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0 pointspclmulqdq3y ago0 comments

In 2020, as I understand it, Bill gates sold less than 1% of MSFT on the open market there: his holding went from a bit over 2% to a bit over 1%. He had been steadily selling over the last two decades.

Contrast that with Jeff Bezos, who owns 10% of Amazon, or Elon Musk who owns over 20% of Tesla. Half of Gates's holding is nothing in comparison to half of Bezos's.

When you sell large share blocks like Gates did, you do it very slowly to avoid market impact. Elon Musk couldn't sell slowly enough to avoid an impact when he sold shares to buy Twitter.

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pydry3y ago

Overall he sold about 44% of the company. He had about 45%.

The guy above was telling me this would drive the price down. You know what actually happened though. The share price went up.

The "billionaire shares are imaginary meme" is just a rhetorical trick designed to confuse the economically illiterate.

The only interesting thing about this meme is figuring out where it came from and how it was so efficiently pumped into the public consciousness.

pclmulqdqOP3y ago

Oh yeah, he sold it very, very slowly, over 20 years. The hypothetical I was responding to is suggesting that these billionaires' fortunes be liquidated within a year.

Even so, you don't know how much higher the price of MSFT would be if not for Gates's selling. Other factors just drove the price up faster than he drove it down.

pydry3y ago

Yeah, fair point.

Either way the meme of bezos's wealth being a fiction is comprehensively disproved.

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0 pointspclmulqdq3y ago0 comments

Contrast that with Jeff Bezos, who owns 10% of Amazon, or Elon Musk who owns over 20% of Tesla. Half of Gates's holding is nothing in comparison to half of Bezos's.

When you sell large share blocks like Gates did, you do it very slowly to avoid market impact. Elon Musk couldn't sell slowly enough to avoid an impact when he sold shares to buy Twitter.

0 comments

pydry3y ago

Overall he sold about 44% of the company. He had about 45%.

The guy above was telling me this would drive the price down. You know what actually happened though. The share price went up.

The "billionaire shares are imaginary meme" is just a rhetorical trick designed to confuse the economically illiterate.

The only interesting thing about this meme is figuring out where it came from and how it was so efficiently pumped into the public consciousness.

pclmulqdqOP3y ago

Oh yeah, he sold it very, very slowly, over 20 years. The hypothetical I was responding to is suggesting that these billionaires' fortunes be liquidated within a year.

Even so, you don't know how much higher the price of MSFT would be if not for Gates's selling. Other factors just drove the price up faster than he drove it down.

pydry3y ago

Yeah, fair point.

Either way the meme of bezos's wealth being a fiction is comprehensively disproved.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse