In a viral 2023 interview, Airbnb founder Brian Chesky explained the differences between company founders and everybody else in business.

He discussed how founders are often given bad advice by consultants and others who try to help build out startups, and made a big deal about something he called ‘Founder Mode.’

But what is ‘Founder Mode?’ And why is it nonsense?

Founder Mode

Chesky differentiates between what he calls ‘Founder Mode’ and ‘Manager Mode,’ explaining that “a founder brings three things that a professional manager doesn’t have.”

“First,” he says, “they’re the biological parent. So you can love something but when you’re the biological parent of something, like, it came from you, it is you.

“Second, the founder has permission. I could rebrand the company and a professional manager would probably come and say ‘I can’t do that,’ but I know how we named it, I know how we branded it.

“The third thing that a founder brings is you built it so you can rebuild it.”

Outside of this, a large portion of the podcast is Chesky suggesting that far too much time is spent by companies analyzing as opposed to innovating.

Of course, all of this sounds great until you dig in.

Read more: Scoop: California law allows scammer to add six Tether execs to startup

No distance

The reason that startup culture is so different from larger corporations is that new companies need to be scrappy to survive. They can’t simply focus on building a product and distributing it.

Large corporations shift their focus once they’ve established themselves to ensure that employees are taken care of and the longevity of the company is ensured.

What Chesky wants is for founders to retain the ability to morph — and possibly destroy — the company they create, regardless of how large it has become.

What he doesn’t realize, however, is that giving a founder carte blanche to make all decisions isn’t necessarily a good thing and often leads to disastrous results (see Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fried, or Do Kwon).

His failure to grasp this makes sense, given he’s been steering the ship at Airbnb since day one.

Company Cult(ure) of Brian Chesky

Chesky also claims he wants to build in the same vein as Walt Disney and Steve Jobs and repeatedly states that their leadership skills and innovative thinking processes have kept their companies relevant to this day.

This may be true, but it’s also forced Disney to reckon with a history of mistreating employees and hurting animators, and it (briefly) got Steve Jobs fired. Being an authoritarian CEO and founder has its benefits and pitfalls, even for the best, and it should be understood that there are consequences for having the final say and making controversial decisions.

Unfortunately, Chesky doesn’t want founders to face those consequences because he believes they’re owed the ability to steer the company they founded. ‘Founder Mode’ is ‘Dictator Mode,’ as becomes clear later in the interview.

According to Chesky, “Eventually I can not join the meeting but people know what I would say.

“The moment I can not be in the room and the same action happens as if I was in the room, that’s the moment that goes from management to culture.”

What he’s describing isn’t company culture at all, it’s something far more sinister: a cult of personality. Chesky wants to live forever, and not in a heavily metaphorical way. He wants anyone working for Airbnb in the future to imagine that he’s there, giving direction from above.

It’s his vision, his company, his ideas, and his dream — every employee, from now until forever, will need to understand that.

Laughably, after making it clear that the majority of his concerns appear to revolve around his legacy and having complete freedom to do what he wants with his company, Chesky has the nerve to state that “most companies need more creativity and a little more heart and soul.”

It doesn’t seem particularly creative or soulful to dictate orders to the point that every employee imagines you’re omnipresent.

Is Chesky out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong

Thinking that I’d missed some context and hopeful that someone better informed than myself could expand on the ideas put out there by Chesky, I read a blog post by famed venture capitalist (VC) and technologist Paul Graham. I was… disappointed.

While Graham doesn’t bother to expand on the Founder Mode concept any further than ‘if you aren’t a VC in Silicon Valley, you wouldn’t get it,’ he does say something else that’s quite telling.

“Usually when everyone around you disagrees with you, your default assumption should be that you’re mistaken. But this is one of the rare exceptions.”

It is jarring to see a wildly successful, prominent name in finance and tech quite literally do the Principal Skinner meme, in writing, publicly, confidently. “Am I out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.”

Ultimately, founders are human and fallible and it turns out that even those of us outside of venture capital and Silicon Valley understand that. But it seems like maybe the founders in Founder Mode aren’t listening and don’t care to hear when they’re wrong.

Read more: Airbnb host adds ‘no crypto mining’ rule after tenant installs 10 rigs

One last note: Airbnb is down almost 50% from its all-time highs. How’s that for ‘Founder Mode’?

