Conservatorship MarsArticle
Free Britney! Er… I mean shackle SpaceX? It'd be difficult to find someone who hasn't heard about Pop Star Spears' unjust conservatorship granting her father total control of her life. However, finding someone who knows that companies can be put under conservatorships would be quite rare. Many would know of the two biggest companies that were put under federal conservatorship not more than 14 years ago. In the middle of the Great Financial Crisis, in late 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were put under conservatorship. Their CEO and executive board immediately dissolved, and a government appointed administration took control. Just a few months before, a small bank was put under conservatorship to peel their healthy assets away from the toxic ones - IndyMac bank.
There is a Conservatorship, where the company is taken under control with temporary management to clean house until the company can be more privately handled. IndyMac Federal Bank (the conservatorship name of IndyMac) just ended theirs' with the sale to OneWest Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's continues, likely indefinitely. And then there is a Receivership, where the company is taken under control with the explicit purpose of selling assets or closing the business entirely. It is likely this distinction becomes important as financial strains continue to develop in banking institutions, fixed income funds, and insurance groups.
Conservatorships happen all the time. Well, more frequently than most might guess. The National Credit Union Association has put two credit unions under conservatorship this year (and two more in involuntary liquidation). Last year's tally was four and four, respectively. Yet these are still rare events where most search results yield 2008's Fannie and Freddie as the top and loudest hit. With all the prominent anti-monopoly and pro-competition speak coming from both sides of the aisle, powered by numerous lawsuits across the country against some of the largest tech companies in the world - the word might come back.
There are many possibilities to explain Musk's behaviour over the last few months. The one I'd like to point to is the $1 billion dollar clause preventing him from reneging on a bad deal that has more financial implications than he thought through, a surprise assuredly. Everyone's gotten their enjoyment out of the Chancery court circus of Twitter v. Musk, and we might feast still. Musk's big announcement yesterday (10/20/22) of laying of 75% of Twitter staff is a bit too magnanimous to be taken as anything more than chucking a brick in a house of mirrors. The recession is just setting in, with more downturn left to go. A cut in staff is natural and predictable, 75% in one announcement is an extinction event.
But wait, there's more. If Elon Musk did have private conversations with Vladimir Putin or any official leader of Russia, and form agreements or discuss in of national security level importance details, he might be doing time. No surprise that shortly after Bremmer's story claiming Musk had private talks with Putin about events that might lead to an escalation to nuclear war, using Musk as the primary source, a second story about the FBI investigating the matter broke. Honestly, it's 50-50 whether Elon lied to Bremmer to give himself clout, or he really did talk with Putin. To condense this saga, SpaceX cut the Starlink network over Crimea and Russia's "occupied" territories, before quickly turning it back on with Musk making a twitter-tantrum about not getting paid for the system's use.
Where Elon Musk's behaviour might thwart an image of stability for a corporation, he runs quite a few. While most are little more than fancy, Tesla and SpaceX are becoming systemically important institutions. Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter should have always faced FDIC and DOJ resistance, and my hypothesis is that Musk wants to push that - in conjunction with Twitter's desire to re-neg the deal. Twitter may never get valued at $44 billion again, but Musk is working very hard to paint the picture that Twitter, the company, dies when it's his. Musk may have gone too far this time, even further than a $1 billion contract termination fee.
Conservatorship is the word. Actually, this author thinks "Person" is the word. Technically (the best -ally), it is these Delaware Code words, Delaware being the state of incorporation for all of Musk's companies:
(10) “Person,” except in the term “person who is incapacitated” or “protected person,” means an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, public corporation, government or governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality, or any other legal or commercial entity. -https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c039a/index.html
Musk's personal business should remain personal (at the least I don't want to hear it), where as there is a point where his professional business shouldn't. SpaceX is the most advanced Space Technology company in the world. Starlink is a globe-spanning satellite system rivaling most first-world countries. Tesla is the largest EV company with important technology for electrical grid infrastructure. Twitter is an important nexus of globalized communication. There is a point in time and importance that shenanigans go from too much, to done. The shadow of a mushroom cloud, even if a low probability, is right around that point.
A conservatorship could be as brief as removing Musk as CEO and instilling the President and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, as the acting-CEO. Or the government could take it's time and untangle all the threads that being the Space race ace gives them. While Starlink is a product that fit's SpaceX, massive satellite swarms tend to compete for money and SPACE. Forcing Starlink off SpaceX's books would enable other companies to bid for satellite delivery. This mimics recent Federal government regulations prohibiting internationalization of corporate activities, the same activities that allow tech companies to bubble their sales and assets on the back of accounting loopholes.
Musk might find himself the poster boy for it, but there are quite a few sectors and industries that benefit from conservatorship. Abbott labs made its own case clear on the backs of three dead toddlers from contaminated formula that led to a formula shortage that still hasn't fully resolved. While the media has been kind on the details, the event highlighted years of bribery and corruption by FDA officials monitoring the plant, as well as possible communications that showed an open culture of bribing government officials and ignoring safety issues at the highest levels of the company. In the game of probabilities, a conservatorship is towards the bottom of the deck, but maybe it shouldn't be.
Twitter Deal itself
The joy of this deal was that there were going to be oscillating periods for buying and selling into it. The Musk-Twitter deal is the right mix of stupidity to cause many more problems than anyone expected. First, it is increasingly likely that the US government stops this deal. If that were to happen, it is likely Musk would have to pay the $1 billion termination fee if his actions and behaviours were found to be at fault, i.e. Twitter must prove that the government stopped the deal because Elon Musk's actions. Second, it is increasingly like that Twitter the company wants out of the deal. Twitter doesn't have $1 billion to give to Musk, as they are likely to face steep cuts without the buy - but 75% is a tough thing to wake up to. There will be destruction to the integrity of the company that shows itself several years after lackluster development and growth - similar to Tesla.
I am staying 100% out of the Twitter deal at this point in time, but aggressive speculators may not for much longer.
