
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>The already stuffed wallets of several billionaire insiders at Alphabet grew even fatter Thursday as shares of Google’s parent company rallied, after the company’s Wednesday&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2023/05/10/google-io-2023-ai/?sh=448f91e95704">announcement</a>&nbsp;of various new artificial intelligence features—capped by integrating AI into Google’s search engine——largely cooled investors’ fears about a wide gap in the AI space between Google and rival Microsoft.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Alphabet’s stock surged more than 4% Thursday, bringing its two-day gain to 9% following CEO Sundar Pichai’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/05/10/google-adding-ai-to-search-engine-for-some-users-closing-in-on-microsofts-ai-push/?sh=73fba5123502">presentation</a>&nbsp;introducing a variety of ways the company plans to utilize AI in its search engine and beyond.</p>



<p>Shares of the Silicon Valley stalwart are now at their highest level since August.</p>



<p>Google demonstrated “AI powered search can still be the gateway” to online activity and drive advertising revenue growth, according to Bank of America analysts Justin Post and Joanna Zhao, deeming Wednesday’s presentation “a positive step in changing the AI narrative” that Microsoft and its ChatGPT-powered Bing search engine are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/04/17/google-stock-loses-57-billion-amid-microsofts-ai-lead-and-reports-it-could-be-replaced-by-bing-on-some-smartphones/?sh=7943e0145b07">better-positioned</a>&nbsp;to cash in on the AI craze.</p>



<p>Alphabet’s market capitalization swelled by nearly $120 billion over the last two trading sessions, solidifying its place as the fourth-most valuable public company in the world.</p>



<p>Largely reaping the benefits of the stock surge are Google’s billionaire current and former executives who added a total of more than $9 billion, including cofounders and board members Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who added $4.1 billion and $3.9 billion to their fortunes Thursday, respectively.</p>



<p>Fellow Alphabet board members Ravitark Ram Shriram and John Doerr added about $330 million to their combined fortunes Thursday, while early Google investor David Cheriton and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt grew more than $900 million richer.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuations">FORBES VALUATIONS</h2>



<p>Page (worth $99.6 billion) and Brin ($95.3 billion) are the seventh- and 10th-richest people in the world, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’ real-time billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#5ce0a38e3d78">tracker</a>. Page’s fortune surpassed that of Microsoft mogul Steve Ballmer and Mexican media magnate Carlos Slim Helu on Thursday, while Brin’s wealth pile surged past those of L’Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers and financial data king Michael Bloomberg.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>Alphabet has the “leading collection of AI/machine learning-driven businesses” of any technology company, Goldman Sachs analysts led by Eric Sheridan wrote in a Wednesday note to clients, adding the latest rollout caused the bank to become “increasingly constructive” on Alphabet’s long-term business strategy.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-chief-critic">CHIEF CRITIC</h2>



<p>The freshly announced generative AI improvements are a “positive [step] in the AI battle” against Microsoft, but Alphabet continues to operate in “major catchup mode,” according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. Microsoft’s early investment in ChatGPT parent OpenAI gave it a “key head start” in the field that could prove challenging for Alphabet to overcome in the struggle for market share, Ives added.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched in November to significant fanfare and was integrated into Bing in February, shortly after Microsoft&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/01/23/chatgpt-parent-open-ai-gets-game-changing-multibillion-dollar-boost-from-microsoft/">announced</a>&nbsp;it made a multibillion-dollar equity investment in OpenAI. Many&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2023/03/10/google-peacetime-ceo-sundar-pichai/?sh=359f71584ab1">considered</a>&nbsp;Google’s early response to the AI-fueled stiffer search competition to be subpar, with Alphabet shares&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/04/17/google-stock-loses-57-billion-amid-microsofts-ai-lead-and-reports-it-could-be-replaced-by-bing-on-some-smartphones/?sh=7943e0145b07">sliding</a>&nbsp;as much as 10% in the months following ChatGPT’s rollout.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2023/05/10/google-io-2023-ai/?sh=448f91e95704">Google Tries To Straddle Being &#8216;Bold&#8217; And &#8216;Responsible&#8217; In AI Product Blitz</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/05/10/google-adding-ai-to-search-engine-for-some-users-closing-in-on-microsofts-ai-push/?sh=73fba5123502">Google Adding AI To Search Engine For Some Users—Closing In On Microsoft&#8217;s AI Push</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2023/03/10/google-peacetime-ceo-sundar-pichai/?sh=359f71584ab1">Google’s ‘Peacetime’ CEO Sundar Pichai Faces Criticism As The AI War Heats Up</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/04/17/google-stock-loses-57-billion-amid-microsofts-ai-lead-and-reports-it-could-be-replaced-by-bing-on-some-smartphones/?sh=7943e0145b07">Google Stock Loses $57 Billion Amid Microsoft’s AI ‘Lead’—And Reports It Could Be Replaced By Bing On Some Smartphones</a> (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/"></a><strong><em>By Derek Saul, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


FRANCE-ECONOMY-TECHNOLOGY-VIVATECH

Google Insiders Are $9 Billion Richer After AI-Fueled Stock Rally


<p><strong>Kazadi emigrated to South Africa as a child from DR Congo and built a digital marketing agency in his adopted country. In early May last year, the 29-year-old died under murky circumstances.</strong></p>



<p><strong>On April 28, 2022,</strong> Christian Kazadi was enjoying a sunrise safari in Botswana. Sporting a corduroy fleece jacket, shorts and white sneakers in an Instagram post from that day, Kazadi smiles as he leans back on a jeep, calling it a “bucket list experience.”</p>



<p>The 29-year-old founder of Johannesburg, South Africa-based digital marketing agency Click Media was in Botswana to attend the first ever&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;Under 30 Africa summit. It was a professional milestone for Kazadi, who had launched Click Media in 2016 with the last $30 in his bank account and bootstrapped it into a thriving business that ran social media campaigns for clients ranging from ESPN and Adidas to the National Basketball Association and KFC. Kazadi, who had yet to appear on&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>&nbsp;30 Under 30 list, was thrilled to have been awarded a spot at the conference.</p>



<p>But that Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc45W7Cq0CC/">post </a>was his last. Four days later, he was found dead in police custody 1,100 miles away in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.</p>



<p>A year later, Kazadi’s mysterious death remains unsolved. His family is still trying to piece together what happened to him between April 30—when he was set to return to South Africa—and May 2, when he died in Kinshasa. Investigations in South Africa and DR Congo are at a standstill, and no one—not the airport officials in South Africa that denied his entry nor the Congolese police that may have been involved in his death—has provided any answers.</p>



<p>“He never made it back home from the&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;event,” says Patrick Kazadi, Christian’s younger brother and cofounder and CEO of Click Media. “[We need] answers so the family can finally finish the grieving process and put the people who did this to justice.”</p>



<p>During his brief time in Botswana, Kazadi’s energy and entrepreneurial spirit made him stand out among his peers. &#8220;Even those who met him over the few days of the summit will convey how deeply they were touched by him,&#8221; says Pholo Kimbuende, a senior management consultant at consulting firm Guidehouse, who met Kazadi at the&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;Under 30 event. &#8220;The future just looked so bright, and the circumstances around his death were just utterly devastating.&#8221;</p>



<p>The mystery began on April 30, when Kazadi’s flight from Botswana landed in Johannesburg at 10:45 am. He wasn’t allowed to enter South Africa, despite having lived in the country since 2001 and possessing a valid work visa that ran from 2020 to 2023.&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;spoke to multiple friends and family members of Kazadi who confirmed he had previously traveled from South Africa to other African countries before and had never had any issues returning, although it is not entirely uncommon for immigrants to have difficulties at the South African border.&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;also called and spoke to several officials at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport, but they didn’t provide any information on Kazadi and instead referred questions to South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs. Home Affairs suggested that the family file a public records request, which they did but have yet to receive a response.</p>



<p>Kazadi was then made to book a flight to Kinshasa, DR Congo the following day. He arrived just past midnight on May 2. A Congolese citizen, Kazadi was born in the country but hadn’t been back since leaving with his family in 2001, when they emigrated to South Africa to seek asylum as refugees.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>“There’s foul play at hand. He was in Congo for less than 24 hours and he was murdered.”</p>
<cite>Patrick Kazadi</cite></blockquote>



<p>Later that day, a bizarre video appeared online, showing Kazadi behaving erratically at a funeral in Kinshasa. The video appears to show Kazadi getting inside the casket with his headphones on and shouting “Guelor,” the name of the deceased person at the funeral—who Kazadi apparently did not know, although Guelor happens to be the name of one of Kazadi’s younger brothers. People then appeared to surround him and drag him away from the casket. Kazadi was arrested at the funeral and held in a detention center, where a family friend went to check up on him on the night of May 2.</p>



<p>The next morning, Kazadi was dead. “There’s foul play at hand,” says Patrick. “He was in Congo for less than 24 hours and he was murdered.”</p>



<p>Photos and videos provided by Kazadi’s family and seen by&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;show Kazadi lying on what appears to be a road, shirtless and with deep cuts and welts on his head, arms, chest and feet indicating that he may have been tortured. In one of the photos, a Congolese policeman or soldier is seen standing in the background.</p>



<p>A member of the family that was hosting the funeral, who had urged the police to arrest him at the time, was called into the police station about a week after his death and gave the police her phone number. When they tried to get in touch with her in the following days, the police told Kazadi’s family that the number was disconnected.</p>



<p>Kazadi’s family told <em>Forbes</em> that the police officers who arrested him were briefly detained in May last year as local authorities investigated what happened, but no charges have been filed. Unfortunately, death at the hands of the police isn’t uncommon in DR Congo. 133 people died in detention in the country in the first six months of 2022, according to the<a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/415610_CONGO-DEM-REP-2022-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> United Nations Joint Human Rights Office.</a></p>



<p>A year after Kazadi’s death, the investigation has gone nowhere. Captain Parfait and Colonel Honoré of the Congolese National Police, the officers in charge of the investigation in the Matete district of Kinshasa, have told the Kazadi family’s lawyer that the case file for the investigation has gone missing. Neither responded to questions from&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;about the status of the investigation.</p>



<p>“If it was the police that murdered him, of course they would get rid of the docket,” says Patrick. “The court case hasn’t even started because they currently can’t locate the docket file.”</p>



<p>In South Africa, Kazadi’s mother submitted a public records request to the Department of Home Affairs last July for information on why he was denied entry into the country. Under South African law, government agencies must respond to requests within 30 days, with the option of a single extension of no more than 30 additional days. But 296 days after the family initially submitted its request—and despite being repeatedly contacted by both <em>Forbes</em> and Kazadi’s family over the course of several months—the ministry has yet to provide an update.</p>



<p>Still, asylum seekers and immigrants with visas often face harassment from South African authorities. In its<a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/415610_SOUTH-AFRICA-2022-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;2022 human rights report on South Africa</a>, the U.S. State Department wrote that “security forces arbitrarily arrested migrants and asylum seekers, including those with proper documentation, often because police were unfamiliar with migrant and asylum documentation.&#8221;</p>



<p>The lack of progress on the investigations has also resulted in plenty of conspiracy theories online, with YouTube videos viewed more than a million times speculating that Kazadi was drugged or part of a cult. “They have a lot of incorrect facts,” says Patrick. “A lot of people in Congo don’t know what is going on.”</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p>Ever since he arrived in South Africa at age 9 in 2001, Christian Kazadi worked hard to improve his life. He emigrated to Johannesburg with his mother and younger brothers to join his father, Samuel, a pastor and IT teacher who had already been living there for two years. Tragedy struck in 2007 when Samuel died while on a business trip to DR Congo, leaving the family without a breadwinner. (The cause of death isn’t known.)</p>



<p>The local church raised money to pay for the family’s rent, and his mother started selling clothes and toys at a flea market. But his father’s death forced Christian—then just 15 years old—to help provide for his family. He sold snacks at school during the week and packed meat at a grocery store on the weekends with his younger brother Patrick. Eventually he convinced the store to hire his mother as a cleaner, so she could stay closer to home instead of traveling to sell goods at different markets.</p>



<p>“It was nothing like close to minimum wage, but it was constant,” says Patrick. “That’s what started Chris’ mentality for entrepreneurship and hustling.”</p>



<p>Those wages helped them move to a larger house in 2011, where the family of five shared one room and subleased the other three rooms to make extra money. Chris was also a strong athlete in high school, placing in national competitions for track and field and basketball.</p>



<p>“We would sit at home and cut boxes and stack them up and put them as soles in our shoes,” says Patrick. “He would walk five kilometers to the closest court and play ball.”</p>



<p>Kazadi’s dream was to play professionally in the NBA, and he wrote in his application for the&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;Under 30 event that he won a scholarship to play college basketball in New York after graduating from high school in 2012—but his family couldn’t afford to pay for his trip to the U.S.</p>



<p>There also wasn’t enough money for Chris to attend college at home, and they couldn’t apply for government scholarships that were reserved for South African citizens. Instead he kept working at butcheries, making about 300 rand—roughly $30 at the time—in tips on a good day and doing other odd jobs like frying meat. He also landed an unpaid internship managing social media for South African professional basketball player KP Ndlovu that year, running the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts for his company Loqdown Productions, which organizes basketball tournaments for young players in Johannesburg.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>“Chris was a warrior and a soldier. I’m so proud of what he did and the legacy and empire he built and left behind.”</p>
<cite>Joe Arrangement</cite></blockquote>



<p>Kazadi’s luck started to turn the following year, when South Africa launched the professional Basketball National League (BNL). His work for Ndlovu caught the attention of FX Productions, a small marketing agency that managed social media for the BNL. He got hired to create social media content for the league, earning enough money to support his family and allow his mother to quit her cleaning job.</p>



<p>By January 2016, Kazadi was ready to strike out on his own. Against his mother’s wishes, he quit his job to take advantage of his own connections with the league and its teams to launch his own marketing firm. As an asylum seeker at the time, he couldn’t register the company himself. So he relied on a South African friend and used his entire savings—$30 at the time—to register the new company, which he named Click Media Productions.</p>



<p>His first idea was to host basketball tournaments, using his connections at the BNL to convince brands to sponsor his events. But the costs of organizing them—paying for kits, referees and venues—added up, leaving Kazadi in debt. So he turned back to focusing on social media, eventually making enough money to pay back the debt.</p>



<p>By 2017, the firm had grown enough that it was hosting regular tournaments. The first big break came that year, when Click Media handled digital marketing for the NBA Africa Game, which brought NBA stars like Dirk Nowitzki and Luol Deng to play in Johannesburg.</p>



<p>That growth allowed him to make his first hires to manage the firm’s new clients, which began to sign long-term contracts with Click Media. “This was my first official job, and it&#8217;s all because of Chris,&#8221; says Kaymo Moeti, who worked as a social media manager at Click Media from 2017 to 2018 and now runs marketing for a hip hop festival. “Everything that I learned, I learned from him. He&#8217;s the one that really taught me what I knew to help me get those opportunities.&#8221;</p>



<p>Click Media worked on the next NBA Africa Game in 2018, and the exposure helped put the company on the map, leading to new social media campaigns for clients ranging from ride-hailing app Bolt to rapper Lil Yachty. That same year, he obtained a South African work visa through Click Media. In December 2021, the company was named the best digital marketing agency in Johannesburg at the MEA Business Awards, organized by MEA Markets, a business publication focused on the Middle East and Africa.</p>



<p>&#8220;Chris was a warrior and a soldier,&#8221; says Joe Arrangement, a musician and music promoter who worked with Kazadi and Click Media. &#8220;I&#8217;m so proud of what he did and the legacy and empire he built and left behind.&#8221;</p>



<p>In March 2022, Click Media ran a social media campaign for cognac brand Hennessy and the NBA at a basketball court in Zoo Lake, Johannesburg. In an Instagram post from the video shoot, Kazadi hyped it up for his followers: &#8220;We got something really exciting coming to Zoo Lake soon,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;With some of your favorite celebrities.&#8221;</p>



<p>Two months later, he was gone.</p>



<p>Click Media is now run by his brother Patrick, who wants to carry Christian’s legacy forward and keep growing the company until it achieves his vision of becoming the top digital marketing agency in Africa.</p>



<p>&#8220;As the CEO of Click Media, with the good God&#8217;s grace and blessing, I will complete that which we started,” Patrick said in an emotional tribute to his brother at his memorial service last June. “Kazadi lives.”</p>



<p><em>The Kazadi family has a</em><a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-christian-kazadi" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em> GoFundMe page</em></a><em> to raise funds to pay for legal fees for investigating Christian&#8217;s death and to provide financial support for the family.</em></p>



<p><strong><em>By Giacomo Tognini, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Chris Kazadi

The Mysterious, Unsolved Murder Of Under 30 African Social Media Entrepreneur Christian Kazadi

Red Black Fitness & Gym Presentation Template

AFRICA’S RICHEST PEOPLE 2023


<p><strong>An Enron-like accounting scandal at South Africa-based furniture group Steinhoff International wiped out billions of retail tycoon Wiese’s fortune. After a four-year battle, he’s back as one of Africa’s richest, and at peace with the world.</strong></p>



<p>Christoffel “Christo” Wiese exudes an air of calm that betrays no hint of the chaos that turned his world turned upside down for more than four years.</p>



<p>In December 2017, the then-76-year-old South African billionaire was informed about serious accounting fraud at retailer Steinhoff International, where he was both chairman and the largest shareholder. Those irregularities turned out to total $7.4 billion in falsified transactions over a span of nine years from 2009 to 2017, a PwC investigation found–making the Steinhoff affair the South African equivalent of the 2001 Enron debacle.</p>



<p>Steinhoff International had acquired Wiese’s discount clothing retailer, Pepkor, in 2015 for $5.7 billion in stock and cash; and he became its chairman a year later in May 2016. Wiese stepped down as chairman in mid-December 2017, soon after the accounting fraud was made public. While it was eventually proven that Weise had no role in the fraud, the 90% drop in the share price of Steinhoff–by far Wiese’s most valuable asset–pummelled his fortune, from an estimated $5.6 billion in March 2017 to $1.1 billion on the 2018 <em>Forbes</em> list of Africa’s billionaires and then off the ranks altogether by the time <em>Forbes</em>’ World Billionaires list came out a few months later that year.</p>



<p>Now, following a multi-year legal battle that ended in a $500 million settlement consisting of cash and stock, Wiese is back on <em>Forbes’ </em>newly released<em> </em><a href="https://www.forbes.com/lists/africa-billionaires/">2023 list of Africa’s billionaires</a>, tied at No. 18 with an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion.</p>



<p>Asked about his ordeal last week, Wiese described his initial reaction–and what he’s grateful for. “It came as a huge shock to discover that this [Steinhoff] fraud was in the core of the business,” Wiese recalled in a Teams video call from his office in Cape Town, South Africa. The other shock? “That the people who were committing the fraud managed to get through all the gatekeepers,” he added, ticking them off: internal auditors, external auditor Deloitte, the South African Reserve Bank, international banks that were lending Steinhoff billions of rand, the South African and Frankfurt, Germany stock exchanges (where the company’s shares trade) and the ratings agencies.</p>



<p>What did Wiese know? Nothing, he insists. “People said, ‘But Christo, you were the chairman.’ And I said I chaired four board meetings in the entire time,” Wiese explained. “I am supposed to know what all the other gatekeepers missed?”</p>



<p>Despite his comments, Wiese–and the investment community–had been alerted to concerns about Steinhoff as early as a decade before the furniture seller admitted its problems. In 2007, Sean Holmes, a South Africa-based analyst for JP Morgan, published a critical 56-page report that questioned Steinhoff’s earnings and pointed to poor financial disclosure and a lack of transparency, according to the 2018 book <em>Steinheist: Markus Jooste, Steinhoff &amp; SA’s Biggest Corporate Fraud. </em>The book also recounts a 2009 meeting Wiese had with an analyst at a different firm who shared 40 slides that delved into concerns such as Steinhoff’s inflated assets and its “suspiciously low tax rate.” (That was years before he sold his company to Steinhoff). Then in 2015, right before Steinhoff shifted its primary stock listing to Frankfurt, a German tax authority raised concerns about the company’s accounting. Wiese said a forensic accounting firm the board hired shortly afterward failed to find any issues.</p>



