<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Concierge Auctions</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Got at least $10 million to spare - and a hankering for a private mansion in the Bahamas with an illustrious rock 'n' roll history? Then you might want to consider Paradise Island's infamous <a href="http://www.conciergeauctions.com/auctions/kilkee-house-paradise-island-nassau-bahamas/#forward">Kilkee House</a>, former <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-05/legendary-kilkee-house-on-paradise-island-bahamas-up-for-auction">home</a> of playboys and party royalty, now up for auction.</p><p>Set on a beachfront two-acre parcel - and accessible only by boat, for serious privacy - the estate has hosted celebrities from the Rat Pack to the Beatles to James Bond (Brosnan, Pierce Brosnan, that is). </p><p>The home has been the scene of some of Hollywood's wildest parties in the Bahamas, and at an opening bid price of $10 million, it's a bargain.</p>

A Bahamas party pad with a history of famous owners is up for auction at $10 million

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/millionaire-poundland-founder-steve-smith-and-matchcoms-estatesdirect-ipo-2015-3#ixzz3UpxDQoxQ"></a><p class="source"><span>Estatesdirect.com</span></p><p class="caption">Steve Smith founder of Poundland and Estates Direct.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Poundland founder <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/millionaire-poundland-founder-steve-smith-and-matchcoms-estatesdirect-ipo-2015-3#ixzz3UpxDQoxQ">Steve Smith</a> went from market stall trader to multi-millionaire by the time he was 30 years old.</p><p>He was dragged to his father's stall in Bilston as a toddler, and set up his first high-street bargain goods store when he was a teenager. He turned that <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/millionaire-poundland-founder-steve-smith-and-matchcoms-estatesdirect-ipo-2015-3">into the retail empire Poundland, which he later sold for £50 million ($74.2 million)</a>.</p><p><span>His </span><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/millionaire-poundland-founder-steve-smith-and-matchcoms-estatesdirect-ipo-2015-3">next venture is EstatesDirect</a><span>, an online property agent.</span></p><p>After trading a humble townhouse in Wolverhampton, West Midlands for a 15,000-square-foot-mansion in Shropshire in 2000, he told Business Insider how he did it. </p><p>Smith also shared with us some early photos from his days on his father's Bilston stall. We've mixed them with other images of his roots in the Midlands.</p>

Steve Smith's personal photos show his journey from market stall to Poundland multimillionaire

<p><span class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><span><span data-post-image="" class="image on-image"></span><p></p></span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Kim Dotcom, an internet entrepreneur who became famous after authorities raided his New Zealand mansion in 2012 for running a file-sharing site called MegaUpload, attempted to restore service to Sony and Microsoft's online gaming networks Thursday night - by bargaining with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-hacker-gang-lizard-squad-took-down-xbox-live-and-playstation-network-2014-12">the hacker collective allegedly attacking the networks</a>.</span></p>
<p>Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live service <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/xbox-live-and-playstation-network-are-still-down-and-the-hacker-gang-lizard-squad-is-loving-it-2014-12">have been down for over a day</a>. A hacker group called "Lizard Squad" has claimed responsibility for the attack. Lizard Squad is supposedly flooding Sony and Microsoft's servers with bogus traffic in what's called a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.</p>
<p>Kim Dotcom tweeted he'd give members of Lizard Squad a free premium subscription to his new encrypted file-sharing service MegaPrivacy if they agreed to end the DDoS attacks. The tactic worked, but only for a few hours.</p>
<p>Here's how it all went down:</p>
<h3>On Thursday night, Dotcom tweeted that he would give a free lifetime premium subscription to MegaPrivacy to members of Lizard Squad if they agreed to stop the attack.</h3>
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<p class="embed-spacer"><strong><span style="font-size: 1.17em; color: #000000;">Lizard Squad agreed.</span></strong></p>
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<p class="embed-spacer"><strong><span style="font-size: 1.17em; color: #000000;">Kim Dotcom then boasted he ended the attacks in a series of tweets.</span></strong></p>
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<p class="embed-spacer"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">But a few hours later, Lizard Squad was back at it. </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/xbox-live-and-playstation-network-are-still-down-and-the-hacker-gang-lizard-squad-is-loving-it-2014-12">Both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network are still down</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> as of Friday morning.</span></p>

Kim Dotcom Tried And Failed To Stop The Attacks On The PlayStation Network And Xbox Live

