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Comment by zeristor | Hacker News Reader

How does this work?

The engineers work for Tesla, but Tesla isn’t buying Twitter?

I was assuming Elon was, perhaps it’s a favour?

SpaceX uses some Tesla parts (such as electric motors and batteries). Apparently, SpaceX has used Tesla engineers as consultants regarding those parts.

Legally, Tesla isn't allowed to do "favours" for Musk's other businesses. From what I understand, SpaceX/etc pay Tesla the fair market value of all assistance received (both goods and services). And the cooperation has to (at a high level) be approved by the respective boards (both Tesla's and SpaceX's) while Musk is not in the room. Whatever assistance Tesla may have given Musk regarding Twitter would be subject to the same legal requirements.

Twitter signs an agreement with Tesla’s new software consulting division!

So siphon Twitter revenue to boost Tesla profit and its share price. Not a bad idea.

How much annual revenue does Twitter generate compared to Tesla?

Internet suggests ~10% in 2021 (Twitter $5bn, Tesla ~$53bn)

You can't compare software services revenue to cars. COGS model is totally different.

I wasn't, I was just providing the numbers that GP asked for.

https://companiesmarketcap.com/twitter/pe-ratio/

Last P/E was -160. Which is really bad.

He's likely paying them a contracting fee.

It seems unlikely that the Tesla employment contract would allow outside consulting. But I could be wrong.

He is paying Tesla.

Most likely, the contract is between Tesla and Musk’s Twitter acquisition vehicle (“X Holdings”), so it isn’t moonlighting, it is their day job.

But, even if it is moonlighting - all employment contracts allow moonlighting with approval. Many firms are rather sparing in granting that approval - but it is a lot easier to say “yes” to an employee request if you know that’s what the CEO wants you to say.

Or both companies have accounting departments with experts who figure out the details, eg. what’s the amount in consulting fees that Tw pays to Tesla for this.

Isn’t that obvious?

You do what the boss says.

Of course, these are the engineers that can't even program a car to drive by itself.

You make it sound like it should be easy to program a car to drive by itself. It's a challenge approaching developing AGI in its difficulty.

How is your self driving car coming along?

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