74. Keep your craziness to yourself
On a high note, I ordered another bottle and drank some more.
Then we oxidized it vigorously.
The two of them sat down and drank four bottles of liquor, which would have been funny if they hadn’t been sober.
“Oh my God, I’m going to die.”
“You’re having fun. Aren’t you two crazy, opening four bottles of liquor together?”
From nob le mt l. co m
Jeffrey said, looking at me incredulously.
Yesterday, he’d told me to come to his office today because he and Elon had something to discuss over the phone, and now that I was wandering around empty-handed, he couldn’t believe it.
“I don’t know, I think I’m going to die.”
“Go ahead and die. No, let’s say you are. Musk, that nutcase, he’s not even old enough to be a man, what the hell is he drinking?”
“…”
I trailed off.
“Well, it’s a great deal, boss, a 20% stake in Space X, hahahahaha!”
“Hmph! Isn’t it?”
From nob le mt l. co m
John was the only one who recognized me.
“So Ronald Baron, the chairman of Baron Capital, who is said to be very close to Musk, went after him with money and said he was going to invest, but all he got was a tiny stake of less than 1%. That’s why Space X is such a difficult stock to invest in that Musk has an iron wall around it, and even if you had money, you wouldn’t make any money.”
“hahahaha, yeah, I guess baiting them by bundling Tesla voting stock with Space voting stock worked.”
“You did a great job. Usually investors obsess over voting rights, but if you’re a pure investor, there’s no need to do that at all, especially in a stock that relies so heavily on founder charisma like Tesla and Space X.”
“But John, you can’t just throw voting rights out the window, can you?”
From nob le mt l. co m
Jeffrey put the brakes on John’s excitement.
“Of course not, and that’s probably why the boss asked you to come, isn’t it, boss?”
“That’s right, John. I’ve been clear about that with Elon, especially since Tesla isn’t a stock we’re going to hold forever, and we’ll have to sell if the stock goes up to where we want it to one day, and we can’t just be tied to Elon.”
“Exactly, boss.”
“Okay, okay, so why don’t you stop crashing on the couch and come over here and sit down?”
“…”
Alcohol is the enemy.
Anyway, John and Jeffrey and I worked out the details of the deal with Musk, and after a week of back-and-forth with Musk’s lawyers, with me and Jeffrey out of the picture, we signed the investment agreement.
There were a lot of fine print, but the key part was this.
“We agreed not to sell our shares of Tesla for two years after we reached 15%, and we agreed to maintain a 10% or greater stake for at least two years after that, so four years total.”
“And?”
“After four years, we’re free to sell, but we’ll have to talk to Musk about the sale first. If the price isn’t right, which is not uncommon, then that’s it. And if we still have a stake after four years, we’ll renegotiate.”
Four years is plenty of time.
Especially since after two years, we’re free to sell any stake above 10%.
“Space X has agreed to make the first payment of $5 billion by December 31st of this year, so $5 billion per year for three years, in three payments on December 31st of each year, for a total investment of $15 billion. Of course, they’ll get one-third of the equity as they pay, and the penalty is three times the total of $15 billion, which we insisted on, so they won’t be able to pull out halfway through.”
“Well done.”
If we’re right, Tesla stock is going to explode.
So Elon, who is now a beggar in anything but stock, insists because he doesn’t want to use the money he made at Tesla to do something he doesn’t want to do.
“And, in the unlikely event that it becomes necessary to raise additional capital, it will require our consent, and even then, we will have the right of first refusal, with an exercise price of course at the average price per share of this investment.”
“Hmph, that’s good.”
At $15 billion, it’s unlikely that Space X will need any additional money.
But you never know, so he made sure.
“Finally, under no circumstances can we make resolutions that harm our interests. I’ve put it in there so carefully that it won’t be a problem later.”
“hahahahaha! Good job, Jeffrey.”
“hahahahaha! Jeffrey was so demanding, Musk jumped up and down and threw a temper tantrum, and then he asked me to take over his job after this contract was over.”
“Oh, Jeffrey’s got a big client, I bet he’ll be in a lot of trouble with the lawsuits because he talks a lot and does a lot of outbursts.”
“Well, I told him I’d look after him as long as it’s in your interest and you’re deployed. Hmph!”
“hahahahaha!”
It really hit me that America is a nation of lawyers.
It’s a country where lawyers are attached to every little thing, and all sorts of ridiculous conditions are attached.
Especially Musk, there were so many stories.
Would I have asked him to please stop tweeting?
“Hey, Elon.”
“Why, Alex?”
“Can you stop tweeting that? You’re not some kind of celebrity, why are you tweeting that?”
“What’s the matter with you? You think I’m calculating all this, even though it seems like I’m just spouting off without thinking?”
“Bullsh*t! Don’t you know Sir Fergie’s quote about social media being a waste of life?”
“Who’s Fergie? Is he that pretty girl from the Black Eyed Peas? Have you ever tried to hit on her?”
“You crazy—.”
I have nothing to say.
I just leave him alone.
Even if I didn’t take anything Elon said at face value 100% of the time, it was also true that the way he interacted with the world through his tweets, he was never far from the center of controversy, for better or worse.