<p>In fact, Wiese had demonstrated supreme confidence in Steinhoff as a business (or took a huge risk, depending on your perspective). In September 2016, he borrowed $1.8 billion from banks to finance the purchase of more shares in Steinhoff, lifting his ownership stake from nearly 20% to 25%. To guarantee the loans, Wiese pledged the vast majority of his Steinhoff shares as collateral. When Steinhoff stock tanked at the end of 2017, the banks took control of his shares. The loan transaction was ring fenced around the Steinhoff shares, so that in case of default, the banks could not go after Wiese’s other assets, a spokesperson for Wiese said.</p>



<p>Markus Jooste, a South African and the former CEO of Steinhoff International–who ran the company during the years of the accounting fraud, will be tried in Germany in April, South African media reported on Friday. In the spring of 2021, German prosecutors were reported to have charged Jooste and three colleagues with balance sheet fraud. Jooste, who has denied the allegations in the past, could not be reached for comment.</p>



<p>Altogether, Wiese claimed he was defrauded out of $5 billion (59 billion Rand) and sued Steinhoff for that amount in 2018. It took until late January 2022 for Steinhoff to get South African and Dutch courts (Steinhoff is headquartered in Amsterdam) to sign off on its settlement for shareholders–Wiese and thousands of others–and creditors. Wiese’s roughly $500 million (8 billion Rand) settlement came in the form of cash plus a 5% stake in listed retailer Pepkor Holdings (which is now 51% owned by Steinhoff International). Wiese says he accepted far less than he initially sought, partly to put a halt to the negotiations, which kept dragging on. Steinhoff funded the settlement with Pepkor shares and cash raised from selling off assets–though it still owns 50% of U.S. company MattressFirm and a few other holdings.</p>



<p>Wiese was never in danger of losing his fortune entirely. Besides his Steinhoff stake, he owns more than 10% of listed supermarket chain Shoprite Holdings, Africa’s largest retailer–a kind of South African Walmart, with a hard focus on low prices. It had $10.7 billion revenues in the most recent fiscal year, 145,000 employees and nearly 3,000 stores across southern Africa. In the wake of the Steinhoff accounting nightmare, Wiese sold off hundreds of millions of dollars worth of his Shoprite shares, lowering his stake from 18% in 2017.</p>



<p>Other Wiese holdings include industrial investing firm Invicta Holdings, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which has investments in China, Singapore, the U.K. and a small business in the U.S. Via another firm, Tradehold Ltd., he owns industrial businesses in South Africa and commercial property in the U.K. And through Luxembourg-listed firm Brait PLC, Wiese owns stakes in Virgin Active health clubs and two South African firms: a fashion label and a consumer goods business.</p>



<p>“Christo has been a massive risk taker his whole life,&#8221; Syd Vianello, a retail analyst in Johannesburg, told&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2016/03/01/the-billionaire-african-behind-the-continents-greatest-retail-empire/?sh=14de17223a7a">a March 2016 profile of Wiese</a>. “Africa is not a place for sissies.” Wiese, who calls himself an incurable optimist, agrees. “I’ve been in business for 55 years,” he says. “I just accept that the world is always difficult.”</p>



<p>Wiese’s journey to become Africa’s biggest retail tycoon took a meandering path. After attending Stellenbosch University, he started working for his cousin’s husband’s discount firm PEP in 1970. Four years later he decided he wasn’t good at working for someone else, and wanted a job that required less hours so he could start a family. Following a detour that included buying, running and then selling a diamond mine, Wiese went back to his cousin, who’d grown PEP and added Shoprite, a grocery chain, and offered to buy him out. The cousin accepted.</p>



<p>He focused on maintaining low prices and serving poor customers of all races–at a time of apartheid. In 1986, Wiese spun off Shoprite and PEP (now called Pepkor) into separate public companies, maintaining control of both. By 2014, Wiese says he controlled the two largest retail businesses in South Africa, and there was really no way to grow more domestically due to antitrust concerns.</p>



<p>That is when he turned to Steinhoff, which did business in Europe and South Africa. “I came to the conclusion that here was a business with a very strong balance sheet, strong cash flows, experienced management and international operations,” he recalled. It didn’t turn out that way.</p>



<p>Now 81, Wiese said he has no plans to retire. “I nearly died in 2021 with Covid, so I’ve come to realize that I’m not necessarily destined to live forever. But my problem is I don’t play golf or do stuff like that. For me, my business is my pleasure.”</p>



<p>Plus he certainly has no desire for Steinhoff to be his final chapter.</p>



<p>“I was not going to let this almost unbelievable disaster spoil my life,” Weise reflected on the Steinhoff matter. “I have a lot to be grateful for. I love my country, I’ve got a wonderful family, wonderful friends. I just decided to carry on with my life.”</p>



<p>By <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/">Kerry A. Dolan</a></p>


How South Africa’s Christo Wiese Sued His Way Back Into The Billionaire Ranks


<p><em>Billionaire money manager Ron Baron has overseen decades of stellar returns, in large part because he is an optimist. He has remained steadfastly bullish in his approach to long-term <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/how-to-invest-in-stocks/">investing in stocks</a>, which have risen greatly since he started his fund 40 years ago. The mutual fund manager he started with $10 million under management in 1982, Baron Capital, now oversees roughly $50 billion in some 19 funds. Baron has amassed a net worth of nearly $5 billion thanks to his strong track record and long-term asset appreciation. Baron is also famous among Wall Street fund managers for his annual investment conference, which has featured entertainment from dozens of stars, including Jerry Seinfeld, Bon Jovi, Chris Rock and Mariah Carey.</em></p>



<p><em>Despite this year’s market turmoil, Baron remains undeterred, with the buy-and-hold investor still predicting massive returns on some of his biggest bets. A longtime </em><strong><em>Tesla</em></strong><em>bull, he has a staggering 45% of one of his largest funds invested in the electric vehicle maker’s stock, even after shares have struggled this year, down nearly 44%. While Baron’s investment in Tesla has reaped huge profits over the years, 2022 has proved more difficult amid the broader market selloff. The flagship $6 billion (assets) Baron Growth Fund is down roughly 26% in 2022, while the Baron Partners Fund, also with $6 billion under management, is down 28% (compared to the S&amp;P 500’s 21% decline). Still, the Baron Partners Fund boasts an annual average return of 28% and 22% over the last five and ten years, respectively.</em></p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="552" height="368" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Ron-Baron.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-57053" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Ron-Baron.jpeg 552w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Ron-Baron-300x200.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 552px) 100vw, 552px" /></figure></div>


<p><strong>FORBES: How did you get your start in investing?&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p><strong>RON BARON:</strong>&nbsp;I went to law school at night in Washington, D.C., and worked in the patent office during the daytime as a patent examiner. And I had all these other jobs—from bartender to cabana boy—to make extra money. When I was 26, I couldn’t be drafted anymore, so I resigned from the patent office and came to New York. I was $15,000 in debt, with just $500 in cash, living in my friend’s basement in New Jersey and applying for a job as an analyst on Wall Street. I couldn’t get a job—I was even applying for jobs as chauffeurs for people who worked on Wall Street. I figured, if I work for them, I can impress them, then maybe I can talk them into a job, but nothing. After around three months, I talked my way into a job working as a research analyst for Janney Montgomery Scott. I would go visit companies every week and then send out a research letter to salesmen who would pitch them to clients. After a bad stock recommendation, I got fired and started looking for a second job. I called up Alan Abelson, the editor of&nbsp;<em>Barron’s</em>, and told him my story. I went to talk to him, and he offered me a job as a reporter, but I said, “Thanks very much, but I’ve always wanted to be an investor.” He ended up recommending me for my next job, which was also in research. I then partnered with a friend from law school doing research that we sold to hedge funds for commissions. By that time, my net worth had gone from –$15,000 to $2 million. So in 1982, I started Baron Capital with $10 million in assets under management.</p>



<p><strong>FORBES: How would you describe your investment strategy today and has it evolved over your career?&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p><strong>BARON:</strong>&nbsp;When I first got started, it was about what a business was worth. It was based on what I thought a business was worth and then buying it at a discount to that. I bought a bunch of stocks like that—most of them worked out fine, but the ones that didn’t were just terrible investments and I couldn’t get out of them. So I said, that doesn’t sound like a very good idea. What turned out to be a better idea was investing in great businesses with growth potential, great people running them and a competitive advantage. I focused on sales growth as opposed to earnings per share growth. It is always about learning how businesses make money. I thought that was a big advantage that I had from my own experience, because I saw how they worked and what made them successful or not. I also learned about Warren Buffett and how he invested, so I tried to do that. He’s more of a value investor, though, whereas I’m much more growth oriented.</p>



<p><strong>FORBES: Which investment do you consider to be your greatest triumph?&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p><strong>BARON:&nbsp;</strong>It would be<strong>&nbsp;Tesla (TSLA)</strong>—that’s the one we’ve made the most from and the one I still think we’re going to make the most from in the future. One of my friends from law school and the patent office called me up about investing in Antonio Gracias’ partnership, who it turns out became friendly with Elon Musk and then became the lead director of Tesla in 2007. He eventually introduced me to Musk, who came to visit me wearing baggy cargo pants and a plaid shirt, looking generally disheveled. He tells me his story about how he’s going to create this electric car to compete against legacy automakers and oil companies. After the stock went public in 2010 at around $20 per share, I couldn’t sell it fast enough, but continued to watch it. That was around when the company introduced the Model S, which sent the stock to $80 per share. So I went out to visit Musk at his factory, where we spent several hours talking about space and cars. Shortly after, the stock doubled again, and I said to myself, “I have to own it.” So we invested $380 between 2014 and 2016, which has generated billions of dollars in gains for our clients over the years. I think we’re going to be getting a five, six or seven times return on our investment again in the next ten years. Now we’ve also been heavily investing in SpaceX.</p>



<p><strong>FORBES: Which investment do you consider your biggest disappointment and what did you learn from it?&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p><strong>BARON:&nbsp;</strong>Well, the biggest dollar loss was&nbsp;<strong>Sotheby’s</strong>. I invested $500 million in 1999 thinking they could take auctions online, and the stock had initially doubled in price. But then the chairman got indicted and the stock fell to half the original price I invested at, so I sold it. We had also owned nonvoting stock, which taught me a valuable lesson about avoiding that in the future. The huge mistake I made was that I wasted my time and didn’t focus on Amazon<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AMZN</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon">-1.4%</a>&nbsp;in 1999, when I would go visit Jeff Bezos to unsuccessfully persuade him to buy Sotheby’s. It taught me that whenever I meet someone like that again I will know it and not fail to invest with them. Investing in great people—that’s what happened with Musk after the second time I met him.</p>



<p><strong>FORBES: If you could give your 20-year-old self advice about investing, what would it be?&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p><strong>BARON:</strong>&nbsp;You have to love what you do, really work hard and guard your reputation above everything else. By that, I mean the way you act when nobody sees what you’re doing. You have to ask yourself, would I be proud? One of the people who helped me early in my career was Jay Pritzker, who told me once, “Ron, if you need to have an agreement in writing, you’re doing business with the wrong person.” You have to live and die by your word. Whatever you say you’re going to do, you do. That was a really big lesson, living up to your word and being a handshake person.</p>



<p><strong>FORBES: What is the biggest risk investors face, either from a broad strategy standpoint or from a current investment environment standpoint?</strong></p>



<p><strong>BARON:</strong>&nbsp;The biggest risk for investors right now is that they think because they’re smart, they can predict politics, the stock market or oil prices, for example. They think all they have to do is buy or sell stock to be successful, but that’s not true. When people are investing, they shouldn’t think they are going to make money on investments immediately. They should have some reasonable time frame. If they are investing today to make money tomorrow, next month, or even next year—that’s risky. In order to invest successfully you have to have a long time horizon and be prepared to invest in a business, as opposed to investing in stocks. I believe there is an expertise to investing in businesses just like there is in cutting hair or flying a plane.</p>



<p><strong>FORBES: What are some books that you recommend every investor read?&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p>BARON:&nbsp;<a href="https://amzn.to/3iiVHSq" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk</em>&nbsp;<em>and the Bet of the Century</em>&nbsp;by Tim Higgins</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://amzn.to/3upU48l" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.</em></a>&nbsp;by Ron Chernow. I’m currently reading&nbsp;<a href="https://amzn.to/3F4mfi3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Leonardo da Vinci</em>&nbsp;</a>by Walter Isaacson.</p>



<p><strong>FORBES:&nbsp;</strong>Thank you.</p>



<p><em>The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.</em></p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/newsletters/forbes-billionaire-investor/?utm_source=investing[%E2%80%A6]nic&amp;utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_organic_subscribe_fbi-article"><em>Excerpted from November issue of Forbes Billionaire Investor, where you can invest alongside the world’s smartest billionaire investors.</em></a></p>



<p><strong><em>By Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Billionaires

Billionaire Investor Insights From Growth Stock Optimist Ron Baron


<p><strong>From financial ruin to jail time, here are the big billionaire downfalls that compete with Sam Bankman-Fried’s $17 billion FTX collapse.</strong></p>



<p>T<strong>he world</strong>&nbsp;watched in shock last week as the floor fell out from under Sam Bankman-Fried. Over the course of just a few days, the 30-year-old founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX went from one of the 50 richest people in America and one of crypto’s most influential figures to the poster boy of the biggest crypto collapse to date.</p>



<p>A skeptical report from Coindesk about the finances of FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research, kicked off the decline. The revelation that at least $5.8 billion of Alameda’s assets were tied to FTX’s native token, FTT, caused investors to frantically withdraw their funds from the exchange. Later reports from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftx-tapped-into-customer-accounts-to-fund-risky-bets-setting-up-its-downfall-11668093732?mod=e2tw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>The Wall Street Journal</em></a>&nbsp;and others alleged that Alameda Research used as much as $10 billion of customer funds from FTX to make its bets–something that is highly illegal. Bankman-Fried essentially admitted to trading using FTX customer assets&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23462333/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-cryptocurrency-effective-altruism-crypto-bahamas-philanthropy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">in an exchange with a&nbsp;<em>Vox</em>&nbsp;reporter</a>. Bankman-Fried’s estimated fortune went from $17 billion to less than $1 billion in days.&nbsp;<em>Forbes&nbsp;</em>figures now it might be closer to zero. Alameda Research, FTX and FTX U.S. filed for bankruptcy on Friday, November 11, and Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO the same day. (SBF might have hidden away some cash from a stake&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ftxs-sam-bankman-fried-cashed-out-300-million-during-funding-spree-11668799774" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">he reportedly sold</a>&nbsp;to investors or from $2.7 billion in loans&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/11/17/sam-bankman-fried-and-three-ftx-executives-received-41-billion-of-loans-from-alameda-research-where-did-the-money-come-from-and-where-did-it-go/?sh=b7182b879c72">he took from Alameda Research</a>.)</p>



<p>While the fallout from FTX’s implosion is still being uncovered, one thing is clear: Few other billionaires have fallen as far and as fast as Bankman-Fried. Among those who lost nearly their entire fortunes within the course of just a few days or weeks are investor Adolf Merckle, once one of Germany’s richest people who was wrecked by the 2008 financial crisis, and Kanye West, whose antisemitism proved his undoing.</p>



<p>Two superrich tycoons who never made the&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;billionaires list but also had massive blowups: Bernie Madoff (d. 2021), the infamous fraudster who ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, and Archegos Capital Management&#8217;s Bill Hwang, whose investment firm collapsed almost overnight last year leading to an estimated $10 billion in losses for some of the world’s biggest banks.</p>



<p>Over the past 20 years, other fortunes have imploded for a wide variety of reasons including fraud and deceit. Many of these blowups have led to lawsuits and even jail time. That includes Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of now-defunct blood testing firm Theranos, who was sentenced on Friday&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2022/11/18/elizabeth-holmes-sentenced-to-11-years-in-prison-for-fraud/?sh=42805a626d27">to more than 11 years in prison</a>&nbsp;for defrauding investors. Three others are now behind bars while one is on house arrest and another is awaiting trial.</p>



<p>The final page in SBF’s increasingly bizarre story has yet to be written. While the world watches to see what fate faces him and FTX, here’s a look at the biggest billionaire downfalls of recent history—and where these individuals stand today. (In descending order from most recent):</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-1-kanye-west-a-shoe-empire-toppled-by-antisemitism"><strong>1. Kanye West: A shoe empire toppled by antisemitism</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-peak-net-worth-2-billion-in-april-2022"><strong>Peak net worth:</strong>&nbsp;$2 billion in April 2022</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-net-worth-now-400-million"><strong>Net worth now:&nbsp;</strong>$400 million</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-date-of-blowup-october-2022"><strong>Date of blowup:&nbsp;</strong>October 2022</h4>



<p>After Kanye West put forth a stream of antisemitic comments, conspiracy theories and other controversial behavior, the rapper and designer now known as Ye was dropped by Yeezy’s key business partner Adidas in October. That followed Ye’s termination the previous month of what was supposed to be a 10-year contract with clothing retailer Gap. Also cutting ties with Ye were French fashion house Balenciaga, retailer Foot Locker, his talent agency CAA and his banker JPMorgan. Despite the meltdown of his business empire, Ye is still worth an estimated $400 million from the value of his personal real estate, music catalog, cash and a 5% stake in Skims, the $3.2 billion shapewear brand started by his ex-wife, billionaire Kim Kardashian.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>2. Nirav Modi: Fugitive Jeweler</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:</strong>&nbsp;$1.8 billion in 2015</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Net worth now:</strong>&nbsp;N/A</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:</strong>&nbsp;2018</h4>



<p>The one-time jeweler to the stars, whose high-priced baubles were adorned by the likes of Kate Winselet, Dakota Johnson and Priyanka Chopra-Jonas, is now in Wandsworth Prison in southwest London fighting his extradition to India. Earlier this month, the High Court in London ordered his extradition. The Indian-origin diamantaire, who aspired to be the next Harry Winston with stores across the globe, was accused of defrauding the state-owned Punjab National Bank of $1.8 billion to fund the expansion of his now-bankrupt firm Firestar International.</p>



<p>Modi fled India in 2018 shortly before the scandal broke and a year later was sighted on the streets of London sporting a handlebar moustache. He was arrested shortly thereafter. The Indian authorities have been recovering Modi&#8217;s dues by seizing and selling his assets, including his much-prized art collection. The Wharton School dropout was born into a family of diamond traders and grew up in Belgium. He moved to India to learn the family trade under his uncle and struck out on his own in 1999.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/615e13a7298aca27c9442742/Rishi-Shah-outcome-health29386/1960x0.jpg?format=jpg&amp;width=960" alt="Rishi Shah outcome_health29386" width="605" height="403"/><figcaption><small>JAMEL TOPPIN/THE FORBES COLLECTION</small></figcaption></figure></div>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>3. Rishi Shah: Accused of fraud, awaiting trial</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:</strong>&nbsp;$3.6 billion in 2017</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Est net worth now:</strong>&nbsp;$0</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:&nbsp;</strong>2018</h4>



<p>Rishi Shah turned heads as the young, college-dropout founder of buzzy healthcare media startup Outcome Health, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2017/05/30/outcome-health-new-drug-marketing-billionaire/?sh=168def4b6b0f">raised</a>&nbsp;$600 million at a $5.6 billion valuation in May 2017. Within two years of Shah entering the billionaire ranks, however, he and two top executives from Outcome were charged with fraud for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-executives-and-employees-health-technology-start-charged-1-billion-scheme-defraud" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">allegedly</a>&nbsp;stealing about $1 billion from clients, lenders and investors by misrepresenting the company’s financial performance and the success of its products. The trio all pled not guilty after they were charged in 2019, and are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.chicagobusiness.com/john-pletz-technology/former-outcome-health-executives-trial-pushed-2023" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">set</a>&nbsp;to stand trial in 2023.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>4. John Kapoor: Disgraced drugmaker in prison</strong></h2>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:&nbsp;</strong>$3.3 billion in 2015</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Est net worth now:&nbsp;</strong>N/A</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:&nbsp;</strong>2017</h4>