<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty</span></p><p class="caption">The SpongeBob SquarePants balloon floats through the parade route during the 89th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 26, 2015 in New York City</p></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning! Here's what you need to know on Friday.</strong></p><p><strong>1. </strong>US presidential candidate Donald Trump's row with a New York Times journalist has escalated further. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-reporter-disability-statement-2015-11" target="_blank">The real estate mogul has been accused of mocking reporter Serge Kovaleski's physical disability.</a></p><p><strong>2. </strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/corbyn-says-he-cannot-support-airstrikes-in-syria-and-is-gambling-that-cameron-doesnt-have-the-votes-for-bombing-2015-11" target="_blank">Labour's leader Jeremy Corbyn says he cannot support Prime Minister David Cameron's plan to bomb Islamic State in Syria.</a> The leader of the opposition has written to MPs saying he does not believe Cameron made a "convincing case" to launch airstrikes in Syria.</p><p><strong>3. </strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-thanksgiving-shopping-crowds-good-not-great-online-sales-strong-2015-11" target="_blank">Retailers across the United States offered early Black Friday discounts to lure bargain-hunters on Thanksgiving eve</a>, but crowds in brick-and-mortar stores were subdued even as online sales jumped.</p><p><strong>4. </strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/negative-interest-rates-switzerland-sweden-and-war-on-cash-2015-11" target="_blank">A huge economic experiment will begin in Switzerland and Sweden in 2016, and some people are calling it the "war on cash."</a></p><p><strong>5.</strong> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-iraqi-forces-cut-last-is-supply-line-into-ramadi-by-retaking-bridge-2015-11" target="_blank">Iraqi forces have cut Islamic State's last supply line into the western city of Ramadi</a> by seizing a key bridge, according to officials and a military officer.</p><p><strong>6. </strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/4-kpmg-partners-arrested-hmrc-tax-evasion-inquiry-2015-11" target="_blank">Four senior executives from the Belfast office of accountancy firm KPMG</a><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/4-kpmg-partners-arrested-hmrc-tax-evasion-inquiry-2015-11" target="_blank"> have been arrested</a> on alleged tax evasion charges.</p><p><strong>7. </strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-white-house-on-lockdown-after-person-jumps-fence-cnn-2015-11" target="_blank">A man was detained on Thursday after jumping the White House fence</a>, triggering a lockdown of the presidential mansion.</p><p><strong>8. </strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/petrobras-scandal-arrests-hurt-brazil-president-dilma-rousseff-2015-11" target="_blank">President Dilma Rousseff's austerity program to fix Brazil's shaky finances is again in trouble</a> after her point man in the Senate was arrested in a widening corruption scandal, and it could reignite calls for her impeachment.</p><p><strong>9. </strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/turkish-journalists-jailed-over-reports-turkey-smuggling-arms-to-syria-2015-11" target="_blank">A Turkish court has ordered that two prominent opposition journalists be jailed pending trial on terrorism charges and revealing state secrets.</a></p><p><strong>10. </strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/france-and-russia-agree-to-exchange-information-about-isis-2015-11" target="_blank">France and Russia will exchange intelligence on Islamic State and other rebel groups to improve the effectiveness of their aerial bombing campaigns in Syria.</a></p><p><strong>And finally ... </strong></p><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/swedens-deputy-prime-minister-cries-as-she-announces-u-turn-on-refugee-policy-2015-11">Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister broke down in tears as she announced the Government's U-turn over the refugee crisis to reduce the number of people fleeing war and persecution from seeking asylum in Sweden. The video has since gone viral.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/family-business-relationships-vineyard-vines-shep-ian-murray-2015-11">What you need to know before going into business with family</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="9xamU0eTrNI-gkEQamqnQkyRu1mapqNP" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The 10 most important things in the world right now

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p><p class="caption">Singapore is dotted with stunning, colorful architecture like these Peranakan-style shophouses.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>HSBC Expat released its annual expat survey to find the best countries for<span> </span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/expats">expats</a><span> </span>to live based on economics, quality of life, and a slew of other factors.</strong></li><li><strong>Though it is known worldwide for its extravagance and wealth, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/singapore">Singapore</a> was named the top country for expats due to its strong economic situation and high quality-of-life.</strong></li><li><strong> When I visited Singapore in May, I expected it to be wildly expensive. I found that, while renting an apartment is costly, the city is full of cheap, delicious food, efficient public transportation, top-notch museums, a budding nightlife scene, and beautiful parks.</strong></li></ul><p><span>If you had told me six months ago that Singapore was ranked the number one place in the world for expats to move, as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-best-countries-for-expats-2014-10">HSBC Expat did in its annual report released last week</a></span><span>, I would have laughed in your face.</span><span></span></p><p><span>Prior to visiting the island city-state, my notion of Singapore was similar to the one portrayed in summer blockbuster "Crazy Rich Asians." That is to say I thought of it as a breathtakingly wealthy place where rich people cavort about in exotic supercars and dress themselves in mansion-size closets stuffed with Balenciaga, Chanel, and Gucci.</span><span></span></p><p><span>That image is not conducive to expat living. As someone who has frequently toyed with the idea of living abroad for years at a time, I've done a fair amount of thinking about what makes a city or country a good place to expat. Ideally, you want a place with a strong economy with lots of opportunity, a low-priced but high quality cost of living, a friendly populace open to outsiders, minimal language barrier, vibrant culture and nightlife, and a safe, healthy environment.