Risk, returns & timeframes illustration
1 min read
October 11, 2022
by
Belinda Nash

Bad billionaire bosses 🤑

Elon Musk’s Twitter flip-flop may have hiked the will-he-won’t-he Tesla CEO’s status as a controversial boss, but he may not be the only one. Who else has gained fame for possibly all the wrong reasons? See which frat-pack billionaires appear to play to their own tune.
Risk, returns & timeframes illustration
1 min read
October 11, 2022
by
Belinda Nash

Bad billionaire bosses 🤑

Elon Musk’s Twitter flip-flop may have hiked the will-he-won’t-he Tesla CEO’s status as a controversial boss, but he may not be the only one. Who else has gained fame for possibly all the wrong reasons? See which frat-pack billionaires appear to play to their own tune.
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Crocs (CROX) may be hoping to take over jandals this Kiwi summer, but as cooler weather descends in the US, lawyers are wrangling their own flip-flop saga. Last week’s episode of Elon Musk’s will-he-won’t-he high stakes drama saw the billionaire boss agreeing to close his Twitter deal for the original price of US$54.20 a share. Again. 🙄 But plot twist: the clock is ticking…

When Bloomberg broke the news, the Twitter (TWTR) share price temporarily surged 22% to US$52, up from US$42.54. Yet despite Musk’s on-again-off-again antics, the Tesla (TSLA) boss hasn’t negatively charged his own electric vehicle company’s ESG rating, which sits at ‘medium risk’ alongside EV rival Rivian (RIVN). But could his potential ‘town square’ Twitter buyout be good news for ‘bad boss’ Trump? Musk has previously stated he’d update Trump’s status, reversing his Twitter ban as part of his free speech absolutism.

Bosses writing their own scripts is nothing new. Just ask 2,400 laid off employees of ‘one of the world’s most valuable startups’, WeWork (WE), whose co-founder Adam Neumann was catastrophic for the office rental company’s first IPO attempt in 2019. Despite an army of former employees joining the job queue, however, Neumann - who was ousted for his ‘reckless leadership style’ - regained billionaire status when WeWork listed in October last year, thanks to his 10% stake in the considerably devalued company (which plummeted from their once peak valuation of US$47 billion to around US$4 billion today). 

Could Neumann’s post-pandemic play, Flow, be the sequel venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz hopes could break free from the drama? 🤔 

Yet, while Harvard Fellow Bill George claims Facebook frat packer Mark Zuckerberg’s bad boss traits are ‘continuing to derail’ Meta (META), he’s far from the so-called toxic boss status of former ‘frat-boy’ Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. The ride-share co-founder found fame for his alleged spying, corporate overspending on strip clubs and escorts, and trade secret theft, among a litany of accusations. Doesn’t seem to bother Microsoft (MSFT) though, the first US-based investor in Kalanick’s new ‘dark kitchen’ startup, CloudKitchens. Frying pan…fire? 🔥

Belinda Nash
Finance writer
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Linkedin

We’re not financial advisors and Hatch news is for your information only. However dazzling our writing, none of it is a recommendation to invest in any of the companies or funds mentioned. If you want support before making any investment decisions, consider seeking financial advice from a licensed provider. We’ve done our best to ensure all information is current when we pushed ‘publish’ on this article. And of course, with investing, your money isn’t guaranteed to grow and there’s always a risk you might lose money.

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