<p>Pharma industry entrepreneur and investor John Kapoor was the founder, CEO and chairman of opioid manufacturer Insys Therapeutics. In October 2017, Kapoor was arrested and charged with conspiring to bribe doctors to prescribe the company’s fentanyl spray Subsys, which was designed to ease cancer-related pain,<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2019/12/23/best-stories-of-the-decade-an-opioid-spray-showered-billionaire-john-kapoor-in-riches-now-hes-feeling-the-pain/?sh=35b7fefc6c81">&nbsp;to patients who didn’t need it</a>. Insys declared bankruptcy and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2019/10/28/ceo-of-troubled-chandler-drugmaker-departs-as.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;it was shutting down its operations in 2019. The Indian-born businessman, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2018/12/07/fentanyl-billionaire-no-more-john-kapoors-net-worth-drops-below-1-billion/?sh=744ec33b3b90">dropped out of&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>&nbsp;billionaires rankings</a>&nbsp;just months after his arrest,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2020/01/23/former-billionaire-john-kapoor-sentenced-to-55-years-in-prison/?sh=7c827547ab1c">received a five-and-a-half year prison sentence in 2020</a>&nbsp;after a jury found him and four other Insys executives guilty of a racketeering conspiracy. He’s set to be released in August 2024, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/5553a493e4b0bacdbd751488/Elizabeth-Holmes/0x0.jpg?format=jpg&amp;width=960" alt="Elizabeth Holmes" width="-167" height="-125"/><figcaption><small>ETHAN PINES/THE FORBES COLLECTION</small></figcaption></figure></div>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>5. Elizabeth Holmes: One-time medical mogul sentenced to 11 years in prison</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:&nbsp;</strong>$4.5 billion in 2015</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Est net worth now:&nbsp;</strong>$0</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:</strong>&nbsp;2016</h4>



<p>Theranos cofounder&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/profile/elizabeth-holmes/">Elizabeth Holmes</a>&nbsp;was once the toast of the tech world for developing a device she claimed would revolutionize blood testing by using just a drop or two of blood from a person’s fingertip. In 2015, the Stanford University dropout was the richest self-made woman in America. A year later,&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;lowered our estimate of her net worth to nothing, after the technology proved to be unreliable and as the company faced a slew of investigations from federal agencies. In 2018, she was indicted for wire fraud. The case went to trial in 2021. During her trial, Holmes tried to pin the blame on her ex-boyfriend and Theranos’ former president and chief operating officer, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. However, jurors didn’t buy it and convicted Holmes on four charges of defrauding investors in January 2022. Pregnant with her second child, she was sentenced to more than 11 years behind bars in November 2022. Balwani was found guilty, too, and faces up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>6. Eike Batista: Once Brazil’s richest sentenced to 30 years</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:&nbsp;</strong>$30 billion in 2012</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Est net worth now:&nbsp;</strong>N/A</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:&nbsp;</strong>2013</h4>



<p>A man with outsized ambition, Brazilian oil and gas entrepreneur Eike Batista once pledged to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;he would become the world’s richest person (a title that has since gone to Tesla CEO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=23fcc52d7999">Elon Musk</a>). For a while, it seemed possible. In early 2012, Batista was worth an estimated $30 billion as the prices of his publicly traded energy companies, housed under the parent company EBX Group, soared. But within a year, amid failures to meet production and financial targets, his energy empire began to crumble. It became clear that his flagship oil company OGX had vastly overstated its oil reserves. OGX filed for bankruptcy in 2013 after defaulting on a $45 billion bond payment, marking the largest corporate default in Latin American history. Batista was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2018 for bribing the now-imprisoned former Rio de Janeiro Governor Sergei Cabral $16.5 million in exchange for state contracts. He is reportedly living in his mansion under house arrest.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>7. Vijay Mallya: Good times gone bad</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:&nbsp;</strong>$1.6 billion in 2007</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Est net worth now:&nbsp;</strong>N/A</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:&nbsp;</strong>2012</h4>



<p><sub>Known as “the King of Good Times” for his flamboyant lifestyle, Mallya ran United Spirits, one of India’s largest liquor companies, and the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines. After entering the aviation space in 2005, the liquor mogul racked up debts of more than $1 billion owed to numerous Indian banks as he sought to keep his struggling Kingfisher Airlines afloat. At one point the second largest domestic carrier in India, Kingfisher became insolvent and shut down in 2012; pilots and cabin staff were unpaid for months on end while Mallya continued to throw extravagant parties,&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;</sub><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/naazneenkarmali/2016/03/09/vijay-mallya-goes-down-partying/?sh=2da5c5135dce"><sub>reported</sub></a><sub>&nbsp;at the time. Mallya fled to the U.K. in 2016 after defaulting on debts to lenders by State Bank of India and is believed to still be living there today; he is the subject of an extradition effort. Mallya was declared bankrupt by a British court last July, paving the way for Indian banks to seek repayments of Mallya’s outstanding debts.</sub></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>8. Allen Stanford: The Ponzi prince</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:&nbsp;</strong>$2.2 billion in 2008</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Est net worth now:&nbsp;</strong>$0</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:&nbsp;</strong>2009</h4>



<p>A fraudster who gave Bernie Madoff a run for his money, Stanford was convicted in 2012 for running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme through his Stanford Financial Group. The former billionaire<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2012/03/06/allen-stanford-convicted-in-7-billion-ponzi-scheme/?sh=463dbcf75388">&nbsp;made a killing</a>&nbsp;for about two decades by selling fraudulent high-yielding certificates of deposit through his Antigua-based Stanford International Bank and then using the funds for dubious investments and to fund his lavish lifestyle, according to prosecutors. In 2012, he was sentenced to 110 years in prison, which he is currently serving in a high-security prison in Coleman, Florida. The victims of Stanford’s scheme have had their money returned at a slower rate than Madoff’s victims. Just over $1 billion has been recovered to date. In January 2022, a Texas judge&nbsp;<a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/4B-Stanford-fraud-case-against-banks-to-go-to-16792363.php" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ruled</a>&nbsp;that five banks sued for $4 billion by a group of Stanford investors for allegedly facilitating the fraudster by providing him financial services would have to stand trial. The banks have denied the claims and unsuccessfully tried to dismiss the lawsuit.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>9. Adolf Merckle: A financial crisis casualty</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:&nbsp;</strong>$12.8 billion in 2007</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Est net worth now:&nbsp;</strong>N/A</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:&nbsp;</strong>2008</h4>



<p>Merckle was a German industrialist whose investment outfit got hit badly in the financial crisis of 2008. Making matters much worse was a big bet he made against Volkswagen AG, which backfired in October that year when it was revealed European car giant Porsche was vying to take over the company, sending Volkswagen’s share price soaring. Merckle sought more than $1 billion in bridge loans to cover the losses incurred by his VEM Vermoegensverwaltung conglomerate, which by that point was heavily leveraged. As his empire teetered toward collapse, Merckle took his own life by stepping in front of a train near his home in Blaubeuren, Germany in 2009. After Adolf’s death, his son Ludwig turned around the tumbling family fortune, selling off pieces but eventually recovering. He is now worth more than $5 billion.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>10. Mikhail Khodorkovsky: Putin-induced collapse of Russia’s richest man.</strong></h3>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Peak net worth:&nbsp;</strong>$15 billion in 2004</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Est net worth now:&nbsp;</strong>N/A</h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Date of blowup:&nbsp;</strong>2006</h4>



<p>The former head of Russian oil and gas giant Yukos, Khodorkovsky was once Russia’s richest man, worth an estimated $15 billion at the height of his wealth in 2004. But after a public sparring with Putin over government corruption, Khodorkovsky was arrested and jailed for tax evasion, embezzlement and fraud, allegations he has denied and blasted as politically motivated. Yukos, once Russia’s largest oil company, was broken apart and declared bankrupt in 2006; most of its assets were absorbed by the state-controlled oil company Rosneft<strong>.&nbsp;</strong>Khodorkovsky was pardoned in 2013 and has since relocated to London, where he remains a vocal critic of Putin. “The world will not be a safe place as long as Putin remains in power,” the former billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2022/05/03/exiled-former-russian-oligarch-mikhail-khodorkovsky-the-world-will-not-be-a-safe-place-as-long-as-putin-remains-in-power/?sh=391c8cec136b">said</a>&nbsp;in May at the Milken Institute’s annual conference.</p>



<p><em><strong>This story was updated on November 20 to include Nirav Modi’s blowup in place of Anil Ambani’s.</strong></em></p>


Key Speakers At The Bloomberg Crypto Summit

Sam Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes And 9 Other Epic Billionaire Blowups


<p><strong>Wall Street billionaires Carl Icahn, Ken Griffin, Israel Englander and Daniel Loeb can thank Elon Musk for what might be 2022’s easiest money trade.</strong></p>



<p>F<strong>or many hedge funds,</strong>&nbsp;Elon Musk’s $44 billion “forced” purchase of Twitter represented an easy money trade.</p>



<p>“You didn’t have to be a genius to realize that he was going to finish that deal,” said Carl Icahn at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2022/11/03/carl-icahn-would-have-waged-a-proxy-fight-for-twitter-if-musk-deal-fell-through/?sh=684d42f74623">Forbes Iconoclast Summit</a>&nbsp;on November 3, adding that he would have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2022/11/03/carl-icahn-would-have-waged-a-proxy-fight-for-twitter-if-musk-deal-fell-through/?sh=5928e07d4623">considered waging a proxy fight</a>&nbsp;if the deal fell through.</p>



<p>Icahn told the audience at New York’s Historical Society that he made a profit of around $250 million by investing in Twitter this summer. But he was far from the only one to benefit. Regulatory filings show that billionaire-led hedge funds including Citadel Advisors, Millennium Management, D.E. Shaw and Third Point built large positions in Twitter in the second and third quarters, as well as other firms like Pentwater Capital and Farallon Capital.</p>



<p>Musk signed a merger agreement to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in April, but the stock was trading as low as $32.65 by July when he tried to terminate the deal. That created an arbitrage opportunity for as much as a 66% return for investors who doubted Musk had much of a chance in the Delaware Court of Chancery to back out.</p>



<p>Icahn’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/921669/000153949722001801/xslForm13F_X01/infotable.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">third-quarter 13-F filing</a>&nbsp;with the SEC shows that he owned 12.5 million Twitter shares as of September 30. He said at the&nbsp;<em>Forbes&nbsp;</em>summit he bought in the mid-$30s–if he bought at an average price of $35 per share and made a $19.20 profit on each one when the deal closed at the original price of $54.20 per share on October 28, he would have netted a $240 million profit.</p>



<p>The only fund that made a bigger bet than Icahn was Naples, Florida-based Pentwater Capital Management, founded by Matthew Halbower in 2007. It bought 18.1 million shares during the second quarter and added another 5.3 million shares as of the end of the third quarter. If it bought those 24 million shares at Twitter stock’s median closing price of $40.16 in the first quarter and $41.05 in the second quarter and held them through the completion of the acquisition in October, it would have made $324 million in profit, though its 13-F filing shows it hedged some of those gains by buying put options as well. Pentwater didn’t respond to a request for comment.</p>



<p>In all,&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;found 13 hedge funds that spent upwards of $100 million adding to their Twitter stakes between the end of the first quarter and the end of the third quarter this year. We reached out to each fund to ask for average purchase prices, and estimated that they bought at Twitter’s median closing price in each quarter if more precise information wasn’t available. These funds cumulatively purchased more than 10% of the company in the six months leading up to September 30 and likely made well over $1 billion in profits on the deal.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-twitter-winners"><strong>TWITTER WINNERS</strong></h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-these-hedge-funds-added-the-most-to-their-twitter-positions-this-spring-and-summer-and-likely-minted-profits-if-they-held-on-through-elon-musk-s-purchase">These hedge funds added the most to their Twitter positions this spring and summer and likely minted profits if they held on through Elon Musk&#8217;s purchase.</h4>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="800" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49-1024x800.png" alt="" class="wp-image-56886" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49-1024x800.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49-300x234.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49-768x600.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Screenshot-2022-11-21-at-15.52.49.png 1480w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption>Source: <em>SEC 13-F Filings</em></figcaption></figure>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



<p>These numbers don’t include any additional shares the firms may have purchased in October, when the margins were slimmer while Musk finalized the acquisition, and don’t include possible trading that took place within each quarter. 13-F filings show a simple snapshot of each firm’s long stock holdings on the last day of each quarter and don’t provide enough information to pin down exact gains and losses, but often represent the most thorough picture of what funds are buying and selling.</p>



<p>The biggest winners included Hong Kong-based Segantii Capital Management, founded by British investor Simon Sadler, and Farallon Capital, the San Francisco-based firm founded by Thomas Steyer in 1986 and now run by Andrew Spokes.</p>



<p>David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital initiated a position of 4.3 million shares in the third quarter, his 13-F filing shows, and he wrote in a letter to investors viewed by&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;that the average purchase price was $37.24 per share. He expected that the Delaware Court of Chancery would be wary of inviting future buyer’s remorse suits if it let Musk walk away.</p>



<p>“The case law on this is quite clear. If it were anyone other than Musk, we would handicap the odds of the buyer wiggling out of the deal to be much less than 5%,” Einhorn wrote in the letter prior to the completion of the deal. “At this price there is $17 per share of upside if TWTR prevails in court and we believe about $17 per share of downside, if the deal breaks. So, we are getting 50-50 odds on something that should happen 95%+ of the time.”</p>



<p>Musk saw the writing on the wall and reversed course in October, agreeing to pay the full price as these investors expected. His first weeks as Twitter’s owner have been marked by confusion and complaints after he opened verification to anyone willing to pay $8 per month, causing a wave of “verified” parody accounts, and laid off 3,700 employees, almost half of its staff. He has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/11/10/musk-tells-staff-twitter-could-go-bankrupt-without-financial-turnaround-reports-say/?sh=5cc89ccc7257">warned Twitter’s staff</a>&nbsp;that “bankruptcy is not out of the question,” but if his $44 billion equity investment goes up in smoke, the hedge funds he paid that cash to will be laughing all the way to the bank.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Hank Tucker, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Twitter Losing Its Most Active Users

Elon Musk’s Twitter Buyout Was A Billion Dollar Windfall For These 13 Hedge Funds


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Art amassed by late Microsoft co-founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/paul-allen/">Paul Allen</a>&nbsp;brought in more than $1 billion at Christie’s Wednesday evening, setting the record for the most valuable single-owner art collection ever sold at auction only one day into a two-day sale–here’s which pieces have fetched the most.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>“<a href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6397099?ldp_breadcrumb=back&amp;intObjectID=6397099&amp;from=salessummary&amp;lid=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version)</a>” by Georges Seurat was the most valuable artwork sold during the sale so far, fetching $149.24 million including fees, nearly five times higher than the 19th-century artist’s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.artnet.com/artists/georges-seurat/paysage-lile-de-la-grande-jatte-WIIl38TNjnNZTxrX3LNO4A2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previous auction record</a>.</p>



<p>Paul Cézanne’s “<a href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6397105?ldp_breadcrumb=back&amp;intObjectID=6397105&amp;from=salessummary&amp;lid=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">La Montagne Sainte-Victoire</a>” sold for $137.8 million, nearly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/may/12/michaelellison" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">doubling</a>&nbsp;the artist’s auction record.</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6397113?ldp_breadcrumb=back&amp;intObjectID=6397113&amp;from=salessummary&amp;lid=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Verger avec cyprès</a>” by Vincent Van Gogh also broke the artist’s previous record, selling for $117.2 million.</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6397102?ldp_breadcrumb=back&amp;intObjectID=6397102&amp;from=salessummary&amp;lid=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Maternité II</a>” by Paul Gauguin realized $105.7 million, just over three times the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-13291614" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previous</a>&nbsp;record for the most valuable work by Gaugin to sell at auction.</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6397108?ldp_breadcrumb=back&amp;intObjectID=6397108&amp;from=salessummary&amp;lid=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Birch Forest</a>” by Gustav Klimt fetched $104.6 million and broke the artist’s previous auction record, the $59 million his “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-art-auction-klimt/klimt-painting-sells-for-59-million-at-record-breaking-london-auction-idUSKBN16922C" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bauerngarten</a>” fetched in 2017.</p>



<p>Lucian Freud also set a new artist record, with his “<a href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6397125?ldp_breadcrumb=back&amp;intObjectID=6397125&amp;from=salessummary&amp;lid=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Large Interior, W11 (after Watteau)</a>” selling for $86.2 million.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>Another&nbsp;<a href="https://www.christies.com/en/auction/visionary-the-paul-g-allen-collection-part-ii-30033/?page=1&amp;sortby=highestimate_desc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">95 artworks</a>&nbsp;from Allen’s collection will go to auction on Thursday during a day sale. The pieces on sale are estimated to fetch lower prices than those that sold Wednesday, with the most expensive–a sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, “<a href="https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6397176?ldp_breadcrumb=back&amp;intObjectID=6397176&amp;from=salessummary&amp;lid=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Typewriter Eraser, Scale X</a>”— expected to sell for as much as $7 million. All of Allen’s estate proceeds will go to the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>$922.2 million. That was the previous record for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/05/16/real-estate-mogul-harry-macklowe-and-ex-wife-lindas-art-collection-fetches-record-breaking-9222-million/">most valuable art collection</a>&nbsp;sold at auction. It was set just six months ago in May when Manhattan real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and his former wife Linda sold their art collection after their high-profile divorce.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



<p>Some 20 artists’ auction records were broken Wednesday night alone, or one-third of the artists featured in the sale. Artwork by Jasper Johns, Andrew Wyeth, Edward Steichen, Jan Breughel the Younger, Thomas Hart Benton, Max Ernst, Sam Francis and Diego Rivera were among the artists whose pieces fetched higher prices than at any other auction.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>We estimated Allen was worth<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/paul-allen/?sh=5f8b34e54417">&nbsp;$20.3 billion</a>&nbsp;in 2018, the year he died. He cofounded Microsoft in 1975 with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2019/06/28/bill-gates-amazing-tribute-to-paul-allenwith-rare-photos-from-his-private-collection/?sh=d96715af206c">his childhood friend</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/">Bill Gates</a>. After his death, responsibility for his foundation went to his sister,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabellord/2022/11/04/inside-paul-allens-billion-dollar-art-auction/?sh=7685814014f9">Jody</a>, who has been gradually selling off his estate.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Allen didn’t start collecting art until the early 1990s, after he visited the Tate Modern in London and realized he too could own world-class artwork, according to Deborah Gunn, who was associate director of art finance at Vulcan, Allen’s investment management company. Allen’s taste was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabellord/2022/11/04/inside-paul-allens-billion-dollar-art-auction/?sh=c59fec214f99">varied</a>&nbsp;and his collection spans more than 500 years of art history, from Botticelli to McArthur Binion. He was particularly drawn to pointillism and Jasper Johns’ “numbers” series, which he said&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabellord/2022/11/04/inside-paul-allens-billion-dollar-art-auction/?sh=c59fec214f99">reminded him of coding</a>. Allen also enjoyed landscapes and scenes of Venice, of which the auction includes eight.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



<p>The full size of the art collection Allen put together during his lifetime. A notoriously secretive collector, Allen did not publicize his art when he was alive, and even this auction of more than 150 pieces isn’t the full picture, according to Christie’s. Allen owned artwork that would be worth&nbsp;<a href="https://news.artnet.com/news-pro/paul-allens-collection-art-detective-2200744" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">an additional $500 million</a>, an investigation from Artnet found.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabellord/2022/11/04/inside-paul-allens-billion-dollar-art-auction/?sh=65decdc414f9">Inside Paul Allen’s Billion-Dollar Art Auction</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2022/08/26/billion-dollar-collection-of-microsoft-cofounder-paul-allen-going-on-sale-it-could-be-the-biggest-art-auction-ever/?sh=118ee14e5052">Billion-Dollar Art Collection Of Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen Going On Sale—It Could Be The Biggest Art Auction Ever</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/11/09/here-are-the-10-biggest-us-billionaire-art-purchases-will-paul-allens-collection-make-the-list/?sh=1a3e25fe23b0">Here Are The 10 Biggest U.S. Billionaire Art Purchases. Will Paul Allen’s Collection Make The List?</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Carlie Porterfield, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Christie’s Presents Highlights from the Visionary: Collection of Paul Allen in London