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The post Founder Mode is everything wrong with venture capital appeared first on Protos.

It’s difficult to explain why I both enjoyed and disliked Cryptomania. On the one hand, it’s necessary to acknowledge that Andrew Chow, the author, and a TIME Magazine correspondent, is a very good, very experienced writer who knows how to move a story along in such a way that the reader is hardly aware that they’re engaging in the task of reading.

On the other hand, it’s odd that Chow decided that the best way to connect and explain the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research was through weaving together real-life tales of success and loss via NFTs.

Neither FTX nor Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) were widely engaged in the NFT space so to choose them as the main through line of a 40-chapter book seems like a real missed opportunity to delve into the murky worlds of offshore banks, money laundering, and international arbitrage in crypto.

Cryptomania is both an easy read and a — sometimes manic — discussion about all things crypto-related that transpired over a couple of tumultuous years. It’s worth the time and money for those not involved in the industry and who want to gain a basic understanding of 2021-2023 in crypto. But, for anyone who lived it, who followed the SBF trial and woke up in November of 2022 thinking only about FTX, it may not be for you.

Retread with a flair

The book serves mostly as a retread of what brought FTX, SBF, and NFTs into the spotlight, and then what brought them down.

The best parts are, without doubt, Chow’s summaries and explainers. The individuals used as examples, however, are good for a quote or two but many just appear far too often. At the end of the day, it’s not necessary to hear the stories of three or four people who made it through NFTs and then lost it all.

Read more: Book Review: The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan

No Mention of TIME Magazine NFTS

There are moments where the media at large is criticized, including in chapter 18 when Chow points out the failures of numerous outlets to ask pivotal questions about FTX and SBF. Understandably, in this section, he doesn’t speak about TIME Magazine’s own venture into the world of NFTs and crypto — a project that, like many of the other examples Chow lists, has been abandoned and forgotten by its parent company.

This isn’t to say that TIME was one of the worst contributors to the NFT craze but rather to say that a writer who works for a company that went head first into the deep end of the topic he’s writing about, at the peak of the mania, should probably bring it up.

Chow’s focus is less on corporate NFT cash grabs and instead on individuals, many in the third world, who were initially met with success and then lost almost everything (sometimes by placing the money they earned from NFTs onto FTX). I must say again, however, that being a writer from a company that minted over a thousand NFTs should get mentioned.

As a strong critic of effective altruism, it was also nice to hear the story of Christine Chew, a woman who worked at a private equity firm, got into effective altruism, was a cryptocurrency advocate who ended up briefly employed at FTX, became disillusioned, and now works at an actual charity, trying to change the world through work and service as opposed to by making increasingly more money and donating it.

Read more: So you don’t have to: Catching Up to Crypto by Ben Armstrong

So, what is Cryptomania?

Cryptomania is a satisfying summary of what transpired as FTX and the broader cryptocurrency market collapsed a couple of years ago. But if you were hoping to discover new secrets about SBF, the end of 3AC, the Celsius Ponzi, or Do Kwon’s antics, you’ll be disappointed.

It’s also worth pointing out that the connection running throughout this book — namely the suggestion that there’s a link between the disintegration of the NFT markets and the end of FTX and Alameda Research — is spurious at best.

As Chow points out, SBF didn’t get NFTs or care about art, and while FTX hoped to capture a chunk of the NFT market, that was only because it was where crypto liquidity was, briefly, fleeing.

There are many stories of fraud, rug pulls, and exit scams in crypto that have yet to be told: no one can explain why Do Kwon is still languishing in a small Balkan nation, detailed writing has yet to be done on how Celsius, Luna, and 3AC all contributed to the death of FTX, a real biography of numerous big-name players has yet to occur, and no one has even bothered to write about QuadrigaCX and the death of its founder, Gerald Cotten.

I’m not sure the public is clamoring for another explainer of what happened in crypto in 2022. I certainly know that most people in the industry lived through it and can’t be bothered to go through all the details again. But if you’re one of the few who haven’t yet heard about failing cryptocurrency exchanges and JPEGS on the blockchain, this light read is absolutely perfect — and this isn’t a dig at Chow: someone needs to write this type of book for those uninvolved with the industry.

