Open Thread

What’s on your mind?

Comments

[Kazinski]

Elon got a big win yesterday

"The Delaware Supreme Court has restored a massive pay package awarded to Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2018 that had twice been voided by a lower court judge.

The package awarded Musk the option to purchase 303 million split-adjusted shares, a package worth $139 billion at Friday’s closing share price. Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who oversaw the bench, had found that even though Tesla shareholders twice approved the compensation plan, the size of the package was unfair to shareholders."

Delaware is losing enough revenue to affect their budget, and perhaps have to raise taxes because corporations don't trust their judges anymore, this probably isn't going to help much, but its something.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/19/business/musk-pay-package-latest

[Stephen Lathrop]

Probably is unfair to the vast majority of shareholders. A lot of what happens in per-share voting corporations is unfair to the vast majority of shareholders.

But they are stuck, aren't they? At least until shareholding, corporate governance, and American politics get reformed to run on democratic principles. Until that happens, a corporate manager who may own no shares at all can expend corporate assets at pleasure, to meddle with political processes, legal processes, and the economy, on behalf of the interests of oligarchs. The manger typically will not even tell the majority of shareholders what the manager is doing with their money, or what political outcomes the shareholders' money was spent to effect.

Given a system of corporate governance designed to support that outcome, it is probably reasonable for the highest courts to compel the others to go along. It does seem peculiar to me, however, that in a case of this type, the Delaware Chancery Court does not get ultimate jurisdiction, given the subject matter.

Of course I am in over my head to be commenting on this subject, just as Kazinski is. I would have thought Kazinski's implication that the Delaware Chancellery Court was rightly overruled would have been more frightening to corporations than otherwise.

[Kazinski]

"It does seem peculiar to me, however, that in a case of this type, the Delaware Chancery Court does not get ultimate jurisdiction, given the subject matter."

Because the Delaware Constitution gives the Delaware Supreme Court Jurisdiction?

The board voted for the pay package, and the shareholders approved it twice.

And they likely had good reasons, Elon has his Tesla stock already, he can spend all his time on other ventures if he thinks he can make more money on them. He owns 42% of SpaceX which could go public next year for as much as 1.5 trillion, he could decide to work full time on that since it could make him another half a trillion. That seems worth his time.

He could spend more time working on x.AI (originally Twitter) he spent 40 billion on that, now its only worth 200 billion, because he built a very competitive AI.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — Question begging and question answering. How are they different?

Hint: The Supreme Court is fully empowered to defer to the Chancery Court. Right? So on what basis? And why is it reassuring to Delaware corporations if the Supreme Court overrides the Chancery Court?

Seems like the only issue that interests you is cheerleading for Musk.

[Commenter_XY]

Elon well on the way to becoming the first trillionaire.

[Kazinski]

The US seized another tanker filled.with Venezuelan oil, this one had not been previously sanctioned.

"The US has seized an oil tanker that had recently departed from Venezuela, according to the US Department of Homeland Security.

It is the second time this month that the US has seized an oil-carrying ship off the country's coast.

The move comes after US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he was ordering a "blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.

The Centuries is a Panamanian-flagged ship, but in the past five years it has also sailed under the flags of Greece and Liberia, according to records seen by BBC Verify.

It is not on the US Treasury's list of sanctioned vessels."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mpy1ynnzzo

[Kazinski]

Toronto Sun is reporting surprising news, well certainly surprising to me, Mark Carney isn't a complete idiot:

"Sometimes policy change is necessitated by reality. The welcome new entente cordiale between Ottawa and Alberta, fast tracking new energy developments, marks a pleasant example.

This is all the more remarkable since Prime Minister Mark Carney, was once a leading voice against fossil fuels; as head of the Bank of England, he led the charge for banks to bankroll the much-ballyhooed transition to renewables. Yet a decade later, he appears to have shifted from a “net-zero” crusader to seeking to become “an energy superpower.”

What changed? This corresponds to the global weakening of climate hysteria. As Matt Ridley noted recently in the Spectator, extreme claims of an imminent collapse of humanity, so promoted by the likes of Greta Thunberg and groups like Extinction Rebellion, have lost their credibility on everything from sea-level rise to imminent mass starvation."

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/joel-kotkin-carney-faces-reality-110049842.html

[Frank Drackman]

Regular Gas 87 Octane $2.07/Gallon in Atlanta yesterday Premium $2.47 (my Vette gets the good stuff) adjusted for inflation it’s the same as 1964.

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

...meanwhile, thanks to refinery closures, Californian's are facing $8-$10 /gallon prices.

[Commenter_XY]

As we come to the close of Hanukah...The Epstein files: so how have we been enlightened thusfar?

Here is just a partial list:

Prince Andrew really is a scumbag; Charles is right to banish him
Yes, Bill Clinton really is/was a Horn Dog who liked them young
Larry Summers is a slimy POS, so are Ehud Barak, and Jose Aznar
David Copperfield is a sick SOB, and so is Bill Gates

Quite honestly, The Donald is not unscathed. POTUS Trump needs better friends, and he has some explaining to do. The only saving grace for POTUS Trump is he banished Epstein from Mar-A-Lago years ago, and is now releasing the files (his predecessors, notably, did not release the files).

As for the blurb that inclusion doesn't imply wrongdoing: horseshit. The people who were there were not there by accident. At the very least, they are guilty of exceptionally poor judgment (which is not a crime). These people need a public reckoning.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and so far Epstein is dead (he didn't kill himself) and Maxwell is the only person prosecuted and in prison.

[Frank Drackman]

Funny that Barry Hussein, Barney Frank, Cory Booker, and Linsday Buckingham-Nicks-Graham aren't mentioned, I wonder if there's some common denominator there?

[Mr. Bumble]

Happy first day of Winter.

[Frank Drackman]

Or Summer for the other 1/2, the Earth is round (so they say).