Most Expensive Art Auction Ever: Paul Allen’s Collection Fetches Record $1.5 Billion


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>A textless meme of a dog in a T-shirt tweeted by the world’s wealthiest man Elon Musk sent one of the world’s largest cryptocurrencies up 12% Tuesday, the latest instance of tongue-in-cheek social media activity causing big money moves.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk’s&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587297730631696384?s=20&amp;t=LyxmZux9A7OErRktrr3ddw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>&nbsp;of a Shiba Inu adorned with a Twitter logo instantly went viral, picking up nearly 600,000 likes.</p>



<p>The image is an apparent reference to&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a>&nbsp;Musk will heavily incorporate dogecoin, a coin with a Shiba Inu’s face on it, on Twitter.</p>



<p>Dogecoin rose to a six-month high of $0.14, and is up a whopping 131% over the last month, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/digital-assets/traded-assets/"><em>Forbes</em>’ tracker of digital assets</a>.</p>



<p>Also gaining was the cryptocurrency Shiba Inu, which rose 8% Tuesday.</p>



<p>Outside from the canine tokens, the crypto market broadly rose, with bitcoin and Ethereum gaining 2.6% and 5%, respectively.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>$10.2 billion. That’s how much in market capitalization dogecoin has gained since October 4, the day Musk’s intent to close the Twitter deal went public. Its $19.1 billion market cap is roughly the same as Hewlett Packard.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Dogecoin briefly reached a market cap of about $70 billion last year when it peaked near $0.70 before quickly losing its luster, falling to as low as $0.05. Much of dogecoin’s surge came as Musk relentlessly touted the coin. This year has been bleak for crypto, with bitcoin down 57% year-to-date, compared to a 19% loss for the S&amp;P 500. Doge’s rise and fall mirrored that of several other meme assets, including stocks like AMC, Bed Bath &amp; Beyond and GameStop.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



<p>The potential dogecoin adoption is one of many changes to his new social network teased by Musk on his Twitter account, with the billionaire also putting out feelers for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/31/vine-20-twitter-reportedly-working-to-bring-back-video-service-after-musk-poll/?sh=1a725f763f42">return of</a>&nbsp;the short-form video service Vine and a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/10/31/a-verified-badge-on-twitter-may-cost-users-20-a-month-report-says/">monthly fee</a>&nbsp;for users to retain their verified badges.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/28/crypto-markets-gain-nearly-100-billion-after-elon-musks-twitter-deal-boosts-dogecoin/?sh=3e486d062540">Crypto Markets Gain Nearly $100 Billion After Elon Musk&#8217;s Twitter Deal Boosts Dogecoin</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Derek Saul, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


File: Crypto Losses Near $700 Billion In Worst Week Since Bubble Burst

Musk Meme Fuels $2 Billion Gain For Dogecoin￼


<p>In November last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk became the first person in history to obtain a $300 billion fortune. </p>



<p>A lot has happened since then. He’s on the verge of buying Twitter after months of back-and-forth and reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/20/musk-twitter-acquisition-staff-cuts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">plans to lay off 75% of its staff&nbsp;</a>if the deal goes through. He&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/06/elon-musk-secretly-fathered-twins-with-neuralink-executive-report-says/?sh=2ba2f0406505">had secret twins</a>&nbsp;with one of his employees and was rumored to be&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-affair-sergey-brin-wife-divorce-11658674840" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">having an affair with Nicole Shanahan</a>, the soon-to-be ex-wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin. (Musk denied the affair.)</p>



<p>He also lost more than $100 billion.&nbsp;</p>



<p>From its peak on November 4, 2021, Musk’s fortune has fallen nearly 35%, from $320.3 billion to $209.4 billion as of close of market Thursday–almost entirely due to a sharp drop in the price of Tesla stock. This month alone, Musk’s fortune is down $28 billion. In quarterly earnings reported on Wednesday, the electric carmaker’s revenue still&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/10/19/tesla-stock-drops-after-missing-revenue-expectations/?sh=d9bce421d2ec">fell short</a>&nbsp;of some analyst expectations. Add in worries about a possible recession, and investors are spooked.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-farewell-to-110-billion-in-eleven-and-a-half-months-elon-musk-s-net-worth"><strong>Farewell To $110 Billion In Eleven And A Half Months: Elon Musk’s Net Worth</strong></h3>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="717" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Screenshot-2022-10-24-at-08.44.24-1024x717.png" alt="" class="wp-image-56642" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Screenshot-2022-10-24-at-08.44.24-1024x717.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Screenshot-2022-10-24-at-08.44.24-300x210.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Screenshot-2022-10-24-at-08.44.24-768x538.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Screenshot-2022-10-24-at-08.44.24.png 1468w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



<p>“He sells high-priced cars, so a recession will not be good for his business,” says Matt Maley, chief market strategist at Miller Tabak + Co., in an email.</p>



<p>Musk was so rich to begin with, he’s still the wealthiest person in the world, even after his fortune took such a dramatic drive. He’s $60 billion richer than LVMH chief Bernard Arnault and $71 billion richer than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. When he surpassed Bezos last year, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2021/09/28/elon-musk-responds-to-replacing-jeff-bezos-richest-person-silver-medal/?sh=d75b40f1cd4b">joked</a>&nbsp;in an email to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;that he wanted to send Bezos a giant statue with the digit 2.</p>



<p>Musk sold&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/08/09/elon-musk-sells-69-billion-of-tesla-stock/?sh=bbf5617135a2">$31 billion</a>&nbsp;worth of Tesla stock in the last year to finance his bid to acquire Twitter and take it private. Since the deal hasn’t been finalized,&nbsp;<em>Forbes&nbsp;</em>counts the value of the cash (minus taxes) gained from those sales toward his net worth. But all of the drama associated with the deal is turning off investors, who believe Musk is overpaying for the social network and is irresponsibly selling Tesla stock to fund it.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“The problem for Tesla investors is that more stock sales are likely by Musk to fund this deal, which we believe will go down as one of the worst, most overpaid M&amp;A deals in the history of the market,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in an email.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Others are more optimistic about Tesla’s prospects. Garrett Nelson, an equity analyst at CFRA Research, says Tesla “remains one of the market’s strongest earnings growth stories over the intermediate and long term” and is encouraged by record vehicle sales in the latest quarter.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Rachel Sandler, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Tesla Officially Opens Gruenheide Gigafactory

Elon Musk’s Fortune Has Fallen By More Than $100 Billion In Less Than A Year


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Billionaire Elon Musk plans to shrink Twitter&#8217;s staff by nearly 75% after his long-delayed deal to take over the social media company closes, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/20/musk-twitter-acquisition-staff-cuts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Washington Post</em></a>, in a massive downsizing that could impact user experience.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk reportedly informed prospective investors he plans to cut Twitter&#8217;s workforce from 7,500 to around 2,000.</p>



<p>Twitter already planned to cut around a quarter of its workforce in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/04/twitter-shares-soar-22-after-musk-offers-to-buy-company-at-original-price/?sh=752762964d41">the now-unlikely event</a>&nbsp;Musk’s $44 billion takeover falls through, as the company aims to slash payroll by $800 million by the end of 2023, according to the&nbsp;<em>Post</em>, citing corporate documents and people familiar with internal discussions.</p>



<p>The company’s planned cuts reportedly include critical infrastructure like data centers, which could make it more difficult to police information and defend against security risks for Twitter’s more than 200 million estimated daily active users.</p>



<p>Musk and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment from&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



<p>Musk has a stated goal of “authenticating all humans” on Twitter and significantly cutting down on spam accounts on the platform. It’s unclear whether laying off 75% of the company’s workforce will clash with that push.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>Musk has until October 28 to close the deal to buy Twitter, per a Delaware judge’s order, or he will face a trial to potentially force the deal through. Twitter sued Musk after he attempted to call off the deal earlier this year, and a trial was originally set for this month, but Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/04/twitter-shares-soar-22-after-musk-offers-to-buy-company-at-original-price/?sh=66265d3c4d41">confirmed two weeks ago</a>&nbsp;he’s willing to buy the company at the originally agreed-upon price. If the deal closes, Twitter will become a private company controlled by Musk.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Twitter has struggled with profitability for years and Musk has suggested he plans to radically transform the company to improve its financial situation, but he’s offered few concrete details of how that will be accomplished. Musk floated layoffs during a June town hall meeting with Twitter’s staff, saying he didn’t see a reason to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2022/05/10/elon-musk-suggested-possible-layoffs-at-twitter--does-the-platform-even-need-7500-employees/?sh=228bdb78463e">keep low performers around</a>. The billionaire has also said he may institute a subscription service for premium content on the platform, and he reportedly told investors Twitter will triple the number of users who see ads within his first three years of ownership.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



<p>Dozens of major U.S. companies have instituted layoffs this year in response to an economic downturn and fears of an imminent recession. Read the full list&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/10/19/gopuff-slashes-10-of-its-workforce-microsoft-reportedly-cuts-nearly-1000-employees-here-are-the-biggest-us-layoffs-this-year/?sh=3b3395f728b5">here</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>We estimate Musk to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=40b693af7999">be worth $209.4 billion</a>, largely due to his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, making him the richest person in the world.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/20/musk-twitter-acquisition-staff-cuts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Documents detail plans to gut Twitter’s workforce</a>&nbsp;(Washington Post)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/10/19/gopuff-slashes-10-of-its-workforce-microsoft-reportedly-cuts-nearly-1000-employees-here-are-the-biggest-us-layoffs-this-year/?sh=3b3395f728b5">Gopuff Slashes 10% Of Its Workforce, Microsoft Reportedly Cuts Nearly 1,000 Employees—Here Are The Biggest U.S. Layoffs This Year</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2022/05/10/elon-musk-suggested-possible-layoffs-at-twitter--does-the-platform-even-need-7500-employees/?sh=228bdb78463e">Elon Musk Suggested Possible Layoffs At Twitter – Does The Platform Even Need 7,500+ Employees?</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/04/twitter-shares-soar-22-after-musk-offers-to-buy-company-at-original-price/?sh=752762964d41">Twitter Shares Soar 22% After Musk Offers To Buy Company At Original Price</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Economic Photo Illustrations

Musk Plans To Cut 75% Of Twitter Workforce, Report Says￼


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk, the world’s richest man,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1580056291082280960?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a>&nbsp;a fresh foray into the perfume industry on Tuesday, hawking a “Burnt Hair” fragrance that he claimed sold 10,000 bottles within hours of launching, continuing the billionaire’s record of capitalizing on humor and his enthusiastic fan base to transform seemingly joke products into coveted merchandise.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk on Tuesday used social media to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579971705447256064" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">promote</a>&nbsp;his new perfume, “Burnt Hair,” calling it the “finest fragrance on Earth” and changing his Twitter biography to “Perfume Salesman.”</p>



<p>The fragrance is on sale for $100 a bottle on The Boring Company’s website, Musk’s tunneling enterprise, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boringcompany.com/burnthair" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">described</a>&nbsp;the perfume as “the essence of repugnant desire.”</p>



<p>In addition to dollars, the Tesla chief&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579972303647301632?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;the popular meme-based cryptocurrency dogecoin could be used to purchase “Burnt Hair,” which he described as an “<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579975550919413761?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">omnigender product</a>.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579994860802932736?s=20&amp;t=RHsPDiZo1Zo-BFxbHNLiJQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;over 5,000 bottles of “Burnt Hair” had sold less than two hours after he posted the launch.</p>



<p>Perfume sales had already crossed the 10,000 bottle milestone early Wednesday morning, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1580056291082280960?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>, meaning he had racked up $1 million in sales within six hours of the product going live.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The finest fragrance on Earth!<a href="https://t.co/ohjWxNX5ZC">https://t.co/ohjWxNX5ZC</a> <a href="https://t.co/0J1lmREOBS">pic.twitter.com/0J1lmREOBS</a></p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579971705447256064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long,” Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579974298156306432?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">joked</a>&nbsp;on Twitter, acknowledging the pun of his last name in the scent industry.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>$215.4 billion. That’s Musk’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=161aa2f97999">estimated net worth</a>, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>real-time tracker. The figure makes him the richest person on the planet, comfortably ahead of French fashion tycoon&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-arnault/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=40133a4b66fa">Bernard Arnault&nbsp;</a>($146.3 billion) and Amazon founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=5e5342051b23">Jeff Bezos</a>&nbsp;($135.6 billion), who come in second and third, respectively.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk, who has a dedicated and enthusiastic following, has a track record of bringing ostensibly joke products to market to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/take-a-look-elon-musk-merchandise-tesla-hot-pants-flamethrower-2021-2?r=US&amp;IR=T" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">roaring success</a>. Most notably, this includes a limited edition line of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/2/1/16954950/elon-musk-flamethrowers-sold-out" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">flamethrowers</a>, also sold by The Boring Company, which rapidly sold out and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/10/17445838/boring-company-flamethrower-elon-musk-tweets-party" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sparked</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/19/elon-musk-said-it-was-not-a-flamethrower/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">concern</a>&nbsp;among lawmakers and police officials. Other merchandise Musk has launched—through his electric vehicle firm Tesla, aerospace firm SpaceX and The Boring Company—includes launched surfboards, tequila and red satin short shorts. Musk’s jokes and online influence have landed him in hot water in the past, however, and the way his tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/05/07/elon-musk-warns-people-to-invest-with-caution-as-dogecoin-rallies-ahead-of-his-snl-appearance/?sh=700d00fc7634">move</a>&nbsp;markets have triggered scrutiny from lawmakers, as well as numerous&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/16/jpmorgan-sues-tesla-for-162-million-in-warrant-dispute-tied-to-elon-musks-tweets/?sh=515b61ef69b4">lawsuits</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/24/elon-musk-brother-under-investigation-insider-trading" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">regulatory</a>&nbsp;investigations.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/07/elon-musks-bizarre-week-twitter-deal-moves-ahead-tesla-stock-tanks-zooming-with-putin/?sh=4251f0b76dad">Elon Musk’s Bizarre Week: Twitter Deal Moves Ahead, Tesla Stock Tanks, Zooming’ With Putin</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Robert Hart, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon’s Musk: Tesla Billionaire Hawks ‘Burnt Hair’ Perfume For $100 A Bottle


<p><strong>As the new head of The Firm, Charles now oversees some $42 billion in assets and inherited $500 million from Queen Elizabeth, including her castles, jewels, art collection and a horse farm—all of it tax-free.</strong></p>



<p>When you’re a member of the House of Windsor, going into the family business may come with a lifetime of prestige and privilege, but it doesn’t always bring great wealth. Even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2021/03/10/inside-the-firm-how-the-royal-familys-28-billion-money-machine-really-works/?sh=69a224792bcc">members of The Firm</a>—as high-ranking royals have been known since the days of King George VI—are often dependent on their elders for allowances, gifts and other blue-blooded handouts.</p>



<p>But it’s still good to be the king.</p>



<p>After training for the position for more than 70 years, King Charles III inherited large swaths of land, regal estates, rare jewels, paintings and other personal property—some going back centuries—from his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. He also now oversees the late monarch’s $42 billion portfolio of assets held in trust for the kingdom, including billions in investments—and <em>other</em> opulent palaces, glittering jewels and priceless art that he will never actually own.</p>



<p>Her Majesty’s will is expected to be sealed for at least 90 years so the exact distribution of her assets will not be known for several generations. But as her eldest son, Charles inherited the Queen’s private estates—her much-loved castle in Balmoral, Scotland, where she died, as well as Sandringham in eastern England, home to the thoroughbred horse farm known as the Royal Studs. King Charles is also expected to inherit her enormous private collection of jewelry, art, rare stamps and any personal investments. Altogether, <em>Forbes</em> values these personal assets at $500 million. And Charles won’t have to pay a shilling of inheritance tax, <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208633/mou_royal_taxation.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">thanks to a 1993 agreement with the British government</a> that exempts transfers of property from one sovereign to another.</p>



<p>The 73-year-old monarch also accedes the throne with a king’s ransom of his own, largely through the lucrative annual income he received from the Duchy of Cornwall, which earned him some $27 million this year and which his eldest son, Prince William, will now inherit. As Prince of Wales, Charles launched several ventures to protect the environment and foster organic farming. Through his Charitable Foundation (which William also inherits now), Charles owned <a href="https://www.waitrose.ae/en/inspiration/facts-about-waitrose-duchy-organic/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the largest organic food brand in the U.K.</a>, as well as <a href="https://zalan.transylvaniancastle.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a nature retreat and crafts center in Transylvania</a> that each operate as bed and breakfasts.</p>



<p>Prince William will now take possession of the Duchy of Cornwall, a conglomerate with $1.2 billion in net assets including the Oval cricket ground in London, Charles’ former residence at Highgrove House (<a href="https://duchyofcornwall.org/home-farm.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">where he first began farming organically in 1985</a>) and the Isles of Scilly, but the new King will not exactly be left wanting for prime real estate.</p>



<p>As the new monarch, Charles assumes ownership of institutions that manage an estimated $42 billion in assets, including some of the world’s most famous royal palaces and the Crown Jewels. These assets—which include Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the Tower of London—aren’t held directly by the King, but are instead owned by the reigning monarch&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rct.uk/sites/default/files/resources/Financial%20Statements%202021-22.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“in right of the Crown”</a>&nbsp;for the duration of their reign. They are also held “in trust” for his successors and the nation—meaning they can’t actually be sold.</p>



<p>In contrast to the various estates, which file annual reports, the palaces and jewels are often thought of as priceless. So what’s it all worth? <em>Forbes</em> gave it a royal effort.</p>



<p>The single most valuable asset held by King Charles is the Crown Estate, a sprawling real estate portfolio with $17.5 billion in net assets. Those properties include Regent Street, London’s prime shopping destination, as well as Ascot Racecourse (a favorite of the Queen) and virtually the entire seabed of the U.K. All of the Crown Estate’s net profit—$361 million in fiscal year 2022—goes to the British Treasury. But the royal family also gets a cut: They receive an allowance from the Treasury known as the “Sovereign Grant,” equal to 25% of the net profit for the financial year two years earlier. In 2022, the Sovereign Grant amounted to $99.6 million, based on the Crown Estate’s net profit in the 2019-20 financial year.</p>



<p>That enormous windfall doesn’t go directly to Charles, however. A 10% cut of that net profit—$39.8 million for 2022—is set aside for maintaining Buckingham Palace, and an additional 15% is used to finance the royal family’s annual travel, formal events, housekeeping and payroll. And those bills add up fast.</p>



<p>The most expensive trip taken by the royals in the past year, for instance, was Prince William and Kate’s nine-day visit to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas in March, which cost roughly $260,000, including planning prior to the visit.</p>



<p>The Sovereign Grant isn’t Charles’ only source of income. For one, it doesn’t cover physical security. As King, he also gains control of the Duchy of Lancaster, a private estate with $753 million in net assets that is owned in trust by the monarch. The Duchy’s net revenues go directly to the King as an allowance called the Privy Purse, which covers any other official expenditures. (In 2022, that amounted to $24 million, pre-tax.) Unlike the Sovereign Grant, which is tax-free, the Queen agreed in 1993 to voluntarily pay income tax on the portion of the Privy Purse not used for official purposes—and Charles agreed to maintain the same policy upon his accession.</p>



<p>In addition to the Crown Estate and the Duchy of Lancaster, Charles also holds the Crown Estate Scotland, a portfolio with some $570 million in net assets, including the Scottish seabed, rural estates and the rights to fish wild salmon and extract naturally occurring gold and silver in Scotland.</p>



<p>The rest of the Crown’s holdings—at least nine former and current royal residences and the Royal Collection, which includes the Crown Jewels—are the most difficult to value because they would never reach the open market and they don’t file annual reports.</p>



<p>The Crown Jewels are perhaps the most identifiable asset associated with the British royal family. As part of the Royal Collection, they are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-crown-jewels/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“held in trust by the monarch for the nation.”</a>&nbsp;The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&amp;v=424129088352731" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">estimated their value at $4 billion in 2019</a>, using the sale of the French Crown Jewels in 1887 and the sale of the late Princess Margaret’s jewelry in 2006 as a comparison.</p>



