NYT Investigation: Musk has treated SpaceX as a “savings vault” for nearly 20 years, borrowing $500 million from himself at an interest rate less than half that of a bank

CryptoWorld News: A New York Times investigation shows that Elon Musk considers SpaceX as a “savings account” for nearly 20 years, borrowing $500 million from the company at interest rates between 1% and 3%, well below the bank benchmark rates of around 5% during the same period. Musk borrowed in three installments between 2018 and 2020, using SpaceX shares as collateral, with a repayment window of up to 10 years, fully repaid by the end of 2021, paying approximately $14 million in interest. At a 4% interest rate, the interest would be about $40 million. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 prohibits publicly traded companies from granting such loans to executives, but SpaceX, as a private company, is not bound by this. Additionally, Musk has repeatedly used SpaceX resources to support related companies, including lending $20 million in 2008 to inject into Tesla, and purchasing $255 million of high-risk SolarCity debt between 2015 and 2016. University of Colorado law professor Ann Lipton describes these as “conflict of interest transactions,” and states that Musk’s practices “seem to be unfavorable to SpaceX shareholders.”