There are different types. The “financial duty” of corporations is generally overblown, however that is more or less what happened with Twitter. Elon made such a dumb offer that they had to put it to their shareholders. There’s some mechanism where shareholders can vote as a whole to sell, and if the vote passes then you don’t get a choice.

But generally corporations absolutely aren’t required to do whatever makes the most money. They’re allowed to put other values above pure profit, as long as they can justify it being in the shareholders’ interests. The shareholders may disagree and vote them out because of it, but as long as it was plausible, it’s legal. For instance, I believe the board of an Oil company could decide to shut down their wells and fully pivot to renewables, and I don’t think the courts would hold them accountable. Preventing climate change is easily arguable as in the shareholders’ interest, even at the cost of significant money. However that board would likely quickly be voted out. (And it’s unlikely they would have gotten there if they didn’t love oil money.)

If you own 51% of shares, public or not, you can’t be forced to sell afaik. And if you’re private, you’d have to do some pretty big illegal defamation or something to be forced to sell your property. Or you could die and your descendents could decide to sell.

One issue is that we’ve set up our tax system to encourage cashing out asap. For the most part in the US, you’re going to be taxed at 37% whether you sell now or whether you have the company pay you out for the next twenty years. So why not get out while the gettin’ is good? In the past, with a 90% top marginal rate at a higher income, it was often better to keep your money in the company and in the reputation, and just have it pay you out at a medium tax bracket for the next fifty years. All you really need to do as your job is make sure the company stays stable anyway. You can do that while spending four days on the golf course.

For now.

It’s a rachet effect. If you do things quickly, often enough, it’ll just be expected. You won’t be rewarded for it.

And you better be able to keep up that pace constantly for the next ten years.

You can certainly deliver things early, just try to stay at a sustainable pace.

It’s discontinued, lol. They now only make one sedan and it’s ICE.

Usually they set up a hotline which may or may not get you fired.

You mean your 1.5 shares. Wait, no, it’ll still be three shares, they’ll just be worth 1.5 current shares.

Is it mostly stock? That would just devalue all the existing shares.

One of the votes is moving from Delaware to Texas. So enjoy that Texas judge.

plenty of EV producers actually making good cars.

Are there? I’m waiting. Maybe the Ionic 6.

Well, for many years carriers would give you ~$400 credit towards buying a phone when you signed a contract. There would be “free” phones or the $500 Motorola Razr would be $100 with contract.

It also wasn’t in the ToS/T&C. The FAQ is not a legal document, and I wouldn’t expect to need to read it if I read the T&C.

And those go public anyway. I used to work for the largest employee owned company.

C# is a better language anyway.

I expect the future is in Rust and C#.

Well, if you didn’t get it from me, you certainly would have gotten it from some of these responses.

It’s amazing the number of times on Lemmy that someone will come in with the completely opposite “explanation” for what I was saying. Almost like they have an agenda.

It’s so weird to turn my statement of “support the news with money” into “the mainstream media can’t be trusted”.

Maybe it’s only happened twice, but it’s still weird that it’s happened twice.

Pay for news if you want it to be independent, and not beholden to sponsors.

I’d go as far as to say that paying for news (if you have the means to do so comfortably), is your duty as a commitment to democracy.

Jesus Christ, no. It’s almost like you’re trying to sow distrust in the news and facts.

The NYT isn’t perfect, but it’s some of the most reliable news the world has.

As of March 2023, The New York Times Company employs 5,800 individuals,[101] including 1,700 journalists according to deputy managing editor Sam Dolnick.[122] Journalists for The New York Times may not run for public office, provide financial support to political candidates or causes, endorse candidates, or demonstrate public support for causes or movements.[123] Journalists are subject to the guidelines established in “Ethical Journalism” and “Guidelines on Integrity”.[124] According to the former, Times journalists must abstain from using sources with a personal relationship to them and must not accept reimbursements or inducements from individuals who may be written about in The New York Times, with exceptions for gifts of nominal value.[125] The latter requires attribution and exact quotations, though exceptions are made for linguistic anomalies. Staff writers are expected to ensure the veracity of all written claims, but may delegate researching obscure facts to the research desk.[126] In March 2021, the Times established a committee to avoid journalistic conflicts of interest with work written for The New York Times, following columnist David Brooks’s resignation from the Aspen Institute for his undisclosed work on the initiative Weave.[127]

I’d only do that if you want independent news.

It’s almost like the methodology is less important than the people.

I was semi-related to a guy who would drag his oxygen tank to the kitchen so he could smoke by the window.