<p>The overall value of the Royal Collection, which includes works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Caravaggio and Leonardo Da Vinci, is unquestionably much higher. <a href="https://brandirectory.com/download-report/bf_monarchy_report_2017.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">According to a 2017 report by Brand Finance</a>, a U.K.-based brand valuation firm, the Royal Collection—including the Crown Jewels—is estimated to be worth $12.7 billion.</p>



<p>There are also at least nine palaces, castles and residences owned by the King in trust as sovereign or “in right of the Crown.” According to estimates provided by Lenka Dušková Munter, a sales specialist for historical properties at Czech real estate agency Luxent, and Colby Short, co-founder and CEO of estate agent website GetAgent.co.uk,&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>estimates the combined value of these properties at $9.5 billion.</p>



<p>The most valuable property in the collection is, of course, the King’s official London residence, Buckingham Palace, estimated at $4.9 billion. On the lower end, there’s Clarence House, Charles’ formal residence in London when he was Prince of Wales, valued at $72 million. Balmoral and Sandringham, which are now personally owned by the King after he inherited them from Queen Elizabeth, are worth $118 million and $73 million, respectively.https://embedly.forbes.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fe.infogram.com%2F175bfdcf-5cb6-459e-abe7-e249671ebeae%3Fsrc%3Dembed&amp;display_name=Infogram&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Finfogram.com%2Fcrown-estate-1hdw2jpqvwgzp2l&amp;image=https%3A%2F%2Finfogram-thumbs-1024.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com%2F8a98e4e4-a70a-4ed7-b3df-efd2ab8724ae.jpg&amp;key=cfc0fb0733504c77aa4a6ac07caaffc7&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=infogram</p>



<p>Most of these assets cannot be sold. But in choosing Charles as his regnal name, the new King would be wise to remember what happened to King Charles I’s worldly possessions—after he was beheaded by his people in 1649.</p>



<p>Following Charles I’s death during the English Civil War, his assets were promptly auctioned off—&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crouchrarebooks.com/prints/richmond-palace" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Richmond Palace in London reportedly sold for £13,000</a>&nbsp;(or about $1.8 million today) before ultimately being demolished. Parliament also sold Charles I’s art collection, considered at the time to be one of the greatest in the world.&nbsp;<a href="https://lostcollection.rct.uk/charles-i/inventories" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The appraised value of £35,000 for the paintings alone</a>—some $5 million adjusted for inflation—is a fraction of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.christies.com/features/Salvator-Mundi-timeline-8644-3.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the $450 million paid at auction for just one of those works,</a>Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, when it became the most expensive painting ever sold in 2017.</p>



<p>Presumably Charles III’s reign will go a little more smoothly than his regal namesake. The new King has seen a surge in support since his mother’s death.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/charles-benefits-from-a-wave-of-public-goodwill-wtwvgvbtg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A YouGov survey for the&nbsp;<em>Times of London</em>&nbsp;published Tuesday</a>&nbsp;found that his approval rating has jumped to 63% since May, when only 32% of respondents believed he would do a good job as the monarch.</p>



<p>“The queen was obviously very well regarded globally and inside the U.K.,” says David Haigh, chief executive of Brand Finance. “She did an extremely good job. And the jury’s out as to whether or not Prince Charles will live up to her example.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-king-s-personal-assets"><strong>THE KING’S PERSONAL ASSETS</strong></h2>



<p>As the new King, Charles inherits the Queen’s personal assets, which<em>&nbsp;Forbes</em>estimates at $500 million. That includes Balmoral and Sandringham, the Royal Philatelic Collection—which includes&nbsp;<a href="https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/the-queen%E2%80%99s-own" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“the world&#8217;s finest and most comprehensive collection of British and Commonwealth stamps”</a>—personal investments, horses, jewelry and artworks Her Majesty inherited from her mother in 2002. The prize painting in that collection is said to be Claude Monet’s&nbsp;<em>Study of rocks, Creuse</em>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/apr/03/queenmother.monarchy2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly worth as much as $17.3 million.</a>&nbsp;And assuming Charles’ late father, Prince Philip, had a smart estate tax attorney, the Duke of Edinburgh would have bequeathed his own art collection—<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55355783-the-queen-s-true-worth" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">estimated at $2.3 million by the late royal commentator and journalist David McClure</a>—to the Queen upon his death in April 2021 to avoid paying inheritance tax. If he did, those assets also likely passed on tax-free to Charles.</p>



<p>There is also a vast collection of cars, watches and other extravagant toys held by the King and the royal family. On Sunday, on the first full day of his reign, King Charles turned up to greet crowds at Buckingham Palace wearing an 18-carat gold Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Chronograph watch that he’s owned since the mid-2000s, the Swiss watchmaker told <em>Forbes</em>. Parmigiani Fleurier no longer produces the Toric Chronograph, but <a href="https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/christies-watches-online/parmigiani-fleurier-18k-toric-chronograph-date-ref-c00940-260/67585" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a similar model sold at Christie’s for $8,125 in 2019.</a></p>



<p>The King’s vehicle of choice for his London debut was his mother’s Rolls Royce Phantom VI, which was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.royal.uk/wedding-princess-eugenie-and-jack-brooksbank-bridal-car" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">presented to her for her Silver Jubilee in 1977</a>. While the car is not for sale, a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/cars-for-sale/rolls-royce/phantom-vi" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">similar model from 1976 can be purchased for $225,000.</a>&nbsp;Charles also inherits the Bentley State Limousine,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bentleymotors.com/en/models/mulliner/coachbuilt/queens-limousine.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">originally designed for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002</a>&nbsp;to commemorate her half-century on the throne.</p>



<p>In his 64 years as Prince of Wales, Charles also learned how to build his own outrageous fortune. He largely depended on income from the Duchy of Cornwall, which expanded under his tenure to $1.2 billion in net assets, including nearly $400 million in commercial properties and more than 52,000 hectares of land, or about a third the size of Greater London. Between 2011 and 2022, the Duchy’s net assets grew by 51%.</p>



<p>The profits from those assets provided Charles with enough income to be independent of the Sovereign Grant: In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022, the then-Prince of Wales earned some $26.6 million (pre-tax) from the Duchy of Cornwall, compared to $1.2 million from the Sovereign Grant.</p>



<p>That valuable asset is now in the hands of Prince William, who succeeded his father as the Prince of Wales. With Cornwall, William will no longer have to ask his father for a cut of his income anymore. Prince Harry, on the other hand, is forging ahead with his own business ventures along with his wife, Meghan Markle. In December 2020, the couple signed a three-year <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnchmielewski/2021/02/26/how-much-are-prince-harry-and-meghan-markle-worth-surprisingly-not-that-much/">podcasting deal with Spotify that could be worth between $15 million and $18 million</a>. The couple also has an Apple TV+ series on mental health that Harry executive produces with Oprah Winfrey for an undisclosed sum and a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2021/03/10/inside-the-firm-how-the-royal-familys-28-billion-money-machine-really-works/?sh=7e7ff0042bcc">$100 million, five-year Netflix deal, which was signed in September 2020</a>.</p>



<p>After all, leaving the royal family isn’t usually a smart financial move: When Queen Elizabeth’s uncle, King Edward VIII,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.royal.uk/edward-viii" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">abdicated in 1936 to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson</a>, he was cut off from the Civil List, the royal funding stream now known as the Sovereign Grant. Instead, he negotiated a&nbsp;<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-IhnAAAAMAAJ&amp;focus=searchwithinvolume&amp;q=25%2C000" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">deal with his brother, King George VI, to receive £25,000 a year ($1.4 million adjusted for inflation.</a>)&nbsp;Still, at the time of his death in 1972, the Duke of Windsor (as he became known) left behind&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/05/archives/duke-of-windsor-leaves-18800-estate-in-england.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a fortune worth nearly $2.5 million</a>—$17.7 million today—including a villa in Paris.</p>



<p>Charles’ personal assets before he became king are far murkier. He’s also received scrutiny for investments made through the Duchy of Cornwall. In 2017, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/07/prince-charles-profit-best-friend-hugh-van-cutsem-offshore-firm-paradise-papers" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Paradise Papers investigation revealed that the Duchy of Cornwall had invested millions of pounds</a>&nbsp;in offshore funds and companies, including a business registered in Bermuda run by Hugh van Cutsem, an old friend from the University of Cambridge in the 1960s. At the time, the Duchy said Charles didn&#8217;t have any &#8220;direct involvement in investment decisions.”</p>



<p>As King, Charles now holds $500 million in personal assets with another $42 billion held in trust as the sovereign. Despite an obviously luxurious lifestyle with access to multiple castles, fleets of cars, private planes and a pretty great collection of tiaras and other jewelry, there is one thing that King Charles III shares with every commoner—death and (some) taxes.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Giacomo Tognini &amp; Carlie Porterfield, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


State Opening Of Parliament

How Rich Is King Charles III? Inside The New Monarch’s Outrageous Fortune


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>The billion-dollar art collection of Paul Allen, the Microsoft cofounder who died in 2018, will be auctioned this November and is poised to surpass the current record for the most expensive sold to date, set by the Macklowe Collection in May.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The auction of 150 works will take place in November this year, auction house Christie’s announced (an exact date was not disclosed), with the collection valued at more than $1 billion.</p>



<p>The expansive collection, named ‘Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection’, features works from some of the most influential names in art including Paul Cézanne and Jasper Johns, Christie’s said.</p>



<p>According to the&nbsp;<em>New York Times,&nbsp;</em>works from Botticelli and Renoir will also be&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/arts/design/christies-auction-paul-allen-art-collection.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">auctioned</a>.</p>



<p>In line with Allen’s wishes, proceeds from the auction will be given to charity, Christie’s said.</p>



<p>Guillaume Cerutti, head of the auction house, told the <em>Times</em> the sale is “a major event for the art market and for the art world.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/paul-allen/?sh=4fb85aa34417">$20.3 billion</a>. That’s&nbsp;<em>Forbes’&nbsp;</em>estimate of Allen’s net worth at the time of his death.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Allen founded tech giant Microsoft alongside Bill Gates in 1975 and left in the early 1980s after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, although he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/2588308/paul-allen-to-step-down-from-microsoft-s-board.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stayed</a>&nbsp;on the board until 2000. He expressed his love of music and art in part through the founding of what is now known as the Museum of Pop Culture, marked by a futuristic-looking building, in Seattle in 2000. One of America’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferwang/2018/10/15/the-greatest-givers-meet-americas-top-philanthropists/#71a9cc51af18">top philanthropists</a>, he went on to donate about 10% of his wealth—$2.5 billion—to causes including education and science research and he also indulged his love of sports with the purchase of major basketball, soccer and football teams, including the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks. Allen died in October 2018 aged 65 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">NEWS PEG</h2>



<p>Last year proved&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/03/29/art-market-surpassed-pre-pandemic-levels-in-2021-with-65-billion-in-sales-report-says/?sh=1fdf76968e56">a boon</a>&nbsp;for the art market’s recovery from the pandemic, with sales of art up almost 30% to $65 billion, according to a UBS and Art Basel report out in May.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



<p>The current record for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/05/16/real-estate-mogul-harry-macklowe-and-ex-wife-lindas-art-collection-fetches-record-breaking-9222-million/?sh=4e70c206640f">most expensive art collection</a>&nbsp;sold at auction was set by the sale of real estate developer Harry Macklowe and his ex-wife Linda’s collection. Sold by Sotheby’s over a six-month period ending in May, it brought in an eye-watering $922.2 million and included a Rothko painting never before exhibited in public.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/03/29/art-market-surpassed-pre-pandemic-levels-in-2021-with-65-billion-in-sales-report-says/?sh=1fdf76968e56">Art Market Surpassed Pre-Pandemic Levels In 2021 With $65 Billion In Sales, Report Says</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/arts/design/christies-auction-paul-allen-art-collection.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Christie’s to Sell Paul G. Allen’s $1 Billion Art Collection</a>&nbsp;(New York Times)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/05/16/real-estate-mogul-harry-macklowe-and-ex-wife-lindas-art-collection-fetches-record-breaking-9222-million/?sh=4e70c206640f">Real Estate Mogul Harry Macklowe And Ex-Wife Linda&#8217;s Art Collection Fetches Record-Breaking $922.2 Million</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2018/10/15/microsoft-cofounder-paul-allen-dies-at-65/">Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen Dies At 65</a> (Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Isabel Togoh, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


USA – Technology – Paul Allen Promotes New Memoir

Billion-Dollar Art Collection Of Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen Going On Sale—It Could Be The Biggest Art Auction Ever


<p><strong>Nigerian billionaire Abdulsamad Rabiu and founder of BUA Group says Africa must remove its reliance on imports and add value to locally-produced food as much as possible.</strong></p>



<p>Nigerian billionaire Abdulsamad Rabiu, the founder of BUA Group, a Nigerian conglomerate active in cement production, sugar refining and real estate, has embarked on an ambitious 20,000-hectare large-scale sugar plantation featuring other ancillary production facilities such as a sugar mill, sugar refinery, and ethanol and power plant in Africa’s biggest and most populous economy.</p>



<p>The Group currently has two “ultra-modern and automated mega sugar refineries” in Lagos and Port Harcourt in the country with a total combined installed refining capacity of 1.5 million metric tonnes, but say the new initiatives, for which it has secured more land in both Kogi State and Kwara State to establish sugar plantations in the future, will add significantly to the development of Nigeria’s local sugar industry.</p>



<p>“I am passionate about looking inwards and seeing what we can do as Africans,” says Rabiu in a recent interview with FORBES AFRICA.</p>



<p>“We realized that a large amount of money was being spent on importing raw sugar and we asked ourselves ‘why can’t we solve this problem and produce locally’?” adds the entrepreneur with a real time net worth of $5.7 billion according to Forbes.</p>



<p>Russia’s war on Ukraine has sparked a global food crisis and Nigeria, Africa’s most populous economy, traditionally reliant on food imports, is facing the brunt of this.</p>



<p>In a recent report published by the United Nations World Food Program, Nigeria, along with Ethiopia and South Sudan, are amongst the countries with the direst conditions. The report asserts that 19.5 million Nigerians are “facing high levels of acute food insecurity”.</p>



<p>Furthermore, when it comes to children under the age of five years, the report estimates that about 1.7 million will be prone to acute malnutrition by August this year, signifying a 34% rise from 2021 figures.</p>



<p>Reflecting on these numbers, Rabiu believes that there has to be a fundamental shift in Africa’s approach to food production.</p>



<p>“Eighty percent of the food we consume in Africa is imported so when you have a situation like the Russia-Ukraine war which has had a knock-on effect on food imports, where last year alone we imported over 55 million tonnes of wheat, the current crisis we are facing is bound to happen,” says Rabiu.</p>



<p>His concerns are shared by Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) who in May this year approved a $1.5 billion facility to help over 20 million African farmers to produce 38 million tonnes of food.</p>



<p>“We are facing a situation where food prices are skyrocketing by the day. Wheat has gone up from $250 to about $600 per tonne; this accounts for a 60% increase in the past year,” says Rabiu.</p>



<p>The price hikes in importing wheat means a further increase in prices to consumers who are already struggling to make ends meet. According to Rabiu, the only way to avoid this situation in the future is to remove our reliance on imports and add value to locally produced food as much as possible.</p>



<p>“We need a concerted effort to increase our homegrown production,” says Rabiu.</p>



<p>Adesina and the AfDB are hoping that by making the credit facility available, African farmers can do exactly what Rabiu is suggesting and begin to increase the supply of food to curb impending disaster.</p>


Abdulsamad Rabiu; image supplied

‘Concerted Effort To Increase Homegrown Production’: Nigerian Billionaire On Plans to Boost Local Sugar Industry


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk sold roughly $6.9 billion worth of Tesla stock over the past week, according to new Securities and Exchange Commission filings, in a surprise offload that comes more than three months after the world’s richest man&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519850299757846530?s=20&amp;t=5J_GRFHeqCKz9sNlbTRDjQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;there were &#8220;no further TSLA sales planned.&#8221;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk sold more than 7.9 million shares in dozens of transactions between Friday and Tuesday, at an average price of $875 per share, according to the filings.</p>



<p>The billionaire will owe an estimated $1.65 billion in federal capital gains taxes from the sale, leaving about $5.25 billion in take-home pay.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s not clear why Musk chose to sell—he did not immediately respond to a request for comment from&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>More than $31 billion. That&#8217;s how much Tesla stock Musk has liquidated in a series of sales starting in November.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Unlike earlier transactions, Musk&#8217;s sales this week were unexpected. The Tesla CEO hinted about his late 2021 sales in a November tweet, and he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/04/29/elon-musk-sells-more-tesla-stock-bringing-total-sales-to-more-than-8-billion-this-week/?sh=6523c61530ed">raised around $8.5 billion</a>&nbsp;in pretax funds in a series of April sales after signing a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. The $8.5 billion was expected to go toward the purchase, but Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/08/elon-musk-terminating-deal-to-buy-twitter-platform-plans-legal-action/?sh=1dfce8712e21">reneged on the deal</a>&nbsp;last month over purported concerns about the number of bots and spam accounts that populate the platform. Twitter quickly responded by filing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk-for-trying-to-cancel-acquisition-deal/?sh=3b8d40183d38">a lawsuit against Musk</a>&nbsp;in Delaware Chancery Court in an attempt to force the deal to go through. A trial is set to begin on October 17 if the two sides don&#8217;t reach a settlement.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>We&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=152b18687999">estimate Musk</a>&nbsp;to be worth $255.1 billion, making him the wealthiest person on Earth.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/04/29/elon-musk-sells-more-tesla-stock-bringing-total-sales-to-more-than-8-billion-this-week/?sh=6523c61530ed">Elon Musk Sells More Tesla Stock—Bringing Total Sales To More Than $8 Billion This Week</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/08/elon-musk-terminating-deal-to-buy-twitter-platform-plans-legal-action/?sh=1dfce8712e21">Elon Musk ‘Terminating’ Deal To Buy Twitter—Platform Plans Legal Action</a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk-for-trying-to-cancel-acquisition-deal/?sh=3b8d40183d38">Twitter Sues Elon Musk For Trying To Cancel Acquisition</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors at Tesla’s headquarters in San Carlos Tuesday Oct. 24, 3008.  Silicon Valley icon Musk became a billionaire founding PayPal, but he’s out to do something even more important – help humanity reach beyon

Elon Musk Sells $6.9 Billion Of Tesla Stock


<p id="h-a-new-forbes-survey-of-the-world-s-richest-people-found-many-still-do-household-chores-like-taking-out-the-garbage-and-grocery-shopping"><strong>A new Forbes survey of the world’s richest people found many still do household chores like taking out the garbage and grocery shopping.&nbsp;</strong></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p>The world of the super wealthy may be brimming with private jets, mega mansions and more dough than most could even dream of, but the day-to-day lives of billionaires look a whole lot more typical than many would expect.&nbsp;</p>



<p>That’s at least according to the results of a recent survey by&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>. The poll of 65 of the richest people on Earth found that, while they could easily outsource, many billionaires still choose to do at least some household chores and other domestic tasks themselves. More than a third said they regularly grocery shop and take out the garbage, while 40% cook and walk their dogs. More than half of the respondents said they watch their children or grandchildren’s sports games. (Perhaps it’s the competitive instinct.)&nbsp;</p>



<p>Still, these ultra-rich have their limits, the survey suggests. Clearly greenbacks do not correlate with green thumbs as just 10% or those polled reported doing yardwork on a regular basis. The only task less popular was laundry, which just 8% of the billionaires said they tend to do.&nbsp;</p>



<p>There are a myriad reasons why at least some members of the superrich still do these ordinary tasks. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates–the world’s No. 2 and No. 4 richest people worth an estimated $146.8 billion and $105 billion, respectively–have both previously discussed their habits of washing the dishes every night. “Other people volunteer, but I like the way I do it,” Gates&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1xj56q/hello_reddit_im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill/?st=itofjv6g&amp;amp%3Bsh=19fc7cd0" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reasoned</a>&nbsp;simply in a 2014 Reddit Q&amp;A.&nbsp;</p>



