UPDATED 6:10 p.m. ET: Tom DeLonge has responded to a report that previously claimed that his To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences was $37.4 million in debt.
DeLonge took to Instagram to write:
BLATENT LIE — APPARENTLY, THIS WRITER CAN’T READ. BTW- TTSA never even raised $37m!!? So how in the hell did we spend it?! Lord. I ask all of you that believe in the @tothestarsacademymission to go write a complaint on their website RIGHT NOW for trying to hurt an admirable effort to help humanity by using negative attacks and—-> lies. 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.
We request that you print this letter in full within the article as our statement.
The publication Ars Technica has since updated their post, writing: "The original story mischaracterized To the Stars' deficit as debt. This story has been changed to reflect a more accurate picture of the company's finances."
See original story below.
Noted alien enthusiast and former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge may have been named UFO Researcher of the Year back in 2017, but the pop-punk musician's latest endeavor into the unknown hasn't exactly gone as planned. DeLonge's To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, an organization he co-founded in an attempt to further UFO research, has amassed an astonishing $37.4 million in debt.
According to a financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month, it looks as if To the Stars is on the brink of ceasing operations. As Ars Technica pointed out, the company began selling $50 million worth of stock to stay afloat. To the Stars plans to continue for the next 12 months by selling additional stock. It's unclear, however, if it will actually make it that long considering just how much debt they've managed to rake up so far.
This isn't the only UFO and alien-related project DeLonge has been involved with over the years, having launched his multimedia project Sekret Machines back in 2016. Launched as part of a banner for him to release UFO-themed books, music, and films, Sekret Machines hasn't had many releases attached to its name so far.
Unless DeLonge and company can find a way to raise capital for their ongoing research, it seems unlikely that To the Stars will manage to make it to the end of 2018. They did enter an agreement with Austin research firm EarthTech to work on materials analysis, but they still don't have a lot to show for their research.
