Elon Musk Tells Jury Despite Being Worth $20 Billion, He’s “Short On Cash”

Just as it did during his deposition, Elon Musk’s wealth became a topic during his testimony at day of his trial versus British cave diving hero Vern Unsworth. 

Despite his lawyer’s best effort to object to the question being asked of Musk, the Tesla CEO told the jury that his net worth was about $20 billion, but that he has debt against his SpaceX and Tesla stock, according to Bloomberg. Musk said that contrary to popular opinion, however, he “didn’t have much cash”. 

 

It serves as just another stark reminder of how illiquid Musk’s fortune truly is. Musk has said in the past that he doesn’t intend on selling any of his $14.6 billion SpaceX stake and he has added to his $11.4 billion stake in Tesla during the company’s last financing efforts.

About 40% of Musk’s Tesla shares have been pledged for loans and a May filing showed that Musk had access to about $500 million in credit lines from lenders like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. His overall fortune is listed at $26.6 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index. 

It is “unclear” how much of Musk’s credit lines have been drawn upon.  

Musk wrapped up his testimony on Wednesday, finishing a cumulative six hours on the stand over two days. Jared Birchall, who runs Excession LLC, Musk’s family office, is slated to testify next. 

In the previous day’s testimony, Musk’s lawyers had sought to establish that Musk’s Twitter account isn’t widespread and doesn’t garner publicity. On Wednesday, Unsworth’s attorney continued to examine Musk about it, seemingly catching Musk in his own circular logic. 

Wood also asked why Musk made the apology on Twitter. Did he know if Unsworth had a Twitter account? Musk says, “If I write something on Twitter it will get reported, generally.” To which Wood responded, “So you thought your tweet would get widespread publicity?”
— Kerry Flynn 🐶 (@kerrymflynn) December 4, 2019

Vern Unsworth helped play a key role in saving 12 boys and their soccer coach who were trapped in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Thailand in July 2018.

Musk had proposed his own solution for the rescue, embarking on a boastful public quest to construct a device that could help rescue the trapped children. But, ultimately, the rescue was done by actual professionals and without the help of Musk.

In a post-rescue interview with CNN, Unsworth laughed off Musk’s proposed solution and told the billionaire he could “stick it where it hurts”, disregarding Musk’s effort as a “PR stunt”. 

Musk fired back by calling Unsworth names and insisting that he was a pedophile both on Twitter, and in communications with a reporter at BuzzFeed.

We wrapped up Musk’s first day of testimony, Tuesday, in this article.