<p>For some, like real estate investor&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/charles-cohen/?sh=5e81ceeb50f8">Charles Cohen</a>, whose estimated $3.6 billion empire includes high-end office buildings in New York City and the movie theater chain Landmark Theatres, doing chores is a way to relax outside of work. “It’s funny you bring this up because I’m just driving back from Home Depot right now with some extra sprinklers and light bulbs,” Cohen said in a recent phone call. “I like going out and doing stuff on my own.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>The real estate mogul described tasks like grocery shopping and grilling as a “great way to break up the week.” Cohen said he grew up in the Westchester suburbs of New York with a housekeeper, and that he and his wife try to do more of the work around the house in part to set an example for their children. “It’s all about doing the things you enjoy doing and creating a lifestyle that defines the way you are and the way you want your children to perceive you, and the values you want them to embrace,” Cohen said. (Not that he and his family live a frugal life. They own a 39-acre Connecticut estate with a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/an-expansive-connecticut-estate-becomes-an-idyllic-retreat" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">private screening room</a>&nbsp;and a vineyard in France.)</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-which-of-these-activities-do-you-do-regularly"><strong>WHICH OF THESE ACTIVITIES DO YOU DO REGULARLY?</strong></h4>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-insights-from-our-exclusive-survey-of-65-global-billionaires-just-how-normal-is-a-day-in-the-life-of-a-billionaire-well-more-typical-than-you-might-expect-with-more-than-a-third-doing-routine-tasks-like-cooking-and-grocery-shopping-but-folding-clothes-forget-about-it">Insights from our exclusive survey of 65 global billionaires. Just how normal is a day in the life of a billionaire? Well, more typical than you might expect, with more than a third doing routine tasks like cooking and grocery shopping. But folding clothes? Forget about it.</h4>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color">46%&nbsp;ATTEND KIDS’ OR GRANDKIDS’ SPORTS GAMES OR PERFORMANCES&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color">40%&nbsp;COOK&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color">40%&nbsp;WALK THE DOG&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color">38%&nbsp;TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color">33%&nbsp;SHOP FOR GROCERIES&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color">19%&nbsp;TAKE THE KIDS OR GRANDKIDS TO SCHOOL&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color">10%&nbsp;YARDWORK&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color">8%&nbsp;LAUNDRY&nbsp;</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large" id="h-if-success-changes-you-then-i-think-you-ve-missed-the-whole-point-of-life"><p>“If success changes you, then I think you’ve missed the whole point of life.” <sup>—Frank VanderSloot</sup></p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/frank-vandersloot/?sh=211210d14ee3">Frank VanderSloot,</a>&nbsp;the founder and executive chairman of the health and wellness business Melaleuca, and the richest person in Idaho, said doing household chores feels natural to him because of the way he grew up. The son of a railroad worker, VanderSloot recalls waking up before school to chop wood and milk the cows on his family’s farm in northern Idaho.</p>



<p>“People think that you’re a different person because of the size of your checking account, but it doesn’t work that way, at least I don’t think it does,” said VanderSloot. He noted that he and his wife, Belinda, hired someone to help with cleaning around the house, which has 15 rooms to accommodate their 14 children and 54 grandchildren when they come to visit. But he and his wife handle most household chores, including cooking and laundry; they pay their grandchildren to do their yardwork.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“I think that wealth or success will test your character more than failure ever could, and you’ve got to measure up to that,” he emphasized. “If success changes you, then I think you’ve missed the whole point of life.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Yet another billionaire, who asked for his comments to remain anonymous, told&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>he does everything from taking out the trash to washing his clothes—“yes, even laundry and occasional ironing”—because he is “just not comfortable accepting personal services from others.”&nbsp;</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large" id="h-i-m-running-a-multi-billion-dollar-business-i-have-a-lot-going-on-so-it-s-obviously-not-the-best-use-of-my-time-to-be-doing-stuff-around-the-house-that-i-could-hire-someone-to-do"><p>“I’m running a multi-billion dollar business. I have a lot going on, so it’s obviously not the best use of my time to be doing stuff around the house that I could hire someone to do.” <sup>—Jeff Greene</sup></p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p>Not everyone has quite the same philosophy. After all, as the survey indicates, the majority don’t do all these chores: 60% said they don’t cook; 62% said they don’t take out their garbage and 92% don’t do laundry. Some may have good reasons.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-greene/?sh=6232cd2513ed">Jeff Greene</a>, the Palm Beach-based real estate mogul who first made his fortune shorting subprime mortgages during the Great Recession, insists that while he’s “pretty down to earth,” most household chores and tasks are handled by his staff. “I’m running a multi-billion dollar business. I have a lot going on, so it’s obviously not the best use of my time to be doing stuff around the house that I could hire someone to do,” he said.&nbsp;</p>



<p>When he has time outside of work, Greene said he prioritizes spending time with his three young children, who he drives to and from school each day. “We’re very involved with our kids,” he said, adding: “It’s nice to do … Compared to fighting with some contractor about a deadline, I’d rather be stuck with my kids.” </p>



<p><strong><em> By <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/"></a>Jemima McEvoy, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Still life of a small shopping cart and a golden apple on pink background

Inside The Daily Lives Of The Super Rich—And Why Many Billionaires Still Do Chores


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=73c0c6c27999">Elon Musk</a> is resisting Twitter&#8217;s request for an expedited trial in its effort to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk-for-trying-to-cancel-acquisition-deal/?sh=4a78eea23d38">force him to close</a> on a $44 billion deal to buy the company, according to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-opposes-twitters-request-for-expedited-trial-over-stalled-deal-11657921461?mod=e2tw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">multiple</a> <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-15/musk-seeks-to-block-quick-twitter-trial-over-44-billion-deal?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business#xj4y7vzkg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a>, with his lawyers filing a motion Friday that asks that the trial not begin until February 2023.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk&#8217;s lawyers decried Twitter&#8217;s request for a &#8220;warp speed&#8221; trial in the filing with Delaware Chancery Court, saying they need time to conduct a “forensic review and analysis of large swaths of data,&#8221; according to Bloomberg.</p>



<p>Twitter is seeking a four-day trial in September, but Musk&#8217;s team reportedly said a trial should be held no earlier than February 13.</p>



<p>The filing marks Musk&#8217;s first formal response to the lawsuit Twitter filed Tuesday, which accuses him of violating the terms of their agreement.</p>



<p>Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from <em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk informed Twitter last week he <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/08/elon-musk-terminating-deal-to-buy-twitter-platform-plans-legal-action/?sh=ba82d5a2e213">was terminating the deal</a>, after repeatedly accusing the company of not providing enough information to determine how many fake and spam accounts are on the platform. Mike Ringer, Musk&#8217;s attorney, said in a letter to Twitter that the company was in “material breach of multiple provisions,&#8221; but Twitter fired back in its lawsuit, claiming it was Musk that violated the agreement. Twitter accused Musk of undertaking a &#8220;fishing expedition&#8221; to try to get out of the deal, which it argued was a result of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/05/11/why-elon-musk-is-30-billion-poorer-this-week/?sh=3b41643c2f34">his personal wealth tumbling</a> after a downturn in Tesla&#8217;s share price. The company called Musk&#8217;s requests for more information on spam accounts &#8220;increasingly invasive and unreasonable&#8221; and, at least in some cases, not contractually required.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“With the sense of humor of a bot, Twitter claims Musk is damaging the company with tweets like a Chuck Norris theme and a poop emoji,” Musk&#8217;s attorneys wrote in the filing, according to Bloomberg. Twitter in the lawsuit referenced Musk tweets that were critical of it to argue he publicly disparaged the company, which would violate a non-disparagement section of the agreement.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>A hearing on the request to expedite the trial is set for Tuesday.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-15/musk-seeks-to-block-quick-twitter-trial-over-44-billion-deal?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business#xj4y7vzkg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Musk Says Twitter Dragged Feet on Deal and Now Rushing Trial</a>(Bloomberg)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk-for-trying-to-cancel-acquisition-deal/?sh=4a78eea23d38">Twitter Sues Elon Musk For Trying To Cancel Acquisition</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/08/elon-musk-terminating-deal-to-buy-twitter-platform-plans-legal-action/?sh=ba82d5a2e213">Elon Musk ‘Terminating’ Deal To Buy Twitter—Platform Plans Legal Action</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/05/11/why-elon-musk-is-30-billion-poorer-this-week/?sh=3b41643c2f34">Why Elon Musk Is $30 Billion Poorer This Week</a> (Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk Fights Twitter’s Push For Speedy Trial In Deal Dispute


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk informed Twitter Friday he is &#8220;terminating&#8221; his $44 billion deal to buy the platform, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001494730/000110465922078413/tm2220599d1_sc13da.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">filing</a>, but the head of Twitter’s board said the company plans to take up a legal challenge to force the agreement to go through.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Bret Taylor, the chairman of Twitter’s board, tweeted the company “is committed to closing” the deal and plans to “pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement.” </p>



<p>Musk and Twitter both agreed in April that if a party chose to withdraw from the deal, that party would have to pay&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/04/26/musks-twitter-purchase-includes-1-billion-fee-if-deal-falls-through/?sh=1930f6c23eb1">a fine of $1 billion</a>.</p>



<p>Musk’s attorney, Mike Ringler, stated the deal is being called off because Musk does not believe Twitter has provided adequate information about how many fake and spam accounts populate the platform.</p>



<p>In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001494730/000110465922078413/tm2220599d1_ex99-p.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">letter</a>&nbsp;to Twitter, Ringler claimed the company is in “material breach of multiple provisions” of its agreement with Musk by allegedly not providing sufficient information.</p>



<p>Twitter’s stock price plunged more than 5% on Friday to close at $36.81 after reports surfaced the deal was in serious jeopardy, before dropping another 6% in after-hours trading to around $34.50 following the SEC filing.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information,” Ringer said in the letter.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Twitter’s board accepted Musk’s unsolicited $44 billion offer to buy the company on April 25, but Musk said on May 13 he was putting&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/05/13/elon-musk-says-twitter-deal-on-hold/?sh=42076e265670">the deal “on hold”</a>&nbsp;over concerns about fake and spam accounts on the platform. Musk expressed skepticism with Twitter’s claim that such accounts make up less than 5% of profiles, and his team was unsatisfied with data Twitter presented to attempt to back up its assertion. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/07/elon-musk-twitter-jeopardy/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Washington Post</em></a>reported Thursday that the billionaire was expected to take a major shift in his approach to the deal after his team determined Twitter’s claim on fake and spam accounts was unverifiable. Musk said he wanted to buy Twitter because he was fed up moderation policies he believed hurt public discourse. He vowed as owner he would allow all speech permissible by law on the platform and lift bans on prominent accounts like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/05/10/musk-says-he-would-lift-twitter-ban-on-trump/?sh=215ba03779ed">former President Donald Trump’s.</a></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>Wedbush analysts Daniel Ives and John Katsingris called Friday’s news “a disaster scenario for Twitter,” predicting a long legal battle for Twitter to either force the deal through or get Musk to pay the $1 billion termination penalty. The stock could trade as low as $25 when markets open Monday, according to the analysts.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>$54.20. That’s how much the April 25 deal valued Twitter shares at, putting the company’s market cap at $44 billion. Concerns over the deal and a broader tech selloff has caused the stock to plunge over the past few months, though. Twitter’s market cap Friday afternoon was around $28 billion.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/07/musks-deal-to-buy-twitter-in-danger-of-falling-apart-report-says/?sh=724204ed2582">Musk’s Deal To Buy Twitter In Danger Of Falling Apart, Report Says</a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/04/26/musks-twitter-purchase-includes-1-billion-fee-if-deal-falls-through/?sh=1930f6c23eb1">Musk’s Twitter Purchase Includes $1 Billion Fee If Deal Falls Through</a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/05/13/elon-musk-says-twitter-deal-on-hold/?sh=42076e265670">Elon Musk Says Twitter Deal ‘On Hold’</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/madelinehalpert/2022/05/10/musk-says-he-would-lift-twitter-ban-on-trump/?sh=215ba03779ed">Musk Says He Would Lift ‘Foolish’ Twitter Ban On Trump</a> (Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/"></a><strong><em>By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk And Twitter Logo Illustration

Elon Musk ‘Terminating’ Deal To Buy Twitter—Platform Plans Legal Action


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk&#8217;s $44 billion deal to buy Twitter is now in serious doubt, according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/07/elon-musk-twitter-jeopardy/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Washington Post</em></a>, which reported Thursday the billionaire&#8217;s team could pursue a massive change in strategy amid concerns about spam and fake accounts.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Talks between Musk&#8217;s team and investors who could help him finance the deal have slowed recently because the team feels Twitter has not been &#8220;cooperative&#8221; in sharing information about fake accounts, an anonymous source with knowledge of the discussions told the&nbsp;<em>Post</em>.</p>



<p>A source also told the&nbsp;<em>Post</em>&nbsp;there could soon be a major shift in Musk&#8217;s approach to close the deal, but it&#8217;s not clear what that change may be.</p>



<p>The setback is reportedly over concerns about how many spam accounts populate Twitter.</p>



<p>The company has long stated fake and spam profiles make up less than 5% of users, but Musk began expressing skepticism with that figure after he agreed to buy Twitter, and his team has now determined Twitter&#8217;s claim is unverifiable, according to the&nbsp;<em>Post</em>.</p>



<p>Neither Musk nor Twitter immediately responded to requests for comment from <em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>If either Musk or Twitter pull out of the deal, the terminating party will be required to pay&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/04/26/musks-twitter-purchase-includes-1-billion-fee-if-deal-falls-through/?sh=1930f6c23eb1">a $1 billion penalty</a>, though the issue would likely result in a legal battle before any fine is paid. If Musk breaches the agreement to buy Twitter, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/67572c16-711a-43fd-9488-b75e3f6bc469.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">could also sue him</a>&nbsp;for “specific performance,” and try to&nbsp;<a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/in-house-counsel/musk-says-twitters-lack-of-info-on-bots-breaches-merger-deal" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">force him in court</a>&nbsp;to follow through with the purchase.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>On April 25, the Twitter board accepted Musk&#8217;s unsolicited bid to purchase 100% of the company and take it private at a valuation of $54.20 a share, a deal that followed weeks of maneuvering by both the company and the world’s richest person. Musk on May 13 said the deal was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/05/13/elon-musk-says-twitter-deal-on-hold/?sh=42076e265670">being put &#8220;on hold&#8221;</a>&nbsp;until he received more data on fake and spam accounts on the platform, though he claimed to still be &#8220;committed to acquisition.&#8221; To ease these concerns, Twitter eventually agreed to give Musk’s team—which chose not to do&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/technology/twitter-musk-firehose-tweets.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">extensive</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/06/07/elon-musk-twitter-buyout-takeover-bots-purchase-acquisition-spam/?sh=58badbf65d72">due diligence</a>&nbsp;when the deal was struck—<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/06/09/twitter-elon-musk-bots-data-firehose-api/?sh=17251d015382">access to user data</a>. Twitter&#8217;s stock has also plummeted over the past few months amid doubt over whether the deal will close—a problem that&#8217;s been exacerbated by a broader tech selloff on the stock market. Twitter ended the day Thursday at $38.79 a share, placing the company&#8217;s market cap at less than $30 billion. Musk’s decision to buy Twitter came after he frequently criticized the social network for its moderation policies, claiming it unnecessarily censors non-mainstream viewpoints. He has vowed to allow all speech permissible by law on the platform once he becomes owner.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



<p>A bombshell <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-shivon-zilis-secret-twins-neuralink-tesla?utmSource=twitter&amp;utmContent=referral&amp;utmTerm=topbar&amp;referrer=twitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Insider</a> article published Wednesday revealed <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/06/elon-musk-secretly-fathered-twins-with-neuralink-executive-report-says/?sh=7d1e25466505">Musk quietly fathered twins</a> in November with an executive at <a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/neuralink/">Neuralink</a>, a company he cofounded and serves as CEO of, bringing his number of known living children to nine. Musk <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/07/07/musk-comments-on-having-twins-with-top-employee-doing-my-best-to-help-the-underpopulation-crisis/?sh=1ceef406395b">responded to the report</a> Thursday by tweeting: &#8220;Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis.&#8221;</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. <br><br>A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.</p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1545046146548019201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/07/elon-musk-twitter-jeopardy/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Elon Musk’s deal to buy Twitter is in peril</a>&nbsp;(Washington Post)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/07/07/musk-comments-on-having-twins-with-top-employee-doing-my-best-to-help-the-underpopulation-crisis/?sh=1ceef406395b">Musk Comments On Having Twins With Top Employee: ‘Doing My Best To Help The Underpopulation Crisis’</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/06/elon-musk-secretly-fathered-twins-with-neuralink-executive-report-says/?sh=7d1e25466505">Elon Musk Secretly Fathered Twins With Neuralink Executive, Report Says</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/05/13/elon-musk-says-twitter-deal-on-hold/?sh=42076e265670">Elon Musk Says Twitter Deal ‘On Hold’</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/04/26/musks-twitter-purchase-includes-1-billion-fee-if-deal-falls-through/?sh=1930f6c23eb1">Musk’s Twitter Purchase Includes $1 Billion Fee If Deal Falls Through</a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Musk’s Deal To Buy Twitter In Danger Of Falling Apart, Report Says


<p>The fortune of the world’s richest person, Tesla chief Elon Musk, soared by $14.5 billion Tuesday, as shares of his electric vehicle maker rose 9.4%, outpacing the tech heavy Nasdaq’s 2.5% rebound from last week’s decline. Analysts attributed Tesla’s outperformance to both comments by Musk and broader market factors.</p>



<p>Referring to an interview Musk granted to Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum Tuesday in which the Tesla chief highlighted the size of the company’s order backlog, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said that “positive demand comments from Musk have resonated with the Street and given some confidence in this white knuckle macro environment.” In the interview, Musk reiterated his concerns about a recession and the need to downsize Tesla’s workforce, but investors appear to have zeroed in on his comments downplaying the threat of competition, and identifying supply constraints as the main obstacle to fulfilling the company’s robust demand.</p>



<p>“As anyone knows who has tried to order a Tesla, the demand for our cars is extremely high and the wait list is long,” Musk told Bloomberg. “This is not intentional and we’re increasing production capacity as fast as humanly possible.”</p>



<p>According to RiskReversal Advisors’ founder and principal Dan Nathan, this commentary may have been encouraging to investors “buying into what they think is a ‘make the quarter at any cost mentality’ as Musk is known to send out encouraging messages to employees as he did last week.” Nathan adds that “over the last year, shares of Tesla in the last month of each quarter have had huge rallies in the last couple weeks of the month from their lows.” But he also cautions that Musk’s comments about a recession and lingering China production issues “might be setting investors up for a miss on Q2 deliveries and earnings.”</p>



<p>GLJ Research CEO Gordon Johnson says that Tesla’s soaring stock price is due to broader market factors, noting that with stocks coming off their worst week since March 2020 last week, “the 14-day relative strength index of the S&amp;P 500 suggests the stock market is currently oversold, and high-beta stocks like Tesla were due for a bounce.” (Stocks with high beta coefficients generally move more than the broad market in either direction.)</p>



<p>“But none of this is fundamental,” says Johnson, a Tesla bear, who says he expects the company’s Q2 deliveries and earnings to disappoint. “Thus, with Tesla trading at a ~50x forward P/E multiple vs. 4.6x for its peer group, we see any fundamental disappointments as likely sending the shares lower.”</p>



<p>That prospect may be daunting for both Tesla investors and the company’s TechnoKing Elon Musk. But at least for now, he remains the world’s richest person by a longshot, worth $228.4 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates–-$88 billion more than No. 2 richest Bernard Arnault of French luxury conglomerate LVMH.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Matt Durot, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


TIME Person of the Year

Why Elon Musk Is Nearly $15 Billion Richer Tuesday


<p><strong>Aliko Dangote’s just-launched fertilizer plant expected to help earn Nigeria about $5 billion in export revenue.</strong></p>



<p>IN MARCH, AFRICA’S RICHEST MAN, ALIKO DANGOTE, opened A $2.5 billion urea and ammonia fertilizer plant in Nigeria commissioned by the country’s President Muhammadu Buhari.</p>



<p>In an interview with FORBES AFRICA, Dangote, the president and CEO of Dangote Group, the continent’s largest cement producer, says the new fertilizer plant, which has already started production, could lead to Nigeria earning about $5 billion in export revenue.</p>



