for recklessly calling a British man who aided the rescue of a Thai soccer team trapped in a cave a “pedo” on Twitter. In August, after receiving an investment from Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, he dropped an even bigger Twitter bombshell. “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured,” he blared to 25 million followers. After a probe, the SEC found Musk had little basis to proclaim the buyout and charged him with stock manipulation.
Consider his deal to take control of Trans World Airlines, an investment that returned Hughes a fiftyfold profit. TWA also spent over a decade battling the billionaire. In 1961, it sued Hughes on antitrust grounds, accusing the mercurial businessman of using a crony as CEO to rubber-stamp $320 million in jet orders, which the airline leased from Hughes Tool and nearly caused the airline to go under.
That wasn’t the only airline conquest that resulted in legal trouble for Hughes. After exiting TWA, he set his sights on Air West, offering to buy the struggling airline for $81 million, or $22 a share, in a 1968 hostile takeover. Hughes won a lengthy battle and changed the airline’s name to Hughes Air West. However, in 1970 when shareholders were paid, they received just $8 a share. In 1973, Hughes and four associates were charged criminally for stock manipulation, conspiracy and wire fraud.
In 1947, Owen Brewster, a U.S. senator from Maine who was an ally of infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy, brought Hughes to the Senate to testify on why the government spent $40 million on a plane that wasn’t delivered. To deflect accusations he was selling vaporware, Hughes organized a media event in Long Beach, California, in which he flew the Spruce Goose 33 feet in the air for about a minute, winning the public’s support and eventually ending Brewster’s political career.
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Source: Forbes - 🏆 394. / 53 Read more »
Source: Forbes - 🏆 394. / 53 Read more »