Now is a good time to flood Wikipedia with donations. For the first time in my life, i have just donated to them and will do so again. You can do it too for a minimum of €2, no requirement for recurring donations or any nonsense.

  • stevehobbes@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    That’s not how debt works, he almost certainly pledged assets and a personal guarantee against it. This is known as collateral.

    The banks take the collateral when you stop paying.

    • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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      1 year ago

      The way I understood it is that he didn’t get a loan to buy the company, but had a bank itself buy Twitter as a loan, so Twitter itself is the collateral. That’s what I did when I bought my apartment: a bank bought it from the constructor and let me live in it while slowly buying it from them over hundreds of installments. If I stopped paying the bank would kick me out and sell the apartment to someone else.

      • stevehobbes@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        That isn’t quite right. If you stopped paying the bank would kick you out and sell the apartment to someone else, but if they get less than you owe them for it, they will also send you a bill for the remainder.

        And then sue you to get that money.

        Interestingly, if they get more than you owe them for it, they will cut you a check for the difference.

        But you are actually wrong about how and what the order of operations is.

        You are buying the house, the lender (bank) writes the check directly to the seller, and you sign a mortgage agreement for that much with the bank and they put a lien on your house. The bank does not own the house, you do. The bank owns a promissory note from you, backed by your personal wealth and credit and the value of the house (that they have a lien on).

        In the case of Twitter, yes, Twitter itself is part of the collateral, but so was Elon musks personal wealth and Tesla shares.

        • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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          1 year ago

          I forgot to mention I’m not American so some things might be different in my case, but you’re right in general.