is likely roughly a quarter of what Musk paid, the lenders would end up owning the company and Musk would... not.
With 80% of the employees gone, many taking invaluable institutional knowledge with them that would be impossible to replace, Twitter being worth 1/4 of what Musk paid is rather optimistic. If it isn't sustainably profitable under his "leadership", its actual value is closer to zero especially if the userbase begins to flee en masse when stuff starts breaking and not getting fixed.
Will Twitter die because:
1. Something crashes and they discover they don't have backups because they fired the people who managed them?
2. They don't pay the data center rent, and the data center powers down their servers and locks the cages?
3. If they do manage to pay the data center, they realized they have no idea how to restart everything because they fired the people who know how?
4. They keep disabling 3rd party clients that are mostly used by their most important users, and those leave?
5. The entire database gets dumped to pastebin because they fired the people who understood network security?
6. It becomes the next 8chan and everyone leaves?
7. All of the above?
There are so many lawsuits and whatnot suing Twitter. Elon apparently put most of his debts for purchasing Twitter, onto Twitter's tab.
Even if every maligned vendor wins their suit, how are they going to collect when Musk simply bankrupts Twitter?
Unless all these suits can name Elon specifically, and demand damages from him directly, where is the punishment? Where is the incentive to keep Elon and future Elons from repeating the exact same behavour?
This is all 100% Elon's fault. NONE of the things that have happened in the last few months, would have happened if it wasn't for Elon. All the news involving Twitters woes are just one yawn after another until someone holds Elon directly responsible for the damage he's caused.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
