1. Help Me, Help You
Because it was a day ending in -y, Elon Musk said something crazy. He predicted that if Kamala Harris wins the election, her first act(s) will be to ban Twitter and arrest him.
For fun, let me explain why nobody actually believes this:
Kamala Harris has roughly a 50-50 chance to win the election.
If the banks holding $13b of Twitter debt thought that there was a 50 percent chance this asset would go to zero on January 20, 2025, they would have unloaded it, yesterday, at whatever price they could get.
If investors thought there was a 50-50 chance Musk was about to be arrested, then the value of TSLA stock would be crashing, since TSLA’s valuation is closely tied to Musk’s proximity to the company. (TSLA is currently trading near its 52-week average.)
A president cannot say, “Arrest that man.” Arresting Elon would require an indictment, which would require empaneling a grand jury, which would require concluding an investigation that has not begun. Investigations take months or years and require some reasonable suspicion that crimes have been committed in the first place.1
These things aren’t going to happen. There is no universe in which they could happen. I’d bet every watch I own on it.
Which means that one of three things is going on. Either Elon Musk is:
Trying to manipulate the stock market and/or apply pressure to banks to get them to sell him his debt at a steep discount; or
He’s a moron who believes his claim and so never has to be taken seriously again; or
He’s saying things he doesn’t actually believe. In which case he should also never be taken seriously again. By anyone.
I have a dream. Let me tell you about it.
I dream of a world where people are held responsible for their words.
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