</span><span></span></p><p><span>Over the past six months, I've visited 13 countries in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/travel-bucket-list-ideas-destinations-around-the-world-tour-trip-2018-8">my current role as Business Insider's international correspondent</a>. In each place I visited, I tried to imagine myself living there day in and day out: what it would be like to commute, where I would eat, and how I would make friends. </span><span></span></p><p><span>Most places had some, but not all of the factors that make a place great to expat. Shanghai, China has tons of opportunity and one of the most exciting nightlife cultures I've ever stepped into, but the smog can be unbearable. Bali, Indonesia is gorgeous and cheap, but, to make a living, you are most likely going to be trying to work for an American or European company remotely, which limits your options. Seoul, South Korea is safe and has great nightlife, but business opportunities and friendships are limited if you can't speak Korean.</span><span></span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock/joyfull</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>But Singapore is different, sometimes surprisingly so.</span></p><h2><span>Singapore is incredibly livable</span></h2><h2><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></h2><p><span>Singapore is a melting pot of Chinese, Tamil Indian, Malay, and British people. While almost all native Singaporeans can speak multiple languages - in a market, I listened to my Indian tour guide speak to a Chinese shopkeeper in a mix of Tamil, Malay, and Mandarin Chinese - English is the lingua franca of the island. </span></p><p><span>If that's all you can speak, you can still make friends with locals and participate in many aspects of Singaporean culture. If you want to be seen as a true Singaporean, however, you should do your best to pick up <a href="https://thehoneycombers.com/singapore/singlish-101/">as much "Singlish" slang as possible</a>. </span><span></span></p><p><span>As I walked through the city in May, the word that kept coming to me to describe Singapore was: livable. It feels like a place you can live and make a home. </span></p><p><span>The streets are exceptionally clean without feeling sterile. Many of the buildings are covered in walls of plants and </span><span>the streets and highways are shaded with umbrella-like rain trees, dense evergreen tembusu trees, and colorful bougainvillea. </span></p><p><span>The city has been known as the "garden city" since Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first prime minister, introduced the concept in 1967. His vision was to envelop it in lush foliage to make it cleaner and more pleasant. His initiative worked. About 1.4 million trees have been planted in the past 40 years, and new buildings are routinely covered in greenery.</span><span></span></p><h2><span>The food culture is unparalleled</span></h2><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>From a cultural perspective, there is a thriving cocktail scene that includes some of the best bars I've been to in my travels (<a href="https://spiffydapper.com/">The Spiffy Dapper</a> comes to mind) and the food scene is positively bonkers good.</span><span></span></p><p><span>It's not an exaggeration to say that Singaporeans live through their food. The city's Chinese, Indian, and Malay populations bring their unique culinary cultures to the food scene, both at hawker centers, which offer tasty specialties at bargain prices, and high-end white-tablecloth restaurants. </span><span></span></p><p><span>When I asked a Grab driver where to eat dinner, he spent the entire 15-minute drive giving me detailed instructions for no fewer than a dozen restaurants - what to order, the best time to go, how to find the inevitably hidden restaurant or stall.</span><span></span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>To put it simply: Singapore is an <em>easy</em> place to live. The tropical weather is wonderful, so long as you can handle the heat. The public transportation is cheap, easy-to-use, and convenient. The city is considered the 8th safest place in the world, according to<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/safest-countries-in-the-world-2018-6"> the 2018 Global Peace Index</a>. And there is a large community of foreigners - <a href="http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20150311-why-expats-call-this-utopia">1.3 million out of a population</a> of 5.6 million - that makes it feel like a true international destination.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><h2><span>The city isn't perfect</span></h2><p><span>There are, of course, downsides. </span><span>The Economist's 2018 <a href="http://www.eiu.com/topic/worldwide-cost-of-living">"Worldwide Cost of Living"</a> report <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-and-least-expensive-cities-in-the-world-today-2018-3">found that Singapore</a> is the most expensive city in the world. The study bases its rankings on the cost for 160 products and services including food, drink, clothing, rent, transportation, and utilities. </span><span></span></p><p><span>The high cost of living can make certain things out of reach. Imported cars are prohibitively expensive thanks to high prices, taxes, gas, and parking fees. A Certificate of Entitlement, which <a href="http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20150311-why-expats-call-this-utopia">allows a person to purchase</a> a car, can go up to $43,000 for 10 years, according to BBC. Fifty percent of expats told HSBC Expat that they can't afford a home in Singapore.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>Expats do experience a 29% increase in salary and the average salary is $160,833, according to HSBC Expat's annual survey. Two-thirds say they have more disposable income than they did at home. That's likely due to the high-quality of jobs available to expats.  