Anytime the idea of a wealth tax is brought up, I see commenters coming out of the woodwork to say that it would be impossible to actually collect it from the wealthy. Though I will note that it seems like we are able to collect yachts and planes from Russian oligarchs now, so perhaps our techniques have advanced in the last few months.

Levine has addressed this in past columns. Of course the courts have such authority, but individual people have to enforce the court's decisions, and sometimes those people are reluctant to take on Musk.

Musk is a special case because he has done things like threatening to ruin the careers of SEC lawyers who have come after him, and he has the power to make that happen.

Is this illegal? Probably. Does Musk get away with it? Yes.

From the Wall Street Journal this afternoon:

"“What are they going to do if there is a judgment and he says, ‘Well, I’m still not going to buy it’?” said Zohar Goshen, professor of transactional law at Columbia Law School. “They don’t really have tools to force him to go through with it. You don’t put people in jail because they don’t buy something.”"

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-elon-musk-set-for-unpre...

Perhaps it's just a general sense of disillusionment, but I've come to see that "court orders X" and "X happens" are entirely orthogonal. I will be personally surprised if Musk pays a single cent.

> There are remedies for people who disobey court orders.

There are remedies for people like you and me and most people who disobey court orders.

You can observe time and again that for those who are well connected and have some billions, the concept of law is far more malleable.

Levine is suggesting that they don’t have the balls to enforce those penalties.

And by history, he may very well be right.

> Is Levine seriously suggesting that US courts don't have the authority to impose financial penalties, find liability, and seize assets

No. He’s suggesting that Musk’s wealth and power will make the people who work in US courts reluctant to impose financial penalties, find liability, and seize assets.

I can't believe people are looking at this from such a silly angle. It's obvious that no court can order you to buy something. That goes against the personal freedom we have in this country, and if a court tried it, it would be an easy appeal. But that misses the point, because nobody is going to order Elon to buy Twitter. What MIGHT happen is, a court declares "Congratulations! You already bought Twitter! It has nothing to do with us, we just interpreted the contract. Again, congrats on your purchase, don't go getting buyer's remorse now winky face"

Levine’s take is based on how Musk’s previous encounters with court orders have gone.

If he had the cash to buy it, they could force him to. But if he lined up financing and those people bail, what then? Would the court make him liquidate all his Tesla stock, without regard to how that would injure other Tesla shareholders? Having assets does make one more vulnerable to court judgments, but savvy birch people will set themselves up to remain in the driver’s seat when possible.

Note that in TFA, the continuation of this very silly statement is footnoted [6], which literally starts with "I made this joke before...", so none of us ought to be taking it seriously.

Well, throwaway09223, you certainly sound like as much an authority as a former Wachtell and Goldman Sachs associate. Strong arguments like "this is utter nonsense" and "this is so absurd [that I can't actually argue against it]" are sure to sway the educated crowd on HN.

If you would like to go see ways in which the government fails to penalize powerful entities, look no further than the financial crisis fines. What you were told were 10 figure fines ended up becoming a few million dollars in consumer relief headaches

> This is such an absurd thing [for Matt Levine, a former 3rd Circuit clerk, Yale Law grad, and Wachtell M&A attorney] to say it's hard to find a way to charitably respond.

If your interpretation of the post suggests that a highly qualified attorney is getting the basics of US law absurdly incorrect, you might want to reconsider whether you're understanding the intended meaning.

(Here, Levine is making a specific claim about the remedies that the Delaware chancellory court typically employs, not about the authority of US courts)

>the court will take his assets to compensate.

How do you seize billions of dollars of stock without affecting share prices?

To the extent that Elon Musk might represent a corner case w.r.t. the legal system even more than you’re average billionaire it would most likely be because of the national security tie-ins around SpaceX.

This is pure speculation on my part, but I don’t think it’s insane.

> There are remedies for people who disobey court orders.

A Delaware court doesn’t have as much reach as you might think if most of Musk’s assets are not there.

Why would the court force Elon to buy the company when the remedy in the contract is a one billion payout?

Ok let’s say he has a bunch of stock as well as paintings, cars, etc. how do you divvy that up? Cut the painting in half and give it to Twitter? The rich are very wise at hiding money in assets that cannot be evenly divided nor distributed. That’s why the vast majority of taxes in the US comes from the middle class, they usually sit on piles of cash and have salaries from which to levy fines to.