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Binance founder 'CZ' released from custody
Binance founder ‘CZ’ released from custody after four-month sentence
Jacob Silverman did a recent deep dive into Twitter investors for Elon Musk
Jacob Silverman
,
September 26, 2024
All That Twitters
Who owns a piece of Elon Musk?
This August, a federal judge ruled in favor of a motion filed on my behalf by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to unseal a list of shareholders that had been filed by the company, since renamed X, under seal as part of one of the many civil lawsuits that it faces in the wake of Musk’s disastrous turn at the helm. We now have a complete list—dated April 2023—of who helped Musk acquire Twitter. I’ve argued that this list is important for a number of reasons, but here’s just one: according to the Washington Post, anyone who invested more than $250 million received special access to sensitive data about the company and its users. Who pitched in that much? Saudi Arabia, Qatar, a mysterious UAE-based venture capital firm, a lawless crypto exchange, and CIA contractor Ellison. I’m sure they’re happy with their access. What follows is a rough taxonomy of X shareholders—a half-serious attempt to categorize and account for the moneymen helping boost Musk Inc. It takes a lot of cash to prop up an oligarch, and some of it comes from unsavory sources.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk is an alleged horse enthusiast and compulsive shitposter who was one of several executive producers on the Hollywood film Thank You for Smoking. He is also the chief technology officer and executive chairman of X and its majority owner through the Elon Musk Revocable Trust, dated July 22, 2003.
Dayton Family Enterprises, LLC and Dayton Family Investments, LLC
Sky Dayton is a tech investor and the founder of Earthlink, a formerly massive dotcom-era dial-up internet service provider that gobbled up smaller tech companies and pivoted to reselling their internet services under its own brand before being acquired by a private equity firm. My ninety-five-year-old relative still pays a monthly fee for an Earthlink email address—just the email address—that she can no longer access but can’t cancel. Congratulations to Sky Dayton.
Binance Capital Management Co., Ltd
One of the more laughably corrupt companies around, Binance is also the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. Its cofounder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao, is currently finishing up a slap-on-the-wrist term in U.S. federal prison for money laundering violations. Binance paid a fine of more than $4 billion for allowing its platform to become a financial clearing house for terrorists, money launderers, sanctioned oligarchs, and other bad guys. The multibillion-dollar company has no official headquarters (before he copped a plea, Zhao was based in the United Arab Emirates). Binance Capital Management Co.—which put $500 million into Musk’s buyout—is registered in the Cayman Islands with an office address on a residential street in Malta...
https://thebaffler.com/latest/all-that-twitters-silverman
,
September 26, 2024
All That Twitters
Who owns a piece of Elon Musk?
This August, a federal judge ruled in favor of a motion filed on my behalf by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to unseal a list of shareholders that had been filed by the company, since renamed X, under seal as part of one of the many civil lawsuits that it faces in the wake of Musk’s disastrous turn at the helm. We now have a complete list—dated April 2023—of who helped Musk acquire Twitter. I’ve argued that this list is important for a number of reasons, but here’s just one: according to the Washington Post, anyone who invested more than $250 million received special access to sensitive data about the company and its users. Who pitched in that much? Saudi Arabia, Qatar, a mysterious UAE-based venture capital firm, a lawless crypto exchange, and CIA contractor Ellison. I’m sure they’re happy with their access. What follows is a rough taxonomy of X shareholders—a half-serious attempt to categorize and account for the moneymen helping boost Musk Inc. It takes a lot of cash to prop up an oligarch, and some of it comes from unsavory sources.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk is an alleged horse enthusiast and compulsive shitposter who was one of several executive producers on the Hollywood film Thank You for Smoking. He is also the chief technology officer and executive chairman of X and its majority owner through the Elon Musk Revocable Trust, dated July 22, 2003.
Dayton Family Enterprises, LLC and Dayton Family Investments, LLC
Sky Dayton is a tech investor and the founder of Earthlink, a formerly massive dotcom-era dial-up internet service provider that gobbled up smaller tech companies and pivoted to reselling their internet services under its own brand before being acquired by a private equity firm. My ninety-five-year-old relative still pays a monthly fee for an Earthlink email address—just the email address—that she can no longer access but can’t cancel. Congratulations to Sky Dayton.
Binance Capital Management Co., Ltd
One of the more laughably corrupt companies around, Binance is also the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. Its cofounder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao, is currently finishing up a slap-on-the-wrist term in U.S. federal prison for money laundering violations. Binance paid a fine of more than $4 billion for allowing its platform to become a financial clearing house for terrorists, money launderers, sanctioned oligarchs, and other bad guys. The multibillion-dollar company has no official headquarters (before he copped a plea, Zhao was based in the United Arab Emirates). Binance Capital Management Co.—which put $500 million into Musk’s buyout—is registered in the Cayman Islands with an office address on a residential street in Malta...
https://thebaffler.com/latest/all-that-twitters-silverman
Link to tweet
Link to tweet