Many multinational corporations like Microsoft, American Express, Edelman, and a ton of media organizations have offices in the city. And the city is seen as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/hong-kong-vs-singapore-weighing-asias-financial-hubs.html">a hub for the finance and oil industries </a>in Asia.</p><p><span>The country has a <a href="https://www.techinasia.com/top-funded-startups-tech-companies-singapore">burgeoning tech scene</a> focused on Southeast Asia, a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexcapri/2018/05/03/alibaba-wechat-tencent-southeast-asia-china/#5459b77f4773">market of half a billion people</a> that many experts say is an opportunity akin to China 10 or 20 years ago. So far, the scene has produced at least three unicorns: Grab, a super-app that began with ride-hailing and now offers a ton of services; Lazada, an e-commerce platform; and Sea, a digital entertainment company.</span><span></span></p><p><span>Needless to say, Singapore has a lot more going for it than "Crazy Rich Asians." By the time, I was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-best-airport-number-1-singapores-changi-photos-tour-2018-6">in the airpor</a>t on my way out, I knew I would come back to Singapore soon enough.</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-tips-tricks-2018-9">11 Apple Watch tips and tricks</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Singapore is ranked the best place in the world for expats, and after visiting I can understand why

<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Getty Images/Joshua Lott</span></p><p class="caption">Tesla CEO Elon Musk.</p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-deeply-saddened-and-disappointed-by-sec-lawsuit-2018-9">SEC has charged Tesla CEO Elon Musk with fraud</a> and could seek to ban him from leading the carmaker.</strong></li><li><strong>The SEC's case hinges on a tweet that Musk wrote in August.</strong></li><li><strong>The idea that the SEC could crush <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/tesla">Tesla</a> based largely on something as trivial as an ill-advised tweet is extremely troubling.</strong></li></ul><p><br />A few months ago, Elon Musk was sitting in his personal Tesla in Los Angeles on his way to the airport. He typed eight words and one bad-joke number into Twitter and posted the missive to his 22 million followers: <span>"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured."</span></p><p><span>The $420 was a round-up from $419, a 20% premium on Tesla stock price, then about $350. The pot-smoking reference was intended to amuse Grimes, Musk's girlfriend at the time.</span></p><p><span>In Musk's head, he had the funding from the Saudi private wealth fund, based on previous discussions, but he didn't bother informing investors, NASDAQ, or his board before he tweeted. He later outlined a complicated go-private plan that would have brought most major existing shareholders along. The whole scheme later fell apart, and Tesla shares settled back into a $300-ish trading range.</span><span></span></p><p><span>Last Thursday, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-deeply-saddened-and-disappointed-by-sec-lawsuit-2018-9">Securities and Exchange Commission concluded an investigation into the tweet</a> and what happened after Musk sent it. The result was a lawsuit that, in the worst case, would bar Musk from serving as an officer of a public company. </span></p><p><span>Musk was reportedly offered a settlement with the SEC prior to the lawsuit being issued, but he declined, and the Tesla board reaffirmed its commitment to his leadership. </span></p><p><span>That's understandable, as Musk has presided over the creation of the first new American car company in decades and steered Tesla to a market capitalization larger than Ford or Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. If you bought Tesla after its 2010 IPO, you've made, at times, a 1,000%-plus return. The vast majority of people who own Teslas love their cars. And the company is on track to beat its 2017 total of 100,000 vehicle deliveries by a wide margin in 2018.</span></p><p><span>It's obvious that Musk was winging it with his tweet. It's also probably true that Musk was sick of the waves of negativity about the company emanating from short-sellers; the most prominent of these - Jim Chanos and David Einhorn - have long been on the losing end of their bet but weren't letting up. Chanos was spending a fair amount of time on financial TV promoting his position without actually ever publicly quantifying it and labeling Tesla as insolvent. </span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Andy Kiersz/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Tesla is more valuable than Ford or FCA.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><h2><span>Musk and traditional business aren't two great tastes that go great together</span></h2><p><span>I've covered Tesla for over a decade, and I can say with certainty that Musk isn't much of a businessperson. He's a spectacular salesperson, but those things aren't the same. He's run Tesla in a way that's baffling to Wall Street because he's reverse-engineered the company from a future in which electric-vehicles have completely replaced gas-powered ones. </span></p><p><span>You either accept that he's a visionary or you don't. I do - while understanding that like most visionaries in the auto industry's history, Musk has major flaws - and have often been confused about why he bothers with Twitter. His Elon Musk-ness doesn't require the platform.