However, if you’re looking for the next Number Go Up (by Zeke Faux), the latest details of creepy international fraud, or exciting stories of globetrotting scammers and fraudsters, Cryptomania isn’t for you.

Alternatively, if you’re a writer like myself, know that there’s endless fodder for storytelling yet to be discovered or written about in cryptocurrency. In fact, even the FTX, Alameda Research, SBF story has yet to be fully fleshed out, so if you’re up for it, maybe you can write the next great American fraud novel.

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My personal journalism journey began in 2018 when I was invited by a friend to visit Mainland China to see a bitcoin mining farm. I didn’t go to China on behalf of any media outlet, nor did I even truly understand what I hoped to accomplish in my time abroad — I was simply a curious guy who wanted to learn about how crypto miners were operating in a country I’d never been to.

However, this adventure soon spiraled into a hobby before eventually morphing into a career; a profession I’m immensely proud to be a part of despite the vitriol and public animus we often endure. Sadly, over the past six years, I’ve watched that public animosity transform into apathy and, subsequently, distrust and hatred.

I’m not only worried for the state of journalism, I’m worried for journalists across the globe.

Let’s talk about Evan Gershkovich

Most recently, Evan Gershkovich was released from a Russian prison in exchange for a number of known Russian criminals and spies. What was Gershkovich guilty of? Being an American reporter in the authoritarian dictatorship that is Russia.

When Gershkovich was released, I joined in the celebration with my fellow journalists, but what was shocking and disturbing to me was the general public sentiment that reporters should be more responsible about where they’re reporting from and the US probably shouldn’t be making prisoner exchanges for journalists who get in over their heads.

This is disconcerting.

On one hand, some will gladly suggest that much of journalism is just biased opinions being passed along and reprinted — that there’s very little fact-finding and much more agenda-pushing.

On the other, when a journalist goes to a foreign dictatorship to find the truth by doing the most old-school version of journalism that exists — boots on the ground interviewing — they are mocked and ridiculed for getting into a situation they are unable to get out of.

The public is disparaging journalists for not being proper journalists and for being the most serious, important types of professionals they can be. You cannot have it both ways.

Read more: Salvadoran newspaper relocates after threats from pro-Bitcoin Bukele

More journalists than ever are being arrested and killed

While charts show that there was a downtrend of journalist fatalities between 2012 and 2023, everything has changed in 2024. So far this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 113 journalists have been killed. This number is expected to climb before the end of December and, in all likelihood, more journalists will die in 2024 than any previous year on record.

(We do need to caveat these figures by pointing out that every single murdered journalist this year has been in Palestine, Lebanon, or Israel.)

Meanwhile, between 2014 and 2019 nearly 1,500 journalists were arrested and 400 were kidnapped. It turns out that while many people enjoy pointing out all the mistakes and opinions put out by journalists, few care about the thousands of reporters who have been killed, injured, or arrested/kidnapped for simply sharing knowledge with the world.

There are very real consequences for highly effective journalism. For example, Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese journalist, was blown up for reporting on government corruption and criminal financial dealings. While Galizia’s life was taken almost seven years ago, the fallout from her reporting is quite literally still having massive repercussions in Malta to this day.

Read more: Crypto runs with fake Kamala Harris-Gary Gensler news

In defense of the fourth estate

It’s been a popular trope to blame ‘fake news’ and the ‘lame stream media’ for tearing society apart, as though every journalist and news outlet is working together to destroy the globe and life as we know it. I can promise you that almost none of these people have ever worked in a newsroom.

Protos is a small newsroom — a blip compared to the massive, multi-continent-spanning media outlets defined as mainstream media, like CNN or Fox News — but even with only a handful of reporters and editors it’s nearly impossible to get us to agree on any opinions and we’re certainly not organized enough to push any agenda.

Is Protos adversarial? I hope so. Do we make fewer mistakes than major media outlets? Yes, mainly because we put out less news. Are we purposely trying to destroy any industry, company, or individual? Absolutely not, nor do I believe that’s ever the goal of any media outlet worth its weight.

I get that it’s much easier to blame media outlets for doing what’s demanded of them and ridicule journalists for either not being professional enough or caring too much about a story instead of their safety, but I hope the public sentiment shifts before we see an end to journalism as we know it.

