It's just a super simple investment that succeeded because his startup won.
Simple law: you cannot invest in your own company in your own Roth IRA because it is blatantly unfair to other investors who don't have similar insider trading abilities.
Done.
Why can't other investors create their own startups and invest their money similarly?
Startup founders take a lot of risk. There is a big chance his investment could have been zero. It is strange that ProPublica does not understand this basic concept.
Where is their report on millions of Roth accounts that went to zero?
One could ask how you demonstrably cannot understand the conflation of two unrelated concepts?
Concept A: taking a risk to create a startup that you hope becomes a profitable company by executing to its core competency
Concept B: investing in your own company through a tax vagary with an investment device that has nothing to do with startup (or a particular startup)
Seems clear as day to me.
Remember, we can't see the future.
By your logic: You are free to invest like him in early stage startups. You will be out zilch, so why not do what he did?
1. Accredited investor rules 2. Please find me a startup which will allow me to buy shares at $0.001/share while simultaneous selling to other investors at a price of 500k[0]. 3. If you say to start my own and invest in my own company that I am working for in my Roth, I'll remind you that it's explicit not allowed, and the fact that it's not allowed is the thing that most people are taking issue with.
[0] Yes, that's not the full valuation issue, but it's enough to see that the value at the time wasn't really legitimate.
Yeah, I don't think this person was hurting for the paltry sum they invested. It also sounds like they would've been just fine if it had failed (aka just move on to the next venture until you hit jackpot).
The rich get richer I guess, and random folks on the internet applaud the pilfering of the commons (dodging taxes).
Your argument is along the same lines: Theil followed the law, ergo nothing "sinister" happened.
Which is the same as: "It isn't sinister because there is no law."
Yet, where did laws come from? Oh right, from people who have ethics. Because our ethics do not come from laws; our morals do, but not our ethics. Morality is an invented extension of ethics, which is codified into law when people think something shitty is happening (well, that's how it SHOULD happen... but that's the School-House-Rock version)
IMHO, and many others (sadly, to your "dismay") Theil is being a greedy pig exploiting vagaries of the law for his MASSIVE gain, and there needs to be laws to prevent this kind of behavior because it is only available to the super wealthy, and it makes the elite class even more untouchable (plus a thousand other second-order effects).