</span></p><p><span>Sure, he can reach millions of people with his tweets and shape impressions of Tesla's brand. But he does that anyway. His Twitter habits are unfortunately a consequence of his Silicon Valley-ness. Musk is both of Silicon Valley and very much above it; Tesla and his other company, SpaceX, have such a majestic potential for humanity that they make social media look trivial. </span></p><p><span>And yet, he tweets. I joined Twitter in 2008 and after a short period when I was active on the platform, I've largely avoided it in the past few years because I didn't believe it was helping me to accomplish anything meaningful and because the nature of the discourse had become viciously unpleasant. </span></p><p><span>Nevertheless, Twitter continues to be taken seriously. I know there's worse, in the dark and more malevolent crevices of the internet. But even if you're like me and check Twitter only occasionally to discover if you've made a mistake - as a journalist, I like it when people point out my errors - you realize that Twitter is a sort of scrolling nightmare. </span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Rebecca Cook / Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">It was just a dumb tweet.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><h2><span>Who in their right mind makes investment decisions based on a tweet?</span></h2><p><span>So Musk wrote his now infamous "funding secured" tweet, and various financial pundits started to complain about it, my first thought was, "Who in their right mind makes an investment decision on the basis of eight words and goofy number?"</span></p><p><span>Musk obviously wasn't tweeting to make any money for himself, as he never sells any Tesla stock and typically borrows against his existing stake of 20% to add to it. I know that can move the stock up, but Tesla is actually a monumentally risky investment, so as a margin trade anybody except Musk should avoid it. After all, Musk can afford to have to stock lose almost all of its value and still be a billionaire. </span></p><p><span>It had also been clear for a year or so that Musk realized he had created a monster by taking Tesla public in the first place and wished it could return to being private. In the past, he himself has talked down the stock price numerous times and appeared to be wearying of going back to Wall Street time and time again to sell more shares to raise more funds, even though investors were happy to buy. Remember that Musk actively discouraged outside investment in Tesla in its earliest days because he thought the risk of a complete loss was too great.</span></p><p><span>Also, remember that Tesla went public at $17 and raised only just over $250 million in 2010. It was the markets and the cash-soaked dynamics of the Federal-Reserve engineered recovery from the financial crisis that created the yield-craving hot money that sloshed into Tesla's stock after 2012. </span></p><p><span>In fact, I've always thought that Musk sensed this could be a problem all the way back in 2013, when Musk courted Google's Larry Page with a buyout offer that would have prevented a then-immature, cash-poor, and struggling Tesla from ending up years later in a supplicant position to Wall Street.</span></p><h2><span>Musk thought he could line up the funding - because he always lines up the funding</span></h2><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Tesla</span></p><p class="caption"> Robots building Telsa's. </p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>Enter the SEC charges, which are a combination of the agency being irked that Musk didn't settle - spare the rod, spoil the entrepreneur - and a case built largely on a single tweet.</span></p><p><span>If you know Musk, you know that he thought he could both get the money, even if it added up to multiple billions, and sell the exotic aspects of his go-private plan. Musk always gets the money and always sells the plan. That's simply the way it's gone for 15 years.</span></p><p><span>There's no shortage of commenters who consider Musk a con-man and a serial dissembler. He always overpromises and underdelivers. Of course, he always <em>eventually</em> delivers. None of this would matter much if Tesla's market cap weren't so outsized. The company, after all, is in the context of a global auto industry a completely minor player. It sold 100,000 vehicles last, year, its best year ever. General Motors sold 10 million. Tesla has never posted an annual profit. GM has made over $70 billion since its 2010 IPO and return from bankruptcy.</span></p><p><span>Tesla could vanish tomorrow and it would literally make almost no difference to the world's <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="transportation">transportation</keyword> economy. Electric vehicles have almost no market share in the US, much less the rest of the globe. True, the company is a big employer in the East Bay area of Northern California, but it's also well off the grid of the auto manufacturing centers in the Upper Midwest and the South.</span></p><p><span>You have to, therefore, wonder why the SEC is even bothering. Tesla's big institutional investors, along with Musk himself, own most of the company and are supposed to be capable of assessing complex risk. Short-sellers may have been briefly hurt by the short run-up Tesla stock experienced after Musk's tweet, but they were already in pain.</span><span></span></p><p><span>And in any event, it's hard to discern what honest market function they serve with Tesla when the company's fundamentals are so obviously out of whack compared to its financial value. No thinking person looks at Ford and then at Tesla and takes seriously the market's verdict. Ford's stock represents a 119-year-old businesses with all that entails, while Tesla's is an opportunity to bet on the future, with all <em>that</em> entails.</span></p><h2><span>Musk must suffer for his sins</span></h2><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP</span></p><p class="caption">You have sinned.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>So why is the SEC bothering, apart from the "Wolf of Wall Street" level annoyance that Musk didn't take the deal and express dutiful contrition?</p><p>The SEC intends to punish Musk, in one way or another, even if it loses the case, as it might. And it intends to punish Musk <em>for a tweet.