Legacy media outlets are all having their ‘come to God’ moments as advertising money continues to dry up and AI summaries of news stories replace links to high-quality reporting. But before celebrating, realize that this isn’t just the death of newspapers or wealthy guys buying the truth. We are seeing the end of entire newsrooms; a decentralization of media that makes it more difficult to collaborate and carry out long-form investigations.

Most importantly, we’re seeing the collapse of legal protections for journalists by teams of lawyers that larger media outlets are able to keep on retainer.

Read more: Charles Hoskinson names ‘good guys’ and ‘bastards’ in Cardano fairness list

The byproduct of losing these protections and larger media outlets is both good and bad: the democratization of journalism is fantastic but individual journalists being silenced by strategic lawsuits against public participation isn’t.

So, before praising the end of an era and relentlessly stating that all journalists are bad, take a deep breath and reflect on the future you want — it might not be the one you’re going to get if the anti-fourth estate rhetoric continues unabated.

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While Montenegro continues to flip-flop on where — or even if — to extradite Do Kwon, it appears that the crypto scammer is managing to single-handedly rip the Balkan nation apart.

Most recently, the former minister of justice, Andrej Milovic, accused current prime minister, Milojko Spajić, of purposely attempting to have Do extradited to South Korea instead of the United States for his own selfish reasons.

Milovic said, “Prime minister Milojko Spajić and his close friend lawyer Goran Rodić, Do Kwon’s defender, are trying in every way to prevent Do Kwon’s extradition to the USA, in order not to stop the complete investigation by the US judicial authorities and examine the business relationship between Do Kwon and Spajić, which they had before the indisputably mounted the pre-election scandal surrounding the arrival of Do Kwon in Montenegro and the connection with the financing of PES (the political party of Spajić).”

He also claimed that he lost his role specifically because he intended to have Do extradited to the US, saying, “Spajić could not come to terms with the fact that with my legal knowledge… I prevented the illegal and rigged extradition to South Korea, about which we had a private discussion, which was ultimately one of the reasons for my dismissal.”

The picture painted by Milovic suggests a country rife with corruption and conspiracies even at the highest levels of public office. Spajić has already admitted to meeting with Do before the latter’s arrival in Montenegro and to purchasing 750,000 LUNA tokens in 2018 (though he had previously stated that the purchase was for his employer — a claim which proved to be untrue).

Also, the lawyer representing Do, Goran Rodic, has filed claims worth over $500,000 against Terraform Labs. The claim is an invoice for legal representation in extradition proceedings for Do and seems to suggest that he hasn’t been, nor does he expect to be, paid for his service.

Read more: The high-profile LUNA investors — from prime ministers to beauty queens

Office of the PM fires back

Speaking to Montenegrin-media outlet Vijesti, the PM’s office said that all of Milovic’s claims were false and that Spajić had dismissed the justice minister because he “wanted to cover up the non-extradition of the leader of the Turkish branch of the Kavak clan, Binali Čamgoz, to his home country with false affairs that he suddenly remembered after his justifiable dismissal.”

Čamgoz is accused of a double murder and, like Do Kwon, was caught in Montenegro with a fake passport. While Do has had his extradition tussled over by two competing nations, Čamgoz hasn’t been sent back to Turkey apparently due to his Kurdish ancestry and the fact he could be unduly persecuted.

While deflecting the claims made by Milovic, the PM’s office instead said the accusations were “fabricated affairs and conspiracy theories that serve to cover a Maradona-style bravado,” and an attempt to position Milovic to win the mayoral race in Podgorica.

This led to Milovic to respond in kind, saying that he “received congratulations from the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe and ministers from the EU” for his judgment not to send Čamgoz back to Turkey.

Read more: Do Kwon appeal claims lawyers had 20 mins to review docs before hearing

Do threatens Montenegro’s rise to the EU

For years, Montenegro has been negotiating to attain EU membership and recently, it’s been said by the German Chancellor that such an ascendency could be as little as four years away. But, with realistic claims of corruption from the former minister of justice, it seems dubious that it could occur that quickly.

However, it’s also worth pointing out that it’s not clear why the US would stop investigating co-conspirators and political corruption claims just due to Do being extradited to South Korea, nor why Montenegro wouldn’t do a wide-scale investigation of its own.

Regardless, the situation continues to unravel and appear worse and worse for PM Spajić, who is fighting for his political life.

