But $26B seems like a pretty good tax write off. Seriously tho, How much of this drop (adjustment to reality) could Musk potentially write off on taxes, etc? Especially when it was pretty obvious he tanked it on purpose.
Until it's realized, nothing. If he sold Twitter tomorrow, he could take the $25 billion loss and not pay taxes on that much of his next capital gains, essentially saving him $5 billion, for a net loss of only $20 billion.
I'm not an accountant, but doesn't he need to realize investment losses in order to write them off? Capital expenses can be depreciated for tax write-offs, but I wasn't aware that corporate investments could be marked to market for write-offs.
Like most super-successful people, he's smart, hard-working, overconfident, and very lucky. His luck didn't work out for him this time when he overstepped his expertise. Survivorship bias made him think he'd be fine.
(Yes, it's very possible to be both smart and overconfident.)