<p>“We are getting a huge demand from all over the world with massive orders from the European Union,” says the billionaire entrepreneur, who is also opening an oil refinery, expected to be Africa’s biggest with the capacity to produce 650,000 barrels per day, by the third quarter of 2022.</p>



<p>The war in Ukraine and the sanctions against Russia, the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers, have meant disrupted global supply chains and this has ignited the price of fertilizers for Africa’s small-scale farmers. Fertilizers provide healthy nutrients for crops and experts say the current impasse can stifle agricultural growth and lead to hunger on the continent.</p>



<p>“As they say, when Nigeria sneezes, the rest of Africa catches a cold and that is exactly what is happening. The Dangote fertilizer plant is important to Africa because with the Ukraine and Russia war, it is just a matter of months that some parts of Africa will be plunged into hunger. We need to have agricultural solutions that do not just rely on the West but rather on Africa,” says Franklin Cudjoe, Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, a think tank based in Accra, Ghana, to FORBES AFRICA.</p>



<p>Nitrogen, potash and phosphate that are important for fertilizer manufacture also come from Russia and Ukraine. The countries’ leading position stems from their influence on the gas ecosystem too. Fertilizers are a by-product of ammonia created when mixing nitrogen and hydrogen gas.</p>



<p>“The price of nitrogen fertilizer has skyrocketed in recent months. In Europe, we are looking at about 1,000 euros per ton. Now, if more developed economies in Europe are struggling with the cost of fertilizer, what do you think the impact on Africa will be,” asks Farouk Rabiu Mudi, President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN).</p>



<p>Dangote’s fertilizer factory, located in Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lagos, sits on 500 hectares (over 1,200 acres) of land with capacity to produce three million metric tons of urea yearly. The Dangote Group’s website cites the plant as Africa’s largest granulated urea fertilizer complex.</p>



<p>The oil refinery, also at the same location, will boast 1,100kms of subsea pipeline infrastructure to handle 3 billion Standard Cubic Foot (SCF) of gas per day produced for commercial use.</p>



<p>Nigeria has struggled for years to diversify its economy from oil dependency to other value-added sectors. The former minister of agriculture and President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, has asserted Nigeria’s need to diversify its export base to a high- value market product that will pursue wealth creation and value-added manufacturing.</p>



<p>The commissioning of the fertilizer factory by the Dangote Group is expected to boost the investment in the sector and hopefully lead to self-sufficiency in food production for the continent.</p>


Key Speakers and Interviews at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum

Aliko Dangote On $2.5 Billion Fertilizer Plant: ‘Massive Orders From The EU’


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants to lay off around 10% of Tesla’s workforce due to his concerns about the state of the global economy, Reuters&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-musk-says-tesla-needs-cut-staff-by-10-pauses-all-hiring-2022-06-03/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>&nbsp;on Friday citing an internal email sent to company executives, a move that could see thousands of workers at the electric car maker lose their jobs amid growing fears of a recession.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-musk-says-tesla-needs-cut-staff-by-10-pauses-all-hiring-2022-06-03/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">According to</a>&nbsp;Reuters, Musk sent an email on Thursday ordering a freeze on new hiring and wrote that he has a “super bad feeling” about the state of the economy.</p>



<p>Despite the purported email, Tesla’s LinkedIn&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/tesla-motors/jobs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">page</a>&nbsp;continues to show more than 5,000 active new openings at the company as of early Friday morning.</p>



<p>According to last year’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000095017022000796/tsla-20211231.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">earnings report</a>, Tesla and its subsidiaries had 99,290 active employees at the end of 2021.</p>



<p>The markets reacted negatively to Reuters’ report with Tesla’s Nasdaq-listed shares being down 3.8% in pre-market trading early on Friday morning.</p>



<p>Tesla did not respond to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’ request for comment.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>$233.7 billion. That’s Musk’s total net worth as of Friday morning, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#4b8c67493d78">real-time tracker</a>, making him the richest person in the world. The mercurial billionaire’s net worth has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/05/20/why-elon-musk-is-11-billion-poorer-friday/?sh=722d89e5380a">fluctuated significantly</a>&nbsp;over the past two months as the saga over his planned acquisition of Twitter has played out.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk’s reported call for job cuts at Tesla comes just days after another controversial email allegedly written by him was leaked to the public. In the email, the billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/06/01/musk-says-tesla-staff-can-pretend-to-work-somewhere-else-following-leaked-emails-ending-remote-work/?sh=1e75c2a81d8b">reportedly ordered</a>&nbsp;Tesla executive staff to return to work a minimum of 40 hours a week from the company’s office, effectively barring full remote work. Musk did not confirm or deny that he wrote the email and when asked about people who want to work remotely he&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1531867103854317568" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;“they should pretend to work somewhere else.” Last month, speaking at an event organized by the&nbsp;<em>Financial Times</em>, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfyrQVhfGZc&amp;t=3506s" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">praised</a>&nbsp;Tesla’s factory workers in China, saying they were willing to work long hours, sometimes as late as 3 a.m. and not even leave the factory if needed. He then took a dig at American workers, saying: “People are trying to avoid going to work at all.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-musk-says-tesla-needs-cut-staff-by-10-pauses-all-hiring-2022-06-03/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Exclusive: Elon Musk wants to cut 10% of Tesla jobs</a>&nbsp;(Reuters)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/06/01/musk-says-tesla-staff-can-pretend-to-work-somewhere-else-following-leaked-emails-ending-remote-work/?sh=1e75c2a81d8b">Musk Says Tesla Staff Can ‘Pretend To Work Somewhere Else’ Following Leaked Emails Ending Remote Work</a> (Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/"></a>Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk Reportedly Wants To Lay Off 10% Of Tesla’s Workforce As He Frets About The Economy


<p>Elon Musk will drop one of the riskier components behind his $44 billion bid for Twitter, a move you can read as a smart one given the single direction markets have moved over the past few weeks: down, down, down.</p>



<p>Musk has scrapped a plan to take out a margin loan as part of his financing for the $54.20-a-share takeover, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001494730/000110465922064655/tm2216931d1_sc13da.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a new SEC filing</a>. Originally, he intended to use a $12.5 billion such loan, but several weeks ago, he halved the figure after bringing in additional investors to the deal. Now, he says he’ll make up that $6.25 billion with additional equity. This doesn’t affect another $13 billion in standard corporate debt involved in the deal.</p>



<p>If Musk had taken the margin loan, he would’ve secured it with his Tesla stock, some $31.25 billion based on the loan’s terms. With Tesla stock falling, he was in the position of needing more Tesla shares to cover the loan. Margin loans are a gamble in the best of times. Even more so during financially distressing ones, such as the period&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/05/18/dow-falls-800-points-stock-market-selloff-continues-as-major-retailers-warn-of-rising-cost-pressures/">we currently find ourselves in</a>.</p>



<p>If things worsened, there was the outside possibility Musk could face a so-called margin call, when the equity securing a margin loan has deteriorated and a lender forces a loan’s repayment. Had this happened, Musk would’ve needed to sell Tesla stock all pell-mell style, depressing the share price further. (The most dramatic margin calls lead to dramatic ends, spirals that consume and end a company’s fortunes. It probably wouldn’t happen to Tesla, but it would’ve definitely made a bad situation even worse.) Musk’s lender,&nbsp;Morgan Stanley, had set a threshold of a 40% decline in Tesla stock to trigger such an event. With Tesla stock already down almost 25% in the past month, you get a sense of Musk’s circumstances: Significantly changed from when he first talked about taking over Twitter in April, that is is to say.</p>



<p>As with everything Musk-Twitter, there are complications to this turn of events. Foremost, where will he get the $6.5 billion in equity to replace the margin loan?</p>



<p>He’ll need to do one of two things. Possibly, he’ll sell more Tesla shares, not a great scenario in a down market. Doing so will further depress Tesla stock. Or he will need to find more friends to join his merry band, also not a great scenario. If it was hard to convince investors a month ago before markets wilted—and judging by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=forbes+alwaleed+abram&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS907US907&amp;oq=forbes+alwaleed+abram&amp;aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l3.4782j0j4&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the dearth</a>&nbsp;of traditional high-profile names on the deal table, it sure seems like it was difficult—it&#8217;ll be even tougher to talk people into it now. In down markets, investors run away from companies like Twitter, scantily profitable ones and forever something of a commercial disappointment. They do not tend to run toward them. Twitter shares ended Thursday at $37.16, much below Musk’s $54.20 offer.</p>



<p>And it’s not just that! Imagine going out on a fundraising tour right now to buy a company you’ve just spent the past few weeks maligning, accusing it of mismanaging basics like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/05/16/twitter-bots-bot-spam-musk-ceo-parag-agrawal/">estimating spam</a>. It’d be as if Musk hoped to find someone to partner with him on a fixer-upper after he stood in the street yelling about how the place has rats and bad wiring. (<em>But don’t worry, I know a good exterminator. This house will be great after I’m done with it,&nbsp;</em>he will presumably need to tell any new co-investors. Justifiably, they may then look at him sorta funny and wonder if they should quickly get back in their cars.<em>)</em></p>



<p>Plus, the other matter: Hasn’t Musk said the whole thing’s on hold over those spam numbers? In a sense, you can look at his decision about the margin loan as a sign it’s very much <em>not</em> on hold, and Musk expects to follow through. Why drop the margin loan and make the SEC filing if he didn’t? Looks like he might buy the place after all—even if it does have pests.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/"></a><em><strong>By Abram Brown, Forbes Staff</strong></em></p>


Elon Musk visits construction site of the Tesla Giga Factory

Elon Musk Drops Margin Loan From Twitter Bid, Making It A Little Less Risky


<p><em>Tesla shares are down 15% since last Friday, making it a bad week for the world’s richest person.</em></p>



<p>Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk lost $15.7 billion of his net worth on Wednesday, as shares of his electric vehicle maker fell by 8%. The world’s richest person (worth an estimated $224.5 billion) is now $31.4 billion poorer than he was last Friday, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;estimates, as Tesla’s market capitalization has cratered by 15% this week –far more than the 6% drop in the tech-heavy Nasdaq.</p>



<p>According to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, “Shanghai factory issues due to the zero Covid policy in China have been a major overhang on the stock in an already jittery tape”—referring to the drop in tech stocks, which Ives describes as a “massive risk off with Tesla front and center.” With inflation surging and interest rates rising, investors’ appetite for assets considered to be relatively speculative is waning.</p>



<p>Speaking at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/87e5eff2-ff1a-4d46-93e0-5b9f889d00df?accessToken=zwAAAYC0oJPYkdOH5e_y_xpNRtOT4FufiJ0A3w.MEUCIFcpLCsKR2ow07gCP96vRF-Cj7hhId9IWTnF36bxSymVAiEAnEt372gBHy6OHmwtF4SpnYGHw3SY05sPw5-CrQdM2Es&amp;sharetype=gift?token=dcba43c8-9800-441d-875b-891e12a76dc5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Financial Times’ Future of the Car Summit</a>&nbsp;Tuesday, Musk did his best to alleviate investors’ concerns, citing encouraging conversations he’s had with the Chinese government in recent days about the country’s latest round of lockdowns, though he did hint at the possibility of restricting new Tesla orders in the short-term.</p>



<p>“We’re actually probably going to limit that — just stop taking orders for anything beyond a certain period of time,” Musk said.</p>



<p>That must have been discouraging to hear for Tesla investors already concerned about the distraction posed by Musk’s $44 billion Twitter takeover. At the FT summit Tuesday, the Tesla chief insisted that he is “confident we will be able to sell all the cars we can make.” But according to Wedbush’s Ives, “Musk distraction issues remain at play as an overhang on the stock.” By distraction, Ives means the ongoing process of purchasing Twitter.</p>



<p>While the Tesla CEO announced he has raised $7.1 billion from a group of A-List investors last Thursday to help fund his Twitter acquisition, he still hasn’t explained where the remainder of the $27.3 billion equity commitment he made to Twitter’s board will come from. And the list of potential distractions for Musk, who already runs two companies, keeps getting longer.</p>



<p>According to an investor pitch deck leaked to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/technology/elon-musk-twitter-pitch-deck.html?msclkid=258e7fe9d15f11eca815c10fac2bb1cc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>New York Times&nbsp;</em></a>last Friday, Musk’s Twitter turnaround plans may be even more ambitious than Tesla investors imagined: he reportedly hopes to quadruple users and quintuple revenue by 2028, while cutting Twitter’s reliance on its main revenue source (advertising) in half. That sounds like a lot of work for Musk, who is expected to serve as Twitter’s interim CEO after the deal closes, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/05/elon-musk-expected-to-serve-as-temporary-twitter-ceo-after-deal-closes.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report by CNBC</a>. Musk has also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/05/03/musk-reportedly-plans-to-take-twitter-public-a-few-years-after-acquisition/?msclkid=8290748cd16411ecb1d43e7c781e4ff7&amp;sh=3c4239db92b6">reportedly said</a>&nbsp;that he plans to take Twitter public again in as few as three years, hinting at a time consuming IPO process lingering down the road.</p>



<p>And that’s assuming the deal closes promptly. Twitter short-seller Hindenburg Research is betting that won’t be the case, saying in a&nbsp;<a href="https://hindenburgresearch.com/twitter/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">note released Monday</a>&nbsp;that it sees “a significant risk that the deal gets repriced lower” due to the declining values of tech companies since Musk made his initial offer. In other words, Musk may have some bargaining left to do with Twitter’s board.</p>



<p>Musk could always just walk away from the deal, which keeps on getting more expensive. His stake in Tesla, worth $167 billion today, was worth $235.1 billion on April 13, the day before he announced his Twitter takeover–meaning Musk was more than $68 billion richer before he made his plans for the social media company public. For now, Musk remains the world’s richest person by a long shot, worth $78.3 billion more than runner-up Bernard Arnault of French luxury empire LVMH. But at some point, the Twitter deal’s $1 billion breakup fee may start to look like a bargain.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Matt Durot, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Why Elon Musk Is $30 Billion Poorer This Week


<p id="h-newly-valued-at-2-billion-the-ai-50-debutant-originated-as-a-chatbot-for-teenagers-now-it-has-aspirations-and-100-million-in-fresh-dry-powder-to-be-the-github-of-machine-learning"><strong>Newly valued at $2 billion, the </strong><a href="https://www.forbes.com/lists/ai50/"><strong>AI 50</strong></a><strong> debutant originated as a chatbot for teenagers. Now, it has aspirations—and $100 million in fresh dry powder—to be the GitHub of machine learning.</strong></p>



<p>When Hugging Face first announced itself to the world five years ago, it came in the form of an iPhone chatbot app for bored teenagers. It shared selfies of its computer-generated face, cracked jokes and gossiped about its crush on Siri. It hardly made any money.</p>



<p>The viral moment came in 2018—not among teens, but developers. The founders of Hugging Face had begun to share bits of the app’s underlying code online for free. Almost immediately, researchers from some of the biggest tech names in the business, including Google and Microsoft, began using it for AI applications. Today, the chatbot has long since disappeared from the App Store, but Hugging Face has become the central depot for ready-to-use machine-learning models, the starting point from which more than 10,000 organizations have created AI-powered tools for their businesses.</p>



<p>Hugging Face announced Monday, in conjunction with its debut appearance on&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/lists/ai50">AI 50</a>&nbsp;list, that it raised a $100 million round of venture financing, valuing the company at $2 billion. Top-tier venture capital firms Coatue and Sequoia won slots as new backers in the hotly contested Series C, joining A.Capital Ventures,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2020/07/01/lee-fixel-raises-1-billion-fund-addition/">Addition</a>&nbsp;Capital and lead investor Lux Capital as major stakeholders in the Brooklyn-based startup.</p>



<p>“Machine learning is becoming the new way to build technology, replacing software,” says Clément Delangue, cofounder and CEO of Hugging Face, which is named after the emoji that looks like a smiling face with jazz hands. “The old school of building technology was writing a million lines of code. Machine learning is starting to do that, but much better and much faster.”</p>



<p>Speaking from his home in Miami, where he moved during the pandemic (weather, not web3, he explains), Delangue, 33, says he believes that what GitHub is for software, Hugging Face has become for machine learning. That’s a confident comparison, considering the widespread popularity of GitHub, which is used by more than 70 million developers to share and collaborate on code and was last recorded making $300 million in revenue at the time of its $7.5 billion sale to Microsoft in 2018. Hugging Face, by contrast, generated less than $10 million last year, according to three people familiar with its finances. Delangue declines to comment on the number, but he and investors think that machine learning is already becoming the single most important technology of the 2020s, and that Hugging Face can eventually make billions in revenue with its own army of AI-minded developers.</p>



<p>“The companies you would assume are competitors on first blush—whether it’s Google or Amazon or Facebook—almost all of them are proponents,” says Lux Capital’s Brandon Reeves, who first invested in Hugging Face in 2019. “It really feels like this Switzerland-like piece of real estate in the ecosystem.”</p>



<p>“I don’t really see a world where machine learning becomes the default way to build technology and where Hugging Face is the No. 1 platform for this, and we don’t manage to generate several billion dollars in revenue.”Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue</p>



<p>Growing up in La Bassée, a small town of 6,000 in the north of France, Delangue recalls an idle childhood until he got his first computer at age 12. By 17, he’d become one of the top French merchants on eBay, selling ATVs and dirt bikes he imported from China and stockpiled in his father’s garden equipment shop. That prowess impressed eBay, which offered him an internship once he began college at ESCP Business School in Paris. Representing the company at an e-commerce trade show, Delangue was accosted by another attendee who trashed eBay’s recent acquisition of a barcode-scanning app—barcodes, the man said, would soon be obsolete because of advances in AI.</p>



<p>The man turned out to be a cofounder of Moodstocks, a startup making image-recognition software using machine learning. “With a very small team, they were managing to do stuff on par with what Google was doing with 100 times more people,” he says (years later, the company was acquired by Google). Impressed by the nimbleness of startups, Delangue never looked back. He declined eBay’s offer to extend his internship so that he could spend his free time at Moodstocks. After graduating in 2012, he turned down a job from Google to run his own startup. Delangue’s idea for a collaborative note-taking app didn’t go far, but in the tight-knit European startup scene he met Julien Chaumond, a fellow entrepreneur building a collaborative ebook reader. The pair riffed on their mutual interest in open technology and talked about starting a company together.</p>



<p>That time came in 2016, after both their companies had ground to a halt. A third cofounder was recruited in Thomas Wolf, a college friend of Chaumond’s who had gone on to receive a Ph.D. in physics and written research papers on machine learning. For the business idea, they settled on “open-domain conversational AI”—in other words, a chatbot that could understand any kind of conversation topic—because they felt it was the most difficult problem in technology they had the expertise to tackle at the time, Delangue says. “There’s this dream we all have to speak with an AI about everything, like you see in sci-fi.”</p>



<p>Hugging Face began as a personalized, Tamagotchi-like friend powered by a form of AI known as natural language processing (NLP). To train the chatbot’s natural language capabilities, the team also built an underlying library to house various machine-learning models—for example, one to detect the emotions behind a text message and another to be able to generate a coherent response—and the many datasets for understanding different kinds of conversational topics, like sports or classroom gossip. Harking back to the founders’ values for open collaboration, they released free pieces of the library as an open-source project on GitHub. The company participated in a bot-specific accelerator program run by the New York-based startup studio Betaworks and raised seed funding from venture capitalists as well as NBA star Kevin Durant. But two years in, their chatbot hadn’t made much money and was losing its hold on the attention spans of its young users.</p>



<p>Around the same time, researchers at Google and OpenAI announced the development of “transformers,” a new type of NLP model that demolished the reading comprehension abilities of both humans and the best AI incumbent at the time. By 2019, Google was powering its search results using this model. Hugging Face’s open-source library appeared at the perfect time for organizations that wanted to harness these NLP breakthroughs but didn’t have the same machinery as Google to build them from scratch. It became a near-instant hit as the machine-learning community converged around it as the central base for deploying transformer models. “We released things without thinking too much about it and the community blew up, as a surprise even to us,” Delangue says.</p>



