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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

People thought the Wright Brothers were crazy, too.

Innovators are often dismissed as having outlandish, unrealistic claims. And then they succeed.

And, frankly, how are you going to hold him "accountable"? It's his and his investors' money he's spending. They know what they signed up for.

P.S. I own a bit of Tesla and SpaceX stock. It could go to zero, and I'm still happy to have a "piece" of what Musk is accomplishing.

The only thing I'm mad about is I owned some Twitter stock, but when Musk bought it I was cashed out against my desires. Though I do understand Musk wanting to run Twitter as he saw fit rather than having to listen to activist shareholders.

Musk is one of, it not the, greatest entrepreneur in American history.

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> The only thing I'm mad about is I owned some Twitter stock, but when Musk bought it I was cashed out against my desires.

You got lucky. Twitter's revenue is down 80% since it went private, and your shares would correspondingly be worth a tiny fraction of what they were originally worth if you still owned them. Musk has succeeded with other companies but his Twitter acquisition has been a total failure. He simply doesn't understand how to run a social networking company.

I'm a long term investor, and I wouldn't bet against Musk long term.

> Twitter's revenue is down 80% since it went private

Twitter's costs are down 80%, too. I wouldn't be surprised if X was currently profitable, though since it is privately held, who know.

The point is, the stock would likely be down at least 5X, so if you wanted to be a long-term investor, you could take the cash that was forcefully cashed out and re-buy in now and get over 5X the share of the company. Selling high and re-buying in low is a very good strategy if you can actually do it, and you have the opportunity to do it!

But you certainly don't want to be the bagholder who held it when it was high (the price Elon was willing to pay for it) and then rode it all the way down to the bottom when it cratered.

I've held many of bags. Some of them all the way to a smoking hole in the ground. But several of the bags turned out to be winners that far outstripped the losses.

I prefer to invest in the management of a company, rather than the financials. I'm willing to see them through the bad times if I believe they're on the right track. I've been a patient investor of Intel since the 90s. But a couple months ago, I finally gave up and sold it. It pained me a great deal to do so, but Intel just seems to have lost its mojo.

Sure, my Twitter stock may have tanked under Musk. But I am willing to be patient with him.

Let's say I invest in 10 stocks, and hold, hold, hold. 3 of them go to zero. 3 do modestly ok. 3 do well. 1 goes up a hundred fold. The other 9 are irrelevant.

And thus WalterBright describes to us how VC's make money... risk and reward.

(Hi Walter. Love your posts...)

Thank you kindly!

My investment strategy is not advocated by any investment advice I've ever seen.

Twitter is loaded up with a ridiculous amount of debt from the transaction. Those costs are not down.

I do not know how well X is doing as a business, but Musk buying Twitter has certainly helped to wrest it out of the hands of the left and to shift the Overton window. It could well be that to Musk, the political impact is well worth billions of dollars.

I'm curious, how does one buy stock in SpaceX? Is this opportunity only available for wealthy individuals or people who can put down 6-7 figures towards it?

What happens is some big investors buy chunks of stock, and then resell it on a secondary market. So my shares are claims on the big investor's shares, not mine. There's usually a non-trivial minimum, and a hefty fee.

I suppose ask your broker about it.

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