“You guys at Surfer old ladies who key Teslas?”

A culture war is raging on the heavily trafficked Facebook page of Surfer magazine after fans picked up on what has been deemed the mag’s Elon Musk Derangement Syndrome. 

Elon Musk Derangement Syndrome (EDS) is an irrational, pathological hatred of Elon Musk among left-leaning critics, media, and activists and began shortly after Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter (now X). 

EDS is seen as a reaction to his pivot from a progressive icon to a free-speech advocate and ally of conservative causes, notably his role in Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

This rhetoric has been tied to a surge in vandalism targeting Tesla Cybertrucks with Cybertrucks symbolizing Musk’s polarizing persona, fueling both violent backlash and defensive rhetoric.

In a post about a civil war between US Ski and USA Surfing and which was first broken by Chas Smith in April, Surfer magazine’s Chris Dodds writes,

Sorry, not sorry but the CEO of US Ski is acting like a real kook in what is clearly a money grab that seeks to deprive USA Surfing of it’s top assets and give everyone else the shaft. They’re polishing this turd of a deal as if it’s a brand new Cyber Truck that nobody–least of all, surfers 

And, here, the magazine’s own fans exploded writing, 

“Why the Cyber Truck reference? You guys at Surfer old ladies who key Teslas?”

“Yup, the staff is a bunch of vaccine slurpers.” 

“Surfer = lads that morph into lassies in their fifties ie like John Stewart morphing into Ellen Degeneres.” 

“Just another lib run magazine.” 

Some months back, the slickly articulate and cruelly handsome man who redefined backside tuberiding at Pipeline in 1975 and who won a world title at twenty-two, waded into a debate about Elon, praising the world’s richest man fulsomely.

Where do you stand on EDS? I like the man even more fulsomely than Shaun Tomson, aware that electric cars barely existed before Tesla, SpaceX is more important than NASA and can’t understand the sad that DOGE is emptying the purses of government grifters and succubi?

Federal court upholds Tax Office decision to slug Billabong king with fifty mill bill… 

The eighty-two-year-old founder of Billabong, Gordon Merchant, has lost his appeal against a $50 million bill from the Australian Tax Office, which included a six-ish mill fine, after advice he received from long-time advisers, EY Australia to minimise his tax bill turned out to be, well, not so rock solid.

Merchant, who let’s be historically fair is a significant player in not just the clothing game but surfboard design with his tucked-under edge rail, was advised to sell a wad of his Billabong shares to create a capital loss which he could offset against the terrific profits he made from from the $111 million sale of the bioplastics manufacturer Plantic Technologies back in 2015.

Merchant was also advised to forgive fifty-five mill in loans to Plantic Tech to boost the sale price.

A tricky game of wash selling and dividend stripping.

Here’s how it works!

In 2014, Merchant sells ten million of his Billabong shares for a little under six mill losing, on paper, almost sixty-mill.

Plantic gets sold for $111 mill the following year, the price inflated by the removal of the loans, Merchant’s tax bill gets reduced, and everyone’s real happy.

Everyone except the tax office, who audited Merchant’s companies and increased his personal tax bill by $30.6 million. Two of his biz’s were assessed to owe a further $12.9 million and a $6.4 million penalty was thrown in for laughs.

Merchant, advised by EY, insisted the share sale had legitimate commercial purposes, not just tax avoidance.

The case landed in the Full Federal Court, where Justices McElwaine and Hespe upheld the ATO’s view, ruling the scheme violated anti-avoidance laws under section 177D of the Income Tax Assessment Act.

They dismissed Merchant’s appeal, confirming the capital loss was engineered for tax benefits. However, they partially sided with him on the debt forgiveness, finding it didn’t fully meet the criteria for dividend stripping.

Justice Logan dissented, warning against assuming tax benefits always drive such deals, suggesting the sale had broader financial motives. Despite this, the majority’s decision stood, reinforcing the ATO’s power to crack down on creative accounting

At his monied peak in 2007, Gordon Merchant was worth around $907 million although he’s currently sitting on around half a billion.

Buy the brother a coffee if you see him.