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Another Selloff

Months after claiming he was done selling Tesla stock, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has unloaded another $3.95 billion worth of Tesla shares, according to regulatory filings.

That means the billionaire CEO has sold around $36 billion worth of Tesla stock in the last twelve months, Reuters reports — a stunning selloff, and almost certainly a direct result of his ill-advised and terribly executed bid to take over Twitter.

The selloff doesn’t bode well, as Musk’s erratic leadership at the site has been far from confidence inducing. Tesla has already suffered quite a bit this year, with stock tumbling 46 percent.

Not Done Yet

Over the weekend, Musk sold another 19.5 million Tesla shares. While the paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t directly point out the purpose of the sale, analysts believe it likely has to do with his bid to finance his $44 billion Twitter deal.

According to Reuters, Musk still needed to raise an additional $2 to $3 billion to for the deal after selling $6.9 billion worth of shares back in August.

Meanwhile, Tesla fell short of Wall Street expectations after announcing third quarter results last month. The company has been dealing with supply chain issues and hasn’t been immune to a global economic slowdown, either.

Musk’s chaotic acquisition of Twitter has only injected even more uncertainty, with the CEO going as far as to pull Tesla employees to help him out seize control of operations at Twitter.

“It looks like Musk is preparing for things to stay bad at Twitter for the next year,” Gene Munster, managing partner at Loup Ventures, told Bloomberg. “He’s preparing for Twitter to be a money hole.”

The post Elon Musk Is Suddenly Selling Tesla Stock Like Crazy appeared first on Futurism.

If you were afraid that 2022 meant there would be no more mask meltdown videos, we here at the Louder with Crowder Dot Com website have a treat! A masked bro looking to get into a fight with a maskless bro for getting too close to him without a mask. This is at least what we’re led to believe is going on based on the description of the viral video.

I know what you’re thinking. “Brodigan, wouldn’t getting into a fight with someone who was too close to you not wearing a mask…just get you too close to him?”

That is correct. Masked bro obviously follows The Science.

My man’s girlfriend was hysterical. Or, probably more accurate, my man’s girl who only likes him as a friend.

“Stop! Don’t do this! You’re going to go to jail!”

It’s remarkable that in 2022, we’re still doing this mask insanity. Or are we? Like most viral videos, it is unclear as to when this video takes place. That leads us down two parallel but equally hilarious paths.

The first path is that this video takes place within the first three-hundred and sixty-five days plus fifteen more to flatten the curve. Videos like this where wearing a mask or not wearing a mask led to someone catching hands were more common. It’s a reminder how we were then, and boy oh boy do people look silly. By “we” I mean “they.” If you’re reading this, it’s safe to assume you did not engage in such lunacy.

The second path is that this is a recent video, and the tough guy is still in full-blown mask hysteria. Living in this much constant fear, thanks to the government and the media, seems exhausting. I’d feel sorry for him if I wasn’t laughing so hard.

Editor’s Note

LwC is on Substack now! Each day we overwhelm your brains with the content you’ve come to love from the Louder with Crowder Dot Com website.. but algorithms hide our ranting and raving as best they can. The best way to stick it to Big Tech?

Democracy Respecter Zelensky WINS Person of the Year?! | Louder With Crowder

Taylor Swift blasted into the headlines last week, but not for the reason you’d think.

The singer ripped Ticketmaster for a debacle over the sale of concert tickets for her new tour, which completely crashed at one point and led to scalpers posting tickets for upwards of $50,000.

The whole thing was a fustercluck. First, fans had to sign up for Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan program just for a chance to score tickets. But even those fans hit error messages and long waits. Then, when they were finally able to buy tickets, the system wouldn’t accept their presale code or credit card information.

Eventually, Ticketmaster was forced to cancel the sale, claiming it had experienced “historically unprecedented demand.”

“It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” Swift said in a social media post.

Buying tickets nowadays to concerts or sporting event borders on the criminal. Ticketmaster and Live Nation own many of the venues and have the exclusive right for ticket sales. Me, I think they also cash in via the secondhand market for tickets, like StubHub and SeatGeek, where tickets with a face value of $35 often sell for hundreds, even thousands of dollars (but there’s no evidence of that).

I feel sad for the young people of today. Going to catch a National Football League game for a family of four costs at least a thousand dollars (and that’s just for decent seats, not front row on the 50-yard line). And catching your favorite band often costs a couple hundred dollars — assuming you don’t get the tickets the minute they go on sale (a rare accomplishment these days).

Back in my day, tickets costs next to nothing. I saw The Rolling Stones back in 1975, shortly after they released their now classic album, “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll.” The ticket cost $9.50. Sure, that’s $51.01 in today’s dollars, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, but it ain’t hundreds of thousands.

Joseph Curl/The Daily Wire

When I caught the Stones in Philly last year (they didn’t play D.C. and I’ve seen them in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s so I needed a 20s show), I paid more than $600 for after-market tickets (and again, just for decent seats). And don’t get me started on the endless fees (a service fee, facility charge, order processing fee, and that absurdly named “convenience” fee), which sometimes cost as much as the ticket.

Let’s take the upcoming Rod Wave concert at the Capital One Center in D.C. Tickets in a nosebleed section about as far away as you can be from the stage run $158.75, so that’s $317.50 for a pair. But then this:

• Service Fee: $24.10 x 2 = $48.20
• Facility Charge: $4.00 x 2 = $8.00
• Order Processing Fee = $6.00

Total, $379.70. Want to actually see him? A pair of seats down on the floor (not front row, mind you) will cost you nearly $840.

Finally, someone’s going do something about this mess (watch this video for more insight).

“The Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into the owner of Ticketmaster, whose sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets descended into chaos this week, said two people with knowledge of the matter,” The New York Times reported over the weekend. “The investigation is focused on whether Live Nation Entertainment has abused its power over the multibillion-dollar live music industry.”

“That power has been in the spotlight after Ticketmaster’s systems crashed while Ms. Swift fans were trying to buy tickets in a presale for her tour, but the investigation predates the botched sale, the people said,” the Times said.

Live Nation defended itself in a statement.

“The concert promotion business is highly competitive, with artist management in control of selecting their promoting team. The demand for live entertainment continues to grow, and there are more promoters than ever working with artists to help them connect with fans through live shows. The Department of Justice itself recognized the competitive nature of the concert promotion business at the time of the Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger. That dynamic has not changed,” Live Nation said.

Back in my day, if you wanted tickets, you had to go to the ticket seller and buy them. That seemed to work. And some bands have figured out ways to sell tickets to their fans at a reasonable price (in their heyday, Fall Out Boy played the small 930 Club venue in D.C. and concertgoers had to present ID and the credit card they used to get the tickets, but then had to go straight in, thus no resale of tickets at all).

Let’s hope the DOJ actually follows through on its probe, but most likely, nothing will happen. And that’s just sad.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.