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Yesterday Pirates Wires, a ‘new new media company’ operated by Michael Solana, CMO of Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, put out a tweet saying it had a scoop.

The scoop? That the Donald Trump team was launching a meme coin on Solana called DJT with Barron Trump (Trump’s youngest son) spearheading the project. Michael Solana even shared a contract address for the coin.

So, what’s wrong with this reporting? For starters, there’s no verifiable evidence that anyone from the Trump team is involved with the coin, Pirate Wires and Solana never explained how they acquired the information, and no other outlet has been able to confirm the statement — including Fox Business, CoinDesk, and Decrypt.

Trump himself, who almost always presents a new project with fanfare, pronouncements, and silly videos on Truth Social has also been silent on the matter.

What Pirate Wires did yesterday is journalism at its very worst and deserves to be scrutinized, criticized, and perhaps even hurt the reputation of the outlet.

Pirate Wires’ venture capitalists aren’t journalists

Most journalists have the benefit of either getting a formal education in journalism or working in a newsroom with professional editors and journalists to learn first-hand. Pirate Wires, on the other hand, is a techno-optimist blog of sorts that was created by a multimillionaire venture capital-loving, Peter Thiel wannabe and is edited by someone who has no LinkedIn profile or public acknowledgment of any editing experience.

There is hardly an ounce of objectivity or fact-checking to be had in Pirate Wires’ ‘newsroom.’

Indeed, what Pirate Wires tweeted was irresponsible and lacked seriousness. “Per conversations,” says the tweet, as though someone from Pirate Wires had spoken to Donald Trump, Barron Trump, or another Trump team member. However, if you (understandably) came to that conclusion, you’d be wrong.

“No, didn’t speak with Trump directly, assumed that was clear,” Solana tweeted roughly an hour after the initial message went out.

Then who exactly did Solana speak to? To cover his bases, Solana also added that Donald Trump “could rug pull, or pivot, say it’s not true. Just reporting what I know via sources.” This isn’t how journalism works.

Worryingly, Pirate Wires is seeing very little backlash over its thoughtless reporting, perhaps because most people in the crypto industry already know better than to trust biased venture capitalists reporting ‘facts.’

Read more: Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone endorses $TRUMP memecoin

We need journalists more than ever

What Pirate Wires unaccountable — and frankly alarming — reporting showed yesterday is that we need journalists — both trained journalists and high-quality citizen journalists — more than ever. Techno-optimism and good news about future tech is fine and I understand why investors, hedge fund managers, and VCs would like more media to engage with their projects this way. But that isn’t the responsibility of the Fourth Estate.

The media and news are valuable because we try to get to the bottom of issues and stories, we fact-check, we edit, and we take time to investigate and learn. What Pirate Wires did yesterday was the opposite of that and likely will end up costing hundreds — if not thousands — of individuals a lot of money. Will there be repercussions for the outlet? Will its poor fact-checking and lack of sharing of any hard evidence cost them anything? Probably not.

But that’s why it’s worth writing about. At the very least this should deal some reputational damage to the pro-tech outlet, and in what can only be described as the best part of this saga, Michael Solana has stated that he’s “not personally enjoyed doing crypto news and do[es] not plan on doing any more crypto news in the future.”

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The post Opinion: Pirate Wires’ Trump token reporting was irresponsible and lazy appeared first on Protos.

There was something different about the way that Keith Gill (aka RoaringKitty on YouTube or DeepFuckingValue on Reddit) used to shill GameStop. He’d do in-depth, long, and extensive live streams and videos sharing his thesis, always instructed that people should reflect on their personal financial situation before buying or selling shares, and generally told followers to take profit when they wanted to.

Gill was also quite active on YouTube and Reddit, where he’d show his own portfolio so people knew whether or not he was adding to or subtracting from positions.

But since he’s returned from his social media hiatus, which started with a meme about AMC stock that well-known pump and dumper Zack Morris had used a few days before, the public has witnessed a huge departure from this approach.

This time, Roaring Kitty isn’t sharing his theses or his portfolio positions, nor is he explaining why he likes certain stocks or live streaming for five hours at a time. Instead, he’s shitposting memes, clearly advocating for GameStop as a great buy (despite his previous thesis failing miserably), and basically pumping a stock for no clear reason.