</em></p><p>Think about that. The upshot is that Musk sits alone in his mansion bought with high-risk borrowed money that he knows he could lose in a matter of months as he has nearly lost it all before and says to himself, "I wish I had never tweeted 'funding secured' while I was sitting in my car on my way to my giant battery factory in Nevada, trying to fulfill the largest number of pre-orders for an automobile in the history of the world and simultaneously undertaking a space mission to Mars, drill tunnels underneath the congested streets of big cities, and avoid an artificial intelligence apocalypse."</p><p>The SEC wants Musk to understand and admit that he did a bad, bad thing. And it's willing to wrap a moral crusade in the banner of defending investors who already know better and have accepted that risk, or to preserve the alleged honesty of a securities market that has been grotesquely contorted by a flood of government money following the financial crisis.</p><p>It isn't unthinkable that Musk could be deposed as Tesla's CEO. As I've already explained, that wouldn't be such a big deal. Tesla might not even collapse as an investment. And even if it did, taking $50 billion in mostly speculative value out of a $20-trillion US economy is irrelevant. The existing auto industry is doing a more than adequate job of satisfying demand. </p><h2>The moral is the message</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Markets Insider</span></p><p class="caption">Tesla share were clobbered on Friday.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>But the whole thing is just comically small potatoes. The only reason for the SEC to go after Musk is to send a moralistic message, as if markets and business are governed by moral principles, which as any student of them understands they aren't. I'm old enough to know that businesspeople and market participants lie, cheat, and steal all the time - and I don't want to see businesses and market go away.</p><p>This bargain is a problem for society when the fraud is vast and systemic, as it was in the run-up to the financial crisis. I don't want to excuse it on a smaller scale or suggest that markets and business are irredeemably corrupt; at Business Insider, we support the idea of "Better Capitalism," and I can cite many examples of that idea in practice, one of which is, in my <keyword id="6356002" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="opinion">opinion</keyword>, Elon Musk! Nobody in his right mind starts a car company unless he wants to show the world a better way to do something.</p><p>For almost the whole time I've been covering Tesla, I've dealt with the fact that a lot of people just can't stand Musk. For many reasons, ranging from his lifestyle to his near-miraculous ability to keep Tesla going to his frequent and oft-admitted reliance on government funding. His humiliation is something they fantasize about on a daily basis, going far past those critics who are content to more logically predict Tesla's failure due to lousy execution or too much debt or whatever apparent basic fault dwells in the enterprise.</p><p>Musk, believe it or not, isn't cunning enough to fight this level of hatred when it's professionalized. If he were, he wouldn't tweet anything. His biggest foe is his own guileless dorkiness. His second-biggest foe is his desire to call many of his own shots, and that could be more harmful if reports that the SEC initially wanted to fine Musk and shake up Tesla's board to include more independent directors turn out to be legit (that also raises an important question about why only Musk wound up being named in the subsequent lawsuit).</p><p>It's tempting to see Musk as a stumbling, heroic figure in a classical drama, especially given his own penchant for admitting to hubris, or tragic overconfidence, which in literature prefigured a downfall. But that's a bridge too far here. Musk fired off a dumb tweet. He couldn't ultimately get the money secured that he said he's secured. End of story, and if any investors got hurt, well ... they need to grow up. </p><p>The SEC is overcooking this one. But here's the thing: Tesla is Elon Musk. And it isn't a pre-IPO startup that could be looking to fleece its funders on some outlandish ambitions. The business model is straightforward: build cars, sell, cars, repeat. That business model just happens to be preposterously hard, given the extremely competitive and cash-hungry auto industry. </p><p>So if you penalize Musk for what will wind up being a footnote if Tesla survives, you've threatened with destruction a maturing new automaker that in fact has established a real market for its products, not some outrageous medical scam like Theranos. And make no mistake, Tesla won't be Tesla without Musk at the helm.</p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Tesla stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/TSLA-Quote"> <strong>here.</strong></a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-thai-cave-sleeping-factory-2018-7">What's going on with Elon Musk</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

It's unthinkable that the SEC would destroy Tesla over something as trivial as an Elon Musk tweet

<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Let's say you have a little spare cash - a couple hundred grand, maybe a million - burning a hole in your pocket. Maybe you've come upon it through questionable means. Or maybe you would prefer to keep it out of the grubby hands of various tax authorities. Or you don't want your spouse to know about it. Or your kids.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr">Fear not. With a little financial detergent, your dirty money can be rendered more or less untraceable.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It must be said that the flow of illicit capital is distorting the global economy, draining wealth from emerging nations and inflating the cost of assets in the developed world. Neither of which seems to deter people from doing it every day.</p>