<p>Reeves, the Lux investor, first met Delangue at a coffee shop in downtown San Francisco on a Friday near the end of 2019. Scared to miss out on a chance to invest, he offered a term sheet the following Monday at an $80 million valuation. “For 90% of the companies I’ve invested in, I’ve known them for many weeks or months or years,” he says. “I don’t think any have come over a weekend.” Since Delangue accepted Lux’s check, usage has continued to skyrocket. The developer community has built more than 100,000 machine learning models on Hugging Face, enabling others in turn to use those pretrained models for their own AI projects instead of having to build models from scratch. On GitHub, Hugging Face has accumulated “stars”—a vanity metric measuring the popularity of an open-source project—at a faster pace than the projects behind&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/06/24/confluent-shares-jump-25-in-ipo-making-co-founders-new-cloud-computing-billionaires/">Confluent</a>&nbsp;(annual revenue of $388 million),&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2021/05/26/accidental-billionaires-databricks-ceo-ali-ghodsi-seven-berkeley-academics/">Databricks</a>&nbsp;(more than $800 million) and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2017/10/19/mongodbs-ipo-gives-new-york-tech-a-much-needed-win-as-shares-jump-25/">MongoDB</a>&nbsp;($874 million).</p>



<p>Although funding rounds for companies with similar stature were plentiful in 2021, the growth-stage venture capital market has since&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccaszkutak/2022/03/23/record-setting-venture-capital-market-shows-signs-of-a-slowdown/">slowed</a>&nbsp;to a near halt. Hugging Face’s latest financing then indicates a more rarified vote of investor confidence, but some in the data startup ecosystem have privately expressed curiosity about how Delangue can grow Hugging Face’s revenue enough to validate its hefty valuation. Delangue thinks that if enough free users get hooked on Hugging Face, the money will follow in time from some of the companies that employ the users. “Given how valuable machine learning is and how mainstream it’s becoming, usage is deferred revenue,” Delangue says. “I don’t really see a world where machine learning becomes the default way to build technology and where Hugging Face is the No. 1 platform for this, and we don’t manage to generate several billion dollars in revenue.”</p>



<p>Hugging Face only started to offer paid features last year and counts more than 1,000 companies as customers, according to Delangue, including Intel and his former stomping ground eBay. Pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Roche pay for enterprise-grade security features, while Bloomberg is paying to run machine learning for its real-time terminal through Hugging Face instead of having to build out its own infrastructure. Microsoft is not a customer, but prominently uses Hugging Face as the basis to train its Bing search engine to better understand natural language queries.</p>



<p>“They prioritized adoption over monetization, which I think was correct,” says Sequoia partner Pat Grady, one of the new investors. “They saw that transformer-based models working their way outside of NLP and saw a chance to be the GitHub not just for NLP, but for every domain of machine learning.” Indeed, over the course of the last year, Hugging Face has started to become a hub for machine learning models for a variety of uses, such as computer vision to train image recognition in self-driving cars and recommender systems to help pharmaceutical companies predict the effectiveness of new drug therapies.</p>



<p>If his assumptions of machine learning supremacy are wrong, Delangue says Hugging Face is close to breakeven and has all $40 million from its previous fundraise still in the bank to reorient. “One of my personal learnings as an entrepreneur is to not think too much strategically with a big business plan of ten years, but more to experiment and follow the validation of the community and what they’re telling you,” he says. If the vision pans out, Reeves thinks the prize could be a $50 billion or $100 billion market capitalization on the stock market. It’s no wonder that Delangue says he’s turned down multiple “meaningful acquisition offers” and won’t sell his business, like GitHub did to Microsoft.</p>



<p>“We want to be the first company to go public with an emoji, rather than a three-letter ticker,” he says with an emoji-like smile. “We have to start doing some lobbying to the Nasdaq to make sure it can happen.”</p>



<p>B<strong><em>y Kenrick Cai, Forbes Staff </em></strong></p>


Screenshot 2022-05-10 at 10.02.49

The $2 Billion Emoji: Hugging Face Wants To Be Launchpad For A Machine Learning Revolution


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk is looking for additional equity financing for his planned $44 billion purchase of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/twitter/?sh=2f10336d22a3">Twitter</a>, Reuters&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-musk-talks-new-twitter-financing-sources-2022-05-02/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>&nbsp;Monday, which could allow the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/">billionaire</a>&nbsp;to reduce the amount of his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbesindia.com/article/news/musk-offloads-4-billion-in-tesla-shares-after-twitter-deal/75805/1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">own money</a>&nbsp;bound up in the acquisition without taking out more loans.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/tesla/">Tesla</a>&nbsp;CEO has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-musk-talks-new-twitter-financing-sources-2022-05-02/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">approached</a>&nbsp;investment firms including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/apollo-global-management/?sh=5a842bd17358">Apollo Global Management</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/ares-management/">Ares Management</a>, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.</p>



<p>Musk is reportedly communicating with hedge funds, private equity companies and wealthy individuals about the possibility of obtaining equity financing.</p>



<p>Musk has offered to pay for Twitter through&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001418091/000110465922048128/tm2213229d1_sc13da.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$21 billion</a>&nbsp;in equity financing, in addition to a $12.5 billion&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/elon-musk-to-acquire-twitter-twtr/">margin loan</a>&nbsp;against part of his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/04/26/why-elon-musk-is-already-26-billion-poorer-because-hes-buying-twitter/">21% stake</a>&nbsp;in Tesla and $13 billion in loans secured against Twitter assets.</p>



<p>Some banks that offered to support the acquisition with loans secured against Twitter have hesitated to provide additional debt financing,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-musk-talks-new-twitter-financing-sources-2022-05-02/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Reuters</a>&nbsp;reported, noting that banks think Twitter did not generate sufficient cash flow to justify more loans.</p>



<p>However, Reuters said Musk is still deliberating on whether to enlist equity partners to help shoulder his own $21 billion share of funding for the Twitter acquisition.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



<p>Musk has also contacted major Twitter shareholders—including founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jack-dorsey/?sh=4d4b5b992372">Jack Dorsey</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/companies/fidelity-investments/?sh=234e8055370a">Fidelity</a>—about the prospect of holding onto their stakes in the company’s new structure, Reuters&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-musk-talks-new-twitter-financing-sources-2022-05-02/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>. Musk has previously&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-14/the-twitter-investors-musk-hopes-to-keep-may-not-want-to-stay" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">suggested</a>&nbsp;that he wants to retain as many existing Twitter shareholders as possible following the planned acquisition.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk disclosed April 4 he had acquired a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/04/04/elon-musk-acquires-92-stake-in-twitter/">9.2%</a>&nbsp;stake in Twitter, and later made his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/masonbissada/2022/04/26/musks-twitter-purchase-includes-1-billion-fee-if-deal-falls-through/?sh=7872cf3eb15a">“best and final offer”</a>&nbsp;to purchase the entire company for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/04/25/twitter-elon-musk-takeover-bid-deal-43-billion-54-20/?sh=191965d8b680">$54.20 per share</a>&nbsp;The board first adopted a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-moves-to-block-elon-musk-from-increasing-stake-11650040204?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“poison pill”</a>&nbsp;defense to deter a hostile takeover, but several days after Musk announced he had secured&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/04/21/elon-musk-has-secured-465-billion-in-financing-for-twitter-bid-considers-tender-offer/?sh=2a43ef2316a4">$46.5 billion</a>&nbsp;in financing, the board accepted his offer. Despite setting a lofty goal of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/technology/twitter-earnings-4q-2021.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">doubling revenue</a>&nbsp;from 2021 to 2023, Twitter’s growth has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/04/27/twitters-first-quarter-earnings-sojust-how-bad-are-they/">lagged</a>&nbsp;expectations. In the&nbsp;<a href="https://s22.q4cdn.com/826641620/files/doc_financials/2022/q1/Final-Q1%E2%80%9922-earnings-release.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">first quarter</a>&nbsp;of 2022, Twitter’s revenue grew by 16% year-over-year to $1.2 billion. The company’s net income grew 655% year-over-year to $513 million, though this growth was due mostly to a gain of $970 million from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/martyswant/2021/10/06/twitter-is-selling-its-mobile-ad-network-mopub-to-applovin-for-105-billion/">sale</a>&nbsp;of the mobile ad network MoPub, and the company reported an operating loss of $128 million in the first quarter. Musk said he intends to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/musk-told-banks-he-will-rein-twitter-pay-make-money-tweets-sources-2022-04-29/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">boost</a>&nbsp;Twitter’s profitability by offering new opportunities to monetize tweets and that he intends to cut costs by reducing Twitter board member salaries from roughly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/05/02/musk-criticizes-twitters-executive-compensation-heres-how-it-compares-to-rivals-meta-snap-and-alphabet/">$290,000</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1516056299376623626?s=20&amp;t=gPll1s9GF3Pt_5KAO4G7iw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$0</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/">$253.6 billion.</a>&nbsp;That’s how much Musk is worth, making him the world’s richest person, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’ estimates. His stakes in Tesla and SpaceX account for most of his fortune.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/04/29/how-musk-already-owns-twitter-the-8-top-tweets-in-the-past-week/">“How Musk Already Owns Twitter: The 8 Top Tweets In The Past Week”</a> (Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/"></a>Zachary Snowdon Smith, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Musk Reportedly Seeks More Financing For Twitter Acquisition


<p><strong>At the recent Forbes Under 30 Summit Africa in Botswana, Patrice Motsepe called for more urgent investments in young people.</strong></p>



<p>President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and South African billionaire, Patrice Motsepe, called for the greater promotion of African football, also urging investments in young startups, at the recent Forbes Under 30 Summit Africa, held in Botswana from April 24-28.</p>



<p>In a keynote conversation on the second day of the summit, Motsepe took to the stage at the Botswana Digital and Innovation Hub in the country’s capital Gaborone, addressing as many as 600 entrepreneurs attending from across Africa and the world. The summit was also attended by Botswana’s President, Mokgweetsi Masisi.</p>



<p>“The young people seated here, in front of me, reflect some of the brightest in the world,” said<br>Motsepe, adding that it is “an exceptional time” for Africa.</p>



<p>“We have got to invest in infrastructure and finance and encourage more young people start startups<br>and keep starting again.”</p>



<p>Starting businesses in Africa is not the same as in the rest of the world, he pointed out. The situation in Africa is marginally different and at this point of entrepreneurship in Africa, the continent should not feel obligated to compete with the rest of the world. Motsepe stated that what the continent needs currently, is more real contribution than anything else.</p>



<p>“There are 300 million young people between the ages 15-25 on the African continent. We have to<br>connect with them. We have to be where they are. We have to hear what they say. The future for Africa<br>is exciting and beautiful.”</p>



<p>According to the African Development Bank, 22% of Africa’s working-age population are starting businesses. The report further stated that this is the highest entrepreneurship rate in the world.</p>



<p>“The best ideas are not sitting in some corporate office,” Motsepe told the delegates in the audience.</p>



<p>“The hardest part of any venture is when you start. Because when you succeed, success perpetuates itself. There’s money available for opportunities, but they have to be profitable and sustainable. If it’s not profitable, try something else.”</p>


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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk sold more than 4.4 million shares of electric car company Tesla earlier this week for just under $4 billion, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings released Thursday evening, shortly after the billionaire Tesla CEO agreed to buy Twitter.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The sales took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, at prices ranging between about $872 and $999 per share,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001318605/000089924322015923/xslF345X03/doc4.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001318605/000089924322015924/xslF345X03/doc4.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">regulatory</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001318605/000089924322015949/xslF345X03/doc4.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">filings</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001318605/000089924322015942/xslF345X03/doc4.xml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>.</p>



<p>Musk still owns more than 168 million shares of Tesla.</p>



<p>Shortly after the sales were disclosed, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519850299757846530" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>: “No further TSLA sales planned after today.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>$246.2 billion. That’s Musk’s net worth, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’ estimates. His stakes in Tesla and rocket maker SpaceX account for most of his wealth.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Twitter’s board of directors&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/04/25/twitter-elon-musk-takeover-bid-deal-43-billion-54-20/?sh=7dd98932b680">agreed Monday</a>&nbsp;to sell the company to Musk, wrapping up a dramatic period that began with Musk buying up 9.2% of Twitter and later making an unsolicited bid to purchase the entire social media company at a valuation of $44 billion. The deal—which still needs to be approved by Twitter’s shareholders—<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/musk-s-21-billion-mystery-where-will-he-get-cash-for-twitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">will require Musk</a>&nbsp;to come up with some cash: The billionaire offered to pay for Twitter using $21 billion in equity financing, in addition to more than $20 billion in loans.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



<p>Shares of Tesla have fallen more than 12% this week, closing at $877.51 Thursday. Some <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/04/26/why-elon-musk-is-already-26-billion-poorer-because-hes-buying-twitter/?sh=6411f8ea7977">analysts think</a> the sliding share prices are tied to Musk’s commitment to buying Twitter, which could distract the Tesla CEO and force him to sell part of his stake in the company.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/"></a><strong><em>By Joe Walsh, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk Sells About $4 Billion In Tesla Shares Ahead Of Planned Twitter Purchase


<p>Phewww. That was fast!</p>



<p>A little over 11 days after Elon Musk proposed paying $54 a share for Twitter, the company’s board&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/04/25/twitter-elon-musk-takeover-bid-deal-43-billion-54-20/">approved the transaction</a>&nbsp;on Monday, a surprise reversal. Twitter initially seemed opposed to the idea—it&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/04/15/twitter-board-adopts-poison-pill-to-fend-off-elon-musks-takeover-bid/">adopted</a>&nbsp;a poison pill, a defense against an unsolicited bid like Musk’s—but warmed up to it last weekend after Musk detailed how he could pay for it. Answer: A lot of debt (about $25 billion), some equity (roughly $21 billion), all of it wrapped in Musk’s Tesla shares. (He has lots of those, around $230 billion worth of them.) It adds up to a $44 billion price tag on Twitter, a 38% premium over where the stock traded when Musk first disclosed his shareholding.</p>



<p>So that’s it—Elon won? Can we expect to see a spaceship in employee parking starting any day? Truthfully, we’re a few orbits around the sun from that, but Musk is definitely on course to getting what he says he wants.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-are-musk-s-next-steps"><strong>What Are Musk’s Next Steps?</strong></h3>



<p>The agreement between Twitter’s board and Musk doesn’t seem to include a “go-shop period.” Some buyout deals have these provisions, a time in which the board welcomes any competing bids. (It’s like when the auctioneer with the honeyed voice starts with, “Going once, going…”) Go-shops vary in length, their terms dictated by what buyer and seller agree to. (Generally, about a month to six weeks.) Adding a go-shop is seen as favorable for investors, the board doing its best to get them the highest price. But go-shops aren’t required by law in Delaware, where Twitter is incorporated, so it’s not totally strange for Twitter not to do one. (Skipping it will add to the feeling on Wall Street that even with JPMorgan’s and Goldman Sachs’ help, Twitter found little interest when it shopped itself around over the last few weeks, trying to avoid Musk.)</p>



<p>Musk will next make a $54.20 tender offer to raise his shareholding in Twitter to at least 50% or higher. A tender offer is where he asks shareholders to sell him their shares. He owns 9.2%, some 73.5 million shares. To get over 50%, he needs another 319.5 million shares, which will cost $17.2 billion. Easy-peasy. He has $46 billion in financing lined up.</p>



<p>As the board deliberated last weekend, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjL44qE37D3AhUEhYkEHRnMABUQFnoECBMQAQ&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Ftwitter-re-examines-elon-musks-bid-may-be-more-receptive-to-a-deal-11650822932%3Fmod%3Dbusiness_minor_pos7&amp;usg=AOvVaw1cn50CEzdyOCsYbH4fWzK9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly</a>&nbsp;spent the weekend on the phone with big shareholders, wooing them. From there, it doesn’t require any rocket science: Musk or some member(s) of Team Musk have undoubtedly added up the yeses from last weekend and knows Musk can cross over to majority control. There is the fairly unlikely scenario of some sudden shareholder revolt, stopping him from passing 50%. Again, pretty unlikely. The board has given its stamp of approval, and the deal has received a thumbs-up from many of the analysts following Twitter.</p>



<p>The tender offer will stay open for 20 business days. “And then any shareholder who didn’t tender into his offer will get cleaned up by the company,” says Brian Quinn, a corporate law professor at Boston College. “The company cuts you a check for $54.20 for every share you still own.”</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-could-stop-musk"><strong>What Could Stop Musk?</strong></h3>



<p>Other than some unforeseen act of god, very little. U.S. regulators don’t seem likely to oppose it over anti-trust concerns, since Twitter is not combining with, say, Snap or something.</p>



<p>What we can’t account for or really predict is some act of Elon. In anything Musk-related, there is a small but non-zero chance of the once-in-a-lifetime unexpected thing happening right now, immediately at this point in our lifetimes. The man truly redefines convention and predictability. One minute, he’s on Twitter&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517707521343082496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">making penis jokes involving Bill Gates</a>. The next, he’s buying Twitter, having won approval from a board of 11 highly educated and well-compensated directors, including Twitter’s cofounder and (twice) former CEO, Jack Dorsey.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-are-musk-s-plans-for-twitter-and-twitter-inc"><strong>What are Musk’s Plans for Twitter—and Twitter Inc.?</strong></h3>



<p>The board expects the deal to close this year. For now, CEO Parag Agrawal is staying to see that process finish. After that, it won’t be a surprise to see him go, perhaps less than a year after taking over the job from Dorsey last November. Musk has been none too quiet about his criticism for Agrawal and current-state Twitter. If he wants to fire Agrawal, it will trigger a $38.7 million severance package, though it probably won’t come to that. More broadly, the company reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/25/23041753/twitter-ceo-elon-musk-no-layoffs-planned" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told employees</a>&nbsp;there won’t be any layoffs “at this time” during an all-hands meeting on Monday.</p>



<p>Coming up, we get see to if the spaceship executive can push Twitter into something more resembling warp speed. (And if he even really wants to.) The company had grown more ambitious in the past couple years after an earlier tangle with another initially unwelcome investor. But Wall Street had come to have increasing doubts about whether Twitter could hit lofty goals Dorsey helped set before he left. That includes revenue growing by 50% from 2021 to $7.5 billion in 2023, a bold projection that won’t be helped by (1) a general slouch in the ad market right now over consumer-spending fears, (2)&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2022/02/02/meta-stock-drops-20-after-fourth-quarter-profit-dropped-more-than-expected/?sh=31d5113d743c">continued fallout</a>&nbsp;from a change to Apple software that has made mobile ads less valuable and (3) the inherent distraction caused by a hostile takeover, even one concluding as quickly as this one. (This really did move swiftly. For comparison, the Oracle-PeopleSoft saga stretched over 18 months—18!—to get to the same point Musk and Twitter reached in less than three weeks.)</p>



<p>Musk has variously said he’d like the platform to better embrace free speech principles, reduce ads, open up its algorithm, add an editing tool, increase user verification and tamp down on spam bots. He also at one point used a TED Talk interview to suggest he didn’t really care about the business part of Twitter at all. There is, of course, the entire other part of Twitter, the cultural cache it emanates—the part that for 16 years has made Twitter a draw for presidents and celebrities alike and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=2ahUKEwj-gbbl47D3AhVLkokEHVgKAN0QvOMEKAB6BAgDEAE&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-will-not-return-to-twitter-even-if-elon-musk-purchases-platform-will-begin-using-his-truth-social&amp;usg=AOvVaw2y3_tRqvPU0AC5ekg1oFPU" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a unhealable sore point</a>&nbsp;for one celebrity-turned-president. This culture part has always seemed in great disproportion to the business part, and such a situation is a blinking-neon invitation to someone like Musk, who will think he can finally fix what Ev Williams, Dick Costolo and Jack Dorsey (twice) could not, since, hey, it can’t be harder than rocketing men into outer space on a semi-regular basis.</p>



<p>Here’s Musk sounding very Musk-like in a press release announcing the deal, talking about the future and why he did the thing in the first place:</p>



<p>“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,&#8221; said Mr. Musk. “Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.&#8221;</p>



<p>One thing’s for certain. These alterations will take Musk much more time (and patience) than it did to buy the site in the first place.</p>



<p><strong><em>By <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/"></a>Abram Brown, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


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