RoaringKitty is no longer a thesis-driven trader — he’s another average pump-and-dumper with a large audience.

Read more: Andrew Tate seems confused as he dumps bitcoin to buy GameStop

Disappointing Kitty

There are any number of reasons that Gill could give to justify his posting of dozens of vague memes posted from his X (formerly Twitter) account, now boasting over a million followers.

For instance, it’s fair to say that since 2021, when meme stocks first became a concept and Gabe Plotkin blew up his fund, Melvin Capital, very little has changed in the finance world — particularly in regard to the issues that caused RobinHood to shutter all buying of certain stocks and the complexities of capital requirements.

Unfortunately, there is no Gabe Plotkin, Steve Cohen, Vlad Tenev, or Ken Griffin to frame up as the stereotypical villain. No evil VCs or hedgies are openly discussing shorting GameStop, short interest is nowhere near levels seen in 2021, and GameStop is little more than a company walking the thin line between failing business and bankruptcy protection.

Revisiting old Gill live streams and videos, you can listen to his thesis: GameStop will be the Amazon of gaming, it’s apparently going to build a massive digital marketplace, NFTs will play an important role, and locations are important so gamers can trade in old games and buy physical copies.

Needless to say, none of these theories panned out. Indeed, GameStop has closed 200+ stores in three years, it’s not making money, and Cohen has been a terrible CEO.

A new beginning for Roaring Kitty

Am I surprised that Roaring Kitty’s valiant return is to shitpost and pump and dump? Of course not. I imagine that the desire to take the easy road is almost impossible to resist when you know that one single tweet can move a stock 50%+.

I’m not sure how many individuals could stop themselves from doing so, especially if a win was almost guaranteed. But it is disappointing to see someone who spent years proudly shilling his investment the right way to turn around and immediately give in to his every whim.

I don’t know what’s next for Keith Gill, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gary Gensler ask him more questions and scour his tweets for any possible way in which he broke rules and regulations.

I’m not sure what happened to Gill but he’s certainly not the same. Not only that, the new version of him isn’t as interesting, doesn’t have nearly as much to say, and, let’s face it, is a shadow of the hopeful figure he once presented for retail traders.

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When Elon Musk was forced to purchase Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion, he claimed that there were a couple of specific reasons for the move: First, he would destroy the bot-nets that had become a norm on the platform, and second, he would bring free speech back and transform Twitter into the internet’s ‘town square.’

Unfortunately, both of those promises have failed to materialize. Indeed, one of them — the idea that Musk would get rid of the bots — can be viewed in real-time, an epidemic of bots replying with ‘░P░U░S░S░Y░I░N░B░I░O░,’ crypto scams, offers of drugs, and unrelenting verified imposter accounts.

The current string of bots relies on mixing and matching different character encoding standards to avoid detection — a strategy that has, for now at least, worked shockingly well. A software engineer who spoke to Protos on background said that spam detection across all social media and video games “is a cat-and-mouse game that will never end,” implying that Musk will never defeat the armies of bots he’s promised to exterminate.

Of course, the idea of ‘impossible’ has never stopped Musk. The richest man in the world is known for plowing huge swaths of his wealth into projects that won’t necessarily succeed, like Tesla and SpaceX. But can throwing money at the problems plaguing X (formerly Twitter) really solve them and allow Musk to create a new, vibrant, digital town square? Not only that, will he actually have the money to spend on the likely unprofitable venture?

Read more: Elon Musk burner X account trolled Caroline Ellison and Michael Saylor

Musk is fighting for his life (if his life is $56 billion)

It’s worth remembering how Musk was able to complete the purchase of Twitter in 2022. Not only did he borrow $1 billion from SpaceX to complete the acquisition, he also financed the majority of the buyout through loans with Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Barclay’s.

His equity partners include Jack Dorsey, Larry Ellison, and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

This means that before taking into account employees, infrastructure costs, and paying out creators on X, Musk has to shell out over a billion dollars in interest payments to his loan providers every year. Including all the other expenses, it’s hard to believe that X — which saw its revenue fall 54% to $1.9 billion last year — can be profitable now or any time soon.

However, Musk has been a little distracted by his numerous others ventures and mounting legal issues, most importantly a massive payday of $56 billion that’s been denied to him due to a ruling by Judge Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Chancery.

