Tom DeLonge Blasts Journalist over To the Stars Debt Report

"BLATENT LIE [sic] — APPARENTLY, THIS WRITER CAN'T READ"

BY Josiah HughesPublished Oct 15, 2018

Earlier today, Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge made the wrong kind of headlines for his alien-hunting organization To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences when a publication suggested the company was $37 million USD in debt. Now, DeLonge has responded to the story.

In an Instagram post, DeLonge blasted Ars Technica for suggesting that the company was in debt. He called the post a "BLATENT LIE" [sic] adding, "APPARENTLY, THIS WRITER CAN'T READ."

DeLonge also published a lengthy official response from To the Stars, which has been pasted below.

OUR LETTER TO THEM: Dear Ars Technica— I am writing you regarding the article posted to Ars Technica this morning titled 'All the dumb things? Blink 182 front man's UFO project $37 million in debt' by Eric Berger. We were surprised Ars Technica would allow Mr. Berger to post such an article without asking either Mr. DeLonge or To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science for comment. This article is highly misleading and grossly mischaracterizes statements in an SEC filing. Had Mr. Berger bothered to reach out to us for comment this could have been prevented. 

Mr. Berger apparently did not EVEN READ the filing in its entirety, and clearly did not understand the excerpt of the SEC filing he quotes. The approximate $37 million stockholders' deficit is NOT DEBT as he characterized it but is attributable to stock-based compensation expense. IT IS NOT RELATED TO THE OPERATIONAL RESULTS OF THE COMPANY. The Consolidated Balance Sheets of To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science in the SEC filing quoted by your author clearly shows the approximately $37 million deficit is attributed to Stockholders' Equity (Deficit). The filing goes on to explain the mechanism for calculating stock-based compensation and details the various grants of stock options by the company. Mr. Berger's characterizations of this as debt implies that it stems from traditional borrowings. 

Had Mr. Berger bothered to email or call us we could have directed him to these portions of the SEC filing and walked him through it. For Mr. Berger to make the conclusions he did on incomplete research and his own interpretations without contacting Mr. DeLonge or the company is inexcusable.

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