“It’s Alex.”
“Why?”
“Do you think we’ll buy Twitter when we make enough money?”
“Please don’t say ‘we’, keep the crazy stuff to yourself.”
“Kkkkkk! Got it.”
Don’t look at it too often.
It makes my head spin.
By August, I was back in South Korea.
I would probably have to fly back and forth several times this year to prepare for the turbulence I expected next year.
“In consultation with Mr. Nam, we have been sold a plot of land in Jeongnam General Industrial Park on Mars.”
“In Hwaseong? Where in Hwaseong?”
Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-do, is an incredibly large city.
It’s said to be 1.4 times the size of Seoul, but it’s even bigger if you add reclaimed land.
“It’s closer to Dongtan, inland. There’s also the Hyangnam Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex and Bio Valley in the same city.”
“Really? How much did you buy?”
“It’s 30,000 square meters, a little over 9,000 pyeong. At 2.45 million won per square meter, the purchase price was about 22.2 billion won.”
“It’s cheaper than I thought?”
“It’s because it’s an industrial complex, so the government is required to build it and receive a subsidy. Instead, there are some restrictions on the types of businesses that can move in, but that doesn’t matter to us. Usually, there are a lot of companies that come in on the side, and we have medical equipment, which is one of the purposes of the Jeongnam Industrial Park.”
“Ahhh—.”
Things like masks and goggles aren’t really medical equipment, but they’re close.
“That’s where we’ll put the mask equipment we’ve purchased, first of all, the 200 mask machines we wanted from Korea and the 300 new ones we ordered.”
“Wow, that’s pretty spectacular, what’s the monthly production?”
“Based on KF94 masks, 16 hours a day, 30,000 pieces. So, simple math, 30 days without a day off, that’s 900,000 per month on one machine, and 450 million on 500.”
“So you’re saying that if we run 16 hours a day, we can produce more in an emergency?”
“Still, 600 million is the limit. The machines need to rest and be serviced.”
“What about dental masks?”
“Sixty thousand a day. Same standard, and we’ve ordered 100 used and 400 new.”
“Five hundred units is 900 million? That’s monthly production?”
“Yeah, but that’s a late machine. They won’t be in the factory until February of next year.”
I thought that wouldn’t be too late.
Maybe the KF94 would come first.
“What’s the price of the machine?”
“It’s a bit expensive for KF94. It’s about 150 million won, but we ordered in bulk and got it down to 90 million won. The dental one is half that.”
“Hmph! Good job.”
“Who are we, we didn’t learn anything from Mr. Hong over his shoulder?”
“hahahaha, at least you didn’t beat us up too much, right?”
“Hey, it’s 300 units for KF94 and 400 units for dental. We couldn’t fit them all in one place, so we split the order between four locations. I’m sure they’re singing hooray right now.”
“I’m glad for them.”
“But, you mind?”
“What?”
“If this becomes a global shortage like you said, there’ll be a frenzy at first, but after ten months, they’ll be making them all over the place and selling them for sh*t. Are you sure you’re okay with that?”
From nob le mt l. co m
Jae-ha’s prediction is quite reasonable.
“The land alone cost 22.2 billion won, the factory itself cost 10 billion won, and the mask machines and other equipment cost 60 billion won, both used and new, so roughly speaking, it’s almost 100 billion won. Even if there’s nothing left but factory land and factory buildings.”
“It doesn’t matter, our job is to make up for the initial shortfall anyway, and if we sell it at full price when we have that initial shortfall, it won’t cost us anything if we return it to the pool, right? Besides, if it looks like we’ll be able to make ends meet, we’ll just sell it, right?”
“Hmm? Can we do that?”
“Of course we can, what are we going to do with this mask business for the rest of our lives?”
“Hmph! Then if it’s going to make money, it’s going to make money. If it doesn’t, we’ll blow it.”
“I hope it doesn’t make a mess, because I don’t want it to make a mess.”
“Humph, that’s what they say—.”
“I know, bro. I know what Jae-ha meant.”
“Why would Jae-ha ask for a mess?
He’s spending so much money, he’s worried.
“Are you embarrassing people by making them do strange things?”
“Hmph!”
“Anyway, in addition to that, the Zhengnan factory will produce other epidemic prevention equipment such as protective goggles. I know that.”
“Yeah, but what about protective clothing?”
“Well, we’ve acquired two small companies that specialize in that, and the rest of our focus is on acquiring fabric, because really, if you have the fabric, you can produce it anywhere there’s a sewing machine. Once we’ve ramped up production at the companies we’ve acquired, we’re stocking up.” “And it’s all on spec?”
“Absolutely. So the industry is going crazy, like we’re some kind of apocalyptic lunatics.”
“What? Apocalypse? What apocalypse?”
“You wouldn’t think so, would you? They don’t say it, but out of nowhere, our country produces a protective suit that will last a decade, gets a fabric that will last many times that, and then goes crazy?”
“…”
One minute I’m being labeled an apocalyptic nutcase.
It’s so hard to be a good guy.