Read more: We now know when Elon Musk got scared and sold Tesla’s bitcoin

Judge McCormick characterized Tesla’s board of directors as “supine servants of an overweening master,” with the board almost immediately authorizing a re-vote on the payment plan to shareholders and Musk suggesting that Tesla would quickly re-incorporate in Texas.

But Musk’s problems don’t end with the Delaware Chancery. The much anticipated CyberTruck, of which only about 4,000 have been delivered, was recalled after a customer had the pedal cover on the accelerator slip and wedge itself in such a way that the gas pedal would remain down even after someone lifted their foot off of it. Last month, sport and culture website Defector aptly ran the headline “Cybertruck Deliveries Halted Due To Car Being A Big Piece Of Shit That Doesn’t Work.”

Most recently, Musk laid off 10% of the company, including the entire Tesla charging team — despite Tesla becoming the go-to charger of choice for EVs throughout the US.

Tesla was added to the S&P 500 index in December 2020. Since then, the company’s share price is down almost 20% while the S&P is up almost 40%. This means that Tesla is one of the poorest performers in the S&P 500.

Will Elon ever sell X?

It’s unclear what Musk plans to do if he doesn’t receive his $56 billion pay package — though he’s claimed that without the money, staying on at Tesla as CEO is out of the question. The richest man in the world apparently has 411 million shares of Tesla, with about half of those pledged as collateral for loans he’s taken out.

So, if Musk does decide to divest himself fully from Tesla in the event that he isn’t given his pay package, it means that he’ll likely have to (and want to) begin to sell his shares. Even if he slowly sells his shares to not put a lot of sell pressure on the stock, there’s little chance he’d be able to retain as much value as his supposed net worth — and it’s likely that if Musk steps down as CEO shares will continue to tumble.

Musk’s other ventures provide some ability for him to continue to earn money, but there’s no doubt that Tesla is his cash cow. All of this to say that, even if he isn’t valued at $200 billion after selling his Tesla shares, there’s little likelihood that he’d need to get rid of X in a fire sale. With tons of cash available, Musk could easily live the rest of his life with X bleeding money every year.

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The post X has been a crypto scam-filled failure for Elon Musk — now what? appeared first on Protos.

According to sources familiar with the Richard Hall and Lukasz Juraszek vs Rainberry Inc. lawsuit, Justin Sun was not entitled to use diplomatic immunity to avoid liability concerning his actions while running the BitTorrent buyer.

This is despite long-term claims from the Tron founder’s legal team that his ambassadorial roles handed him this loophole.

A Web3 of lies

In 2021, Grenada announced that Sun had been appointed the Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization. This is true, as evidenced by a 2024 Grenadian news article that states Sun was terminated from his UN position, along with a slew of other foreigners who had cushy diplomatic roles, in 2022.

Protos has also obtained documentation confirming Sun’s status as a diplomat for Grenada and a visa proving that he was Ambassador for Science and Emerging Technology for Grenada’s Mission to the United Nations.

However, as detailed by the Associate Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Executive Office of the Secretary-General, Shirin Yaseen, this ambassadorship only grants diplomatic immunity in Switzerland when a representative is on a mission.

Read more: Justin Sun insists he never meant to sell Tron and BitTorrent to US investors

“Issues of immunity regarding diplomats/representatives is a bilateral issue between the country in question and the US,” said Yaseen. “Immunity comes into effect only when we are carrying out our official functions.”

She added, “There’s no retroactive immunity.” This suggests that, regardless of whether or not Sun briefly obtained the immunity status, it shouldn’t have, and wouldn’t have, affected the outcome of the civil court case.

The source says that Sun first claimed diplomatic immunity in March of 2022, which is only a few months before the crypto billionaire lost his Grenadian WTO and UN ambassadorships altogether. As such, it’s odd that his legal team continued to suggest that Sun had any diplomatic immunity whatsoever through May 2023.

Sun’s plans fail

It’s clear that Sun attempted, through investing in Grenada, to create a diplomatic bubble in which he was untouchable — civilly and criminally. 

But the horse Sun hitched his wagon to bolted quickly when Grenada’s ruling party lost an election and he was stripped of his titles. Additionally, the titles and immunities Sun was able to acquire were so narrow in scope that there is no possibility that they would have functioned in the way Sun hoped.

