
Elon Musk: Correcting the Record About My Divorce  - aresant
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elon-musk/correcting-the-record-abo_b_639625.html
======
lionhearted
> What caught me by surprise, and forced me to seek emergency loans from
> friends, were the enormous legal fees I had to pay my ex-wife's divorce
> lawyers. In a California divorce, the wealthier spouse must pay both sides
> of the battle even if they are not the aggressor.

> The legal and accounting bills for the divorce total four million dollars so
> far, which is an average of roughly $170,000 per month for the past 24
> months. Journalists were quick to mock the poor "broke" guy that had $200k a
> month expenses, failing to note that legal fees constituted the majority.

That's utterly despicable - Grellas, can you help us put together a plan to
disbar and exile everyone involved in the divorce racket or something? Talk
about a destruction of wealth, energy, time, and life - it's embarrassing that
we let this happen to people in the United States.

Our family/divorce courts and the associated personnel are destructive,
vindictive, and capricious. This needs to change. Why do people stand for it?
What can we do?

~~~
pohl
_What can we do?_

Abandon the institution of marriage entirely. Nuke it from orbit, as it were.
It's the only way to be sure.

The legal end of it is a mere wealth-redistribution mechanism. The social end
of it is made of community who loves to witness people getting into marriages,
but they scatter during the demise. So what function does it perform? From my
perspective, it only serves to weaken commitment by trying to offload the
responsibility of staying together to a legal framework.

Can anybody make a good case for continuing the charade?

~~~
commanda
Actually, yes.

Many marriages are entered into by two parties with the agreement that one
party will be the primary caretaker of the children (home-maker), which is a
profession that is unpaid. The other party will work outside the home and
provide money for the family. In that case, the years of work that the home-
maker has put in should be recognized as valid work, and in the event of a
break-up of the marriage, the home-maker should continue to receive monetary
support from the other party, as they (often) have no viable other
professional skills. This needs to be enforceable in court in the interest of
people whose profession is home-maker.

This is also why gay marriage (and gay divorce) should be legally codified
like straight marriage is. People need legal recourse to persist their own
standards of living.

If someone entering into a marriage does not want to take on the lifetime of
responsibility of providing for the person who is promising to take on the
role of home-maker in their household, perhaps they shouldn't enter into a
marriage.

~~~
barrkel
This is an argument for marriages as contracts, but no more. I don't read an
argument in what you say in favour of a government involvement in defining
what a marriage is. Contract law should be sufficient.

~~~
grandalf
I agree. Good point. There is a strong argument to be made for defining a
prenup for all marriages, just as a contract would have a dissolution
agreement. That way, the negotiation takes place when the people are on good
terms and not trying to screw each other over out of spite.

------
barmstrong
This whole thing is a bit surprisingly to me since it seems like Elon covered
his bases with the separate property agreement. Yet it still has been a major
hassle for him money wise.

Gene Simmons (from the band kiss) has an interesting approach to this which he
wrote about in his book. He never married his long time partner and playboy
playmate Shannon Tweed. But he took it even a step further having her and
other live in girlfriends sign documents stating that despite living together
they would not become common law married.

Trump is ok with marriage, but puts strong pre-numps in place.

Anyway, it's reading articles like this that can really turn you off to
marriage as an entrepreneur. It's hard to say whether you're going to be in
love with someone in 20 years, much less 1 year, so why put a legal contract
on it? It might make more sense to vest your marriage over time or just take
your partnership one day at a time without a contract.

~~~
julius_geezer
Common-law marriage is recognized in about three states, as I recall.

~~~
elai
It fairly common throughout all of canada. Probably in various countries in
europe too.

~~~
roel_v
All countries in Europe except the UK have civil law systems.

------
alanh
For shame. I don’t understand how someone can be so greedy as to try to take
wealth their ex-parter created after explicitly agreeing not to do so!

Edit: And due to lawyers’ fees, the couple’s net worth is decreased by
millions in the process.

~~~
pavs
For this reason I don't see myself ever getting married. I can't even fully
understand my childhood friend, how will I know if the women I married will
not drastically change 10-15 years from now and use it against me knowing very
well that the system is in her favor? There is nothing you can do, even a pre-
nup is not safe.

Thanks to the divorce culture of USA, why would any sane person would want to
get married?

For me the worst part of this case is that she was offered 80 million, 4 times
more than what she was entitled for.... and she wants more?

Utterly despicable.

------
cullenking
It's amazing that someone could have enough genius to revolutionize the
internet (paypal enabling easy ecommerce), revolutionize space flight and are
attempting to revolutionize personal transpost, but can not successfully
navigate the california legal system.

All jokes aside, Elon Musk is a freaking inspiration and it sucks to see their
creative potential squandered by a lame court battle.

------
acangiano
The lesson here is: marriage is a very risky proposition, particularly if you
are male or much richer (even just potentially) than your partner.

(PS: Much respect for Musk.)

~~~
MikeCapone
It can be a risk. But a good partner can also be an asset. In the book The
Millionaire Next Door, many of the interviewees credit their spouses (usually
a wife) for helping them succeed and keeping expenses low.

You still have to pick the right partner, but if you can do that, it could be
a big plus.

But hey, I'm getting married next month, so take what I say with a grain of
salt ;)

~~~
elai
Get romantically married, but don't sign a contract with the government! By
not singing some paperwork you can both avoid of alot of problems (but not
all). Frame it like this: honey, I want to get married with you, not sign a
business contract with you. Or I want to get married with you, not with the
government too!

~~~
joubert
No hospital visitation rights, insurance benefits, etc. Just saying.

------
aresant
"The legal and accounting bills for the divorce total four million dollars so
far, which is an average of roughly $170,000 per month for the past 24
months."

Wow.

