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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

That seems like an enormous amount of risk to take on just to sell stock that he actually owns and avoiding "looking like a hypocrite". It's not just plausible but somewhat likely that he'll be forced into an 11-figure settlement with Twitter to avoid the actual worst case outcome of being forced to take custody of and actually operate Twitter until he can unload it on someone else.

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It's not about avoiding looking like a hypocrite, the major theory is that it's about being able to sell 8.5bi without causing the value to go down too much.

Your argument is inconsistent. Why would the value go down at all, if not because he would look like a hypocrite otherwise.

Regardless, even if this were consistent, GP's argument still stands: that's an enormous asking of risk to take on. It could end up costing him more than the $8.5bn.

The argument is not incosistent, as I understand it, you just talked past each other. What the above commenter meant is that Elon was not worried about appearing a hypocrite, as a matter of shame - that is, it is not like his conscience was burdened. He worried about losing Tesla valuation, something that truly would be caused by appearing as a hypocrite to the public - so his circus was merely a calculation based on that.

Sure "hypocrite" can be understood in the two ways you describe (burdened conscience vs. consequences of appearance), but the term was used in the context of stock dropping -- the latter.

I’m not making any argument, I’m just repeating the most popular theory right now.

It is the most popular theory among a specific collection of people: those disinclined to accept that Musk is impulsive and out of control.

You said "It's not about avoiding looking like a hypocrite, the major theory is [...]", which is not the same as "The major theory is that it's not about avoiding looking like a hypocrite, [...]".

Well, have fun picking apart the way I structured my previous post, even though I already clarified what I meant in the reply. Hope you find someone to have an internet fight. Have a nice day.

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