Ultimately, the arbitrator in the civil case against Sun stated that:

“It is evident that Sun’s refusal to appear at deposition, in violation of the Arbitrator’s order are willful – they are knowing and intentional. Sun’s refusal to appear involves a violation fundamental to the case; despite his prior conduct acknowledging that his deposition was appropriate he refuses to be deposed at all.“

Read more: Justin Sun directed wash trading scheme from his US apartment, SEC claims

Endgame

Sun and Rainberry have settled the civil suit brought against them by Richard Hall and Lukasz Juraszek; diplomatic immunity didn’t pay off.

The arbitrator in the civil suit struck Sun’s testimony from the record and ordered a default against him. It’s unknown exactly what settlement was reached.

Sun doesn’t take trips to Switzerland or visit San Francisco anymore — his days of appearing at the World Trade Organization and making excuses for missing lunches with Warren Buffett are behind him. Instead, the billionaire spends the majority of his time hopping between countries where he’s least likely to be extradited to the US, and marketing TRON and his cryptocurrency exchanges.

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The post Scoop: Justin Sun falsely claimed diplomatic immunity in lawsuit appeared first on Protos.

Nilam Resources has published another press release attempting to clarify public concerns about the company.

Their stock price increased (and then decreased) by over 1000% recently after they announced an acquisition which would supposedly result in them gaining 24,800 bitcoins, currently worth around $1.7 billion.

Read more: Scoop: Nilam Resources CEO resigns day after 24,800-bitcoin announcement

After days of silence from the holdings company, they have released a second statement, saying that Pranjali More would be taking over as CEO, that a recent caveat emptor designation from OTC Markets was not explained to them, and that the company with which Nilam Resources would be merging—Xyberdata— does indeed have the 24,800 bitcoin that are destined to be acquired.

Nilam saw the price of its stock balloon from $0.02 to nearly $0.38 on Tuesday, and then subsequently plummet to $0.006 on Thursday after revelations from the former CEO were published by Protos.

War of Words

This second press release does little to clarify the origins of the 24,800 bitcoin supposedly held by Xyberdata.  Nor does it explain why the former CEO of Nilam Resources called Nilam Resources a “classic pump and dump”, however it does state that audited financial statements have been provided to OTC Markets verifying the existence of the 24,800 bitcoin, and that “any alleged comments regarding this transaction made by the company’s former CEO were not made on behalf of the company and don’t represent the views of management”.

The press release failed to acknowledge that Ron McIntyre, the former CEO, has also held the roles of president, treasurer, director, and secretary of Nilam Resources. By Thursday afternoon, McIntyre had been replaced with Pranjali More in all of these positions, according to the Nevada corporate registry.

Meanwhile, OTC Markets continues to splash the “caveat emptor” designation on Nilam Resources, suggesting that “OTC Markets has determined that there is a public interest concern associated with the company.”

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The post Nilam Resources fires back, says Xyberdata has 24,800 bitcoin appeared first on Protos.

While Madoff has remained the top household name for financial fraud for the past 16 years, it may finally be time to anoint a new fraud king: the former head of Evergrande, Hui Ka Yan.

Evergrande collapsed in 2021 after three years of being the largest and most valuable real estate company in the world. The success of the company also briefly made Hui the wealthiest individual in China.

But as the Chinese real estate market began to falter, the books for Evergrande looked more and more cooked, and by 2023, the company was bankrupt and facing liquidation.

Read more: A year on from the US regional banking crisis, what’s changed?

Inflation-Adjusted Fraud means Madoff Keeps Crown

While the $78 billion fraud claim being leveled against Evergrande and Hui Ka Yan is significantly larger than the $65 billion fraud that Madoff accomplished over decades, it is actually a much smaller amount when adjusted for inflation. 

In this case, after the adjustment, Madoff’s fraud would amount to just under $100 billion and Ken Lay’s Enron would be far greater than both Madoff or Evergrande, amounting to a shocking $112 billion fraud in 2024 dollars.

Other frauds of this gigantic proportion include the collapse of WorldCom and the over-leveraged hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, however, these barely come close to Evergrande, Enron, or Madoff, only accounting for ~$20 billion and $7 billion in 2024 dollars, respectively.

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The post Move over Madoff, Evergrande might have delivered the new king of fraud appeared first on Protos.