<p dir="ltr">China leads the world in this ancient art. Between 2002 and 2011, some $1.08 trillion departed the country illegally, despite currency-control laws that require people to obtain a permit to exchange more than $50,000 a year worth of yuan into any foreign currency.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But this is a truly <a href="http://www.gfintegrity.org/report/2013-global-report-illicit-financial-flows-from-developing-countries-2002-2011/">international pastime</a>. During that same period, some $880.96 billion was spirited out of Russia, $461.86 billion left Mexico, $370.38 billion left Malaysia, $343.93 billion left India, $266.43 billion left Saudi Arabia, and $192.69 billion left Brazil. The total outflow, among 20 emerging economies, was $5.9 trillion, equivalent to $49 billion a month.</p>
<p dir="ltr">From corrupt politicians and drug cartels to tax cheats and alimony deadbeats, more or less everybody's doing it.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Americans wishing to spirit their cash offshore are increasingly finding their efforts thwarted by Washington's 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires foreign banks to turn over information about accounts held by US citizens. But plenty of avenues remain for the dedicated money launderer - particularly if he or she is willing to violate the law.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr">Here are the basics:</p>
<p dir="ltr"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2 dir="ltr">LESSON 1: THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF OFFSHORE</h2>
<p dir="ltr">Macau and Hong Kong are considered Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China, and part of what makes them special is that they are great places to launder cash. Macau is the casino capital of the world, with seven times more gaming revenue than Las Vegas, and Hong Kong is home to plenty of compliant banks and other intermediaries willing to transfer funds anywhere in the world without asking too many questions, for a fee.</p>
<h3>First, Find Yourself A Junket</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Let's say you live or work in China and want to hide a massive bribe. First, you must convert it from yuan into another currency without the government knowing. The easiest way to do this is to contact a junket, an agent in mainland China who will give you casino chips for your cash, minus fees of up to 20%.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">Hit The Casino</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Take the chips to a friendly, cooperative casino, where you can gamble with them, cash them in for Hong Kong or US dollars to then spend as you see fit, or deposit in a Hong Kong bank branch. Or, for extra safety, take them to a lawyer specializing in offshore laundering. Meanwhile, the casino will mix your chips with those from legitimate gamblers, and its accountants will book your $1 million as paid-out winnings.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">A Whirlwind Tour</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Your bank or lawyer must wire-transfer the funds in such a way that the money crosses multiple borders, to frustrate detection or confiscation. For instance, the money might end up in a US trust managed by a shell company in Grand Cayman, owned by another trust in Guernsey with an account in Luxembourg managed by a Swiss or Singaporean or Caribbean banker who doesn't know who the owner is.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2 dir="ltr">LESSON 2: LITTLE BLUE MEN</h2>
<p dir="ltr">You remember the Smurfs, those adorable little blue creatures? In financial circles, "smurfs" aren't so innocent. They're everyday folks who help the big guys launder their cash by making tons of tiny bank deposits and transfers in order to move money without detection.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">Find Yourself A Smurf</h3>
<p dir="ltr">After arranging a smurf deal by phone or email, you'll be asked to have the cash couriered to a smurf's residence (probably not a mushroom in the forest, but you never know). The smurf will then deposit small amounts of your cash into an account every day for weeks or months - or years - avoiding watchful eyes by keeping the numbers small.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">Make A Withdrawal</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Along the way, you can ask your smurf to withdraw some cash - which has since been rendered untraceable - for a shopping spree. But don't go crazy. Better to have a bank wire-transfer the money to your offshore accomplices or your shell companies.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">Beware Of Cocky Smurfs</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Smurfs are supposed to stay under the radar. That's what makes them smurfs. But the rise of internet banking had made smurfing even more lucrative, and some top practitioners became so big they began to draw attention. For years, Hong Kong's most prolific money launderer was a teenager named <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/07/us-hongkong-laundering-idUSBRE9360CH20130407">Luo Juncheng</a>, who originally opened a Bank of China account with a $500 deposit. During the next eight months, he made nearly 5,000 deposits, and more than 3,500 withdrawals electronically, moving $1.67 billion offshore before attracting notice. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2013 - bad news for the smurf, and his clients.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Other smurfs come to attention of authorities through their flamboyant lifestyles. In March, another Hong Kong resident, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-26479124">Carson Yeung</a>, was sentenced to six years for laundering $91.27 million through his bank accounts between 2001 and 2007. A former hairdresser who'd since bought the UK's Birmingham City football team, he claimed he had accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from stock trades, a hair salon, and gambling.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2 dir="ltr">LESSON 3: GOING CORPORATE</h2>