~~~
Retric
He is paying for both party's so she has no reason to skimp on legal fee's.
But assuming a 50/50 split it works out to ~500$ / hour * 40 hours a week, for
each of them. Which is probably just 1 full time layer + some part time help
for each of them.

~~~
russell_h
Serious question, does a divorce like that really require 2 years of full time
work for each party?

~~~
philwelch
If you think you can get hundreds of millions of dollars out of a divorce, of
course you'll spend tens of millions of dollars of legal fees to get it.

Especially if some of those tens of millions of dollars essentially pay
someone else to tell you you'll get hundreds of millions of dollars out of it.

------
jboydyhacker
To be honest I have never been what you would call a huge Elon Musk fan but
this was a very well laid out case. The amazing part of course is even though
he had a prenup, the judges and lawyers have allowed this to go on so long he
has huge legal fees. I have seen this happen to several entrepreneur friends
of mine--in fact (true story)-- I know what entrepreneur who had a prenum and
divorced and remarried the same woman TWICE. Got soaked both times even w/
prenup. People should be able to get married in the United States without the
risk of massive wholesale wealth transfer.

~~~
jacquesm
> I know what entrepreneur who had a prenum and divorced and remarried the
> same woman TWICE. Got soaked both times even w/ prenup.

That doesn't sound too clever to me. Once bitten twice shy right ?

~~~
jboydyhacker
The guy married her before his first startup...sold it for 800m...she divorced
him. He was on is back. Did another startup--remarried same woman. Divorced
again. Taken to bank both times. Prenup thrown out both times. It ain't right.

------
edw519
You'd think someone as smart as Elon Musk would have followed the advice of
Felix Dennis: "If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it.. it’s
cheaper in the long run."

~~~
thaumaturgy
My girlfriend has been an amazing source of support while I've been working on
my business. I won't say I couldn't've done it without her, but it would
certainly be less fun and a bit more challenging.

~~~
9oliYQjP
_"My girlfriend..."_

So you're following Felix's advice then :-)

------
impeachgod
Can you end a marriage without requiring the services of predatory divorce
lawyers? As in, a wife and husband having a "gentleman's agreement" to divide
children and property?

~~~
dagw
Varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but in many places yes (with a
caveat). You both show up at the relevant office, fill in some paper work, pay
a small filing fee and you're basically done (many places have a separation
period between the paperwork being filed and the actual divorce kicking in).

The caveat being that even if you do it this way there is nothing stopping one
of the spouses suing the other after the fact for access to the children or
more money, so you're not completely off the hook if your spouse later decides
to get vindictive.

------
binarray2000
Would you enter a business agreement in which your partner has the right to
break the deal whenever he wants and take at least the half of the things that
you brought into the relationship (prior and post agreement)?

------
neilc
Why is this on HN, and the top story no less? Gossip about celebrities is
boring, even if the celebrity happens to be a famous geek. I'm not one to
bitch about off-topic stories, but I'm genuinely curious why people find this
story to be interesting.

~~~
andreyf
Elon Musk co-founded PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk>

~~~
neilc
Yes, I am aware of who he is. Why is his divorce any more interesting because
of the companies he has founded?

~~~
defen
Perhaps as a lesson to the entrepreneurs on here who are hoping to strike it
rich, and who are not yet married?

~~~
usaar333
Or in Musk's case, are married and then strike it rich.

~~~
jacquesm
Nonsense, Elon Musk was already a millionaire from the sale of zip2 to Compaq
in 1999, he married in 2000.

~~~
usaar333
Whoops, my bad. (I extrapolated the "met in college" quote on his wikipedia
entry and the "married young" (which isn't actually true) quote on his ex-
wifes).

------
mkramlich
why is divorce so complicated that lawyers can justify charging so much? at
it's simplest it could be a form that the two spouses sign and date, perhaps
with witnesses, then you submit it somewhere. i realize there can be
disagreements about who gets what and that may take time to negotiate, but why
would that require thousands of billable hours by lawyers? This is not rocket
science, no programming needed, just people talking to each other, and only 2
needed at a minimum. Plus divorces are so common and have been happening for
over a century I imagine, so you'd think it would be highly standardized and
streamlined by now. UNLESS perhaps lawyers/lawmakers were themselves trying to
keep it complex and manual to preserve job security.

anybody? anybody? grellas?

------
winzie
I feel bad for the guy. I would buy Tesla stocks if I had the money.

------
wmf
Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1498914>

Curiously, neither site says where this comes from.

~~~
faramarz
What do you mean? The Huffington post is written by Musk himself.

~~~
mcantor
The Huffington Post post?

------
bluethunder
Musk is an icon I cannot admire enough.

His ex-wife is a gold-digger blogger I cannot hate enough. The least she could
do is to leave him alone with his work.

------
d0m
Please don't flame me, but that's the kind of post doesn't really interest me
on hacker news. (There are really few of them thought). If all news were like
this, I would stop using HN.

~~~
robryan
By the same token if every story on hacker news focused exclusively on
startups/programming and startup related business I think I would spend less
time. It's the balancing act that you need to have when you have many
different personalities and backgrounds on the site all viewing the same front
page. This has over 100 upvotes so I do think a decent amount of people are
interested.

------
araneae
I should have just seen that this was from Huffington Post and not bothered
clicking.

