You just told me he pocketed billions.....which is it?

....lol
*sigh*
OK, once again I'll try very hard to dumb this down to where you can get it.
To take a company private takes a great deal more than just buying stock. You also have to buy debt. Elon Musk has siphoned off billions for himself, but all told he's only worth around 17 billion dollars. About 80% of that wealth is his stock in Tesla, leaving him roughly 4 billion dollars of personal cash he's rooked over the years.
Typically, in order to take a company private, you'll wind up paying between 12 to 18% OVER the current stock value. You would also need to buy out all the bonds he's taken out on that outstanding stock.
So if Elon wanted to take Tesla private right now, he'd need to come up with around 35 to 40 billion dollars. Money he not only doesn't have, but couldn't raise if he tried. (He just did try. Most he could get was 2.5 billion.)
That's the problem with Tesla: It's only turned an annual profit once in its history (it's IPO in 2010) and has burned through so much cash it's bonded out almost entirely.
Tesla is, quite literally, nothing but debt.
And what makes Tesla even worse is that his fangirls like you enable him to do it. Tesla's had three of the best days its had in a long time this week. The stock is up to 205 dollars per share.
Why?
Over a bullshit "leaked" photo of a monitor saying he's sold a shit ton of model 3's.
It's laughable. When the second quarter financials are released, and Tesla loses money yet AGAIN (and they will) the idiots that bought back in are going to say, "But, but, but, but...the LEAK WAS REAL!!!!" and cry as the stock bottoms out again and they lose their asses.
Elon resorted to Trump tactics about a year ago. Not one thing he's promised has happened, but somehow even in the face of insurmountable debt people keep giving him money for him to either siphon off for himself or blow on a bunch of bullshit that never amounts to anything.