<p dir="ltr">The real big shots don't bother with casinos, crooked bank managers, junkets, or smurfs. They manage to transfer millions, or billions, without handling cash or involving banks at all, instead funneling their money through corporate deals (bribes, kickbacks, and embezzlement schemes), which are exempt from currency controls.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">How To Over-Invoice</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Let's say you're a government official or corporate executive, and you want to receive a $1 million bribe or kickback for giving a lucrative and excessively priced contract to a foreign or local business. You approve the contract, and its payment, and pad the consideration by a few million, which includes $1 million for yourself.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The client puts your $1 million overpayment into a shell company in an offshore jurisdiction, where your ownership can remain anonymous. You are then free to invest or spend the money. The business writes it off as an expense, paid out to an offshore consultant.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Or perhaps you'd prefer that your $1 million be used to buy an asset offshore for you, or that it be paid out gradually in salaries or fees to family members. Either way, you're good to go.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">How To Under-Invoice</h3>
<p dir="ltr">It's the same thing in reverse. Simply sell your goods or services to a business at a price that is less than the goods or services are worth. Then, out of the embezzled funds, you get $1 million directly from the company that got the bargain. These funds can be placed directly into anonymous offshore account or into an asset of your choice.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2 dir="ltr">LESSON 4: SAY IT WITH DIAMONDS</h2>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">They are a girl's best friend and a government regulator's worst nightmare.</span></p>
<h3 dir="ltr">Tartar Control</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Let's say you want to bring $1 million into the US without detection by tax authorities. One UBS whistleblower <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/business/20tax.html?_r=0">testified</a> that clients were urged to buy diamonds for cash, then smuggle them overseas in toothpaste tubes to fool authorities. The gems can then be sold for cash, to private dealers, once you rinse off the Colgate.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">Stamps And Plastic</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Another technique is to transfer your funds to anonymous debit cards. And if you want to go old-school, collectible stamps still have their fans.</p>
<p dir="ltr">In May, Credit Suisse <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-suisse-criminally-charged-in-tax-case-2014-5">admitted</a> guilt to such activities and others - such as shredding documents and keeping transactions below the US $10,000 reportable limit - to help American clients avoid taxes, paying a fine of $2.6 billion. But nobody really thinks they're the only ones.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<h2 dir="ltr">LESSON 5: TROUBLE AHEAD?</h2>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The would-be launderer should take note: Crime still pays, but the costs are on the rise. A gigantic crackdown in the West, and a similar one against corruption in China, will abate illicit money flows in the long run. In the short term, however, both crusades appear to have escalated the exodus of cash.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr">According to the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/28/us-tax-havens-idUSBREA0R1KF20140128">UN</a>, the largest recipient of FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in 2013 was the British Virgin Islands, an archipelago with 23,000 residents. About $92 billion in foreign cash washed up there, more than India and Brazil combined. Other havens receiving massive "investments" included the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra, and Vanuatu.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But the money doesn't necessarily stay there. In 2014, the Chinese overtook the Russians as the largest buyers of New York City condos. Other laundered money is used to purchase London mansions, yachts, securities, art, and luxury estates around the world.</p>
<p dir="ltr">These funds also dominate stock and bond markets. By 2012, tax havens <a href="http://www.gfintegrity.org/tax-havens-are-the-biggest-foreign-investor-in-the-united-states-not-china/">held</a> about 29% of the total foreign investment (corporate, bonds, stocks) in the US. By comparison, China held only 7% of assets.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But the hard reality for launderers is that "good" banks are harder to find every day, and so are jurisdictions providing complete anonymity. As a result, some very big fish are starting to get caught in the dragnet. One <a href="http://www.insidespanishfootball.com/118278/judge-insists-lionel-messi-must-face-tax-fraud-charges/">high-profile case</a> in is now underway in Spain, where the world's greatest soccer superstar, Lionel Messi, and his father stand accused of laundering $5.56 million (4.2 million euros) worth of sponsorship dollars. They deny all allegations.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, the third Smurfs movie - said to be a thorough reboot - is being prepared for a <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-shifts-goosebumps-smurfs-movie-700571">2016 release</a> after the first two films grossed a total of nearly $1 billion worldwide. It sounds like a fine investment opportunity.</p>
<p><em><a href="Mr.%20Eddie%20White,%20334-293-2260">Diane Francis</a> is editor at large with The National Post and a professor at Ryerson University's Ted Rogers School of Management.</em></p>

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