Tycoons battle over kids' $37K-a-month child support payments
By Carleton English
December 12, 2017 | 10:14pm	| Updated December 13, 2017 | 1:51pm
Andrea Left and Alan Salzman
Judge tosses socialite's bid for more child support after she skips hearing
Connecticut man shoots ex rather than pay her child support
Socialite seeks child support boost — despite losing custody
Mom spends three nights in jail due to clerical error
A California investor on Tuesday lost a bid to lower support payments to his ex-wife after she claimed she needed $37,500 a month to pay rent to her new billionaire hubby for her teenage kids.
"I have and always will pay for all my children's needs in excess, I just don't feel it's right for me to pay for half of Mr. Salzman's mansion," the investor, Andrew Left, told The Post.
Andrea Left last month married Alan Salzman, an early investor in Tesla who pocketed roughly $2.3 billion when the electric carmaker went public in 2010.
In Left's pre-nup with Salzman, the 63-year-old founder of VantagePoint Capital Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, she promised to pay half the monthly upkeep of their $20 million Beverly Hills mansion.
But the 46-year-old newlywed has to share in the upkeep only as long as her two teenage kids spend more than 50 percent of the time in the home, according to the pre-nup.
In a deposition last week, Salzman estimated that total household expenses — which include mortgage, taxes and gardening — would be roughly $33,000 a month, or $400,000 a year.
Andrea Left's portion, therefore, would come to about $16,666 a month.
Such an arrangement makes the upkeep payments seem like rent payments.
"It's interesting that the new husband is specifying her contribution based on the time her kids are there, versus just saying each party pays half of the all household expenses," Lauri Martin, a California divorce lawyer not involved in the case, told The Post.
Andrew Left argues that Salzman is effectively asking that his teenage kids pay rent.
With his ex now married to a billionaire, Andrew Left went to court to try to cut his monthly child support payments to $10,000.
But a judge on Tuesday ruled in his ex-wife's favor.
In addition to paying child support, Left said he fully funds the children's tuition and health care — something he will continue to do.
The noted short-seller as recently as July has been shorting Tesla.
It is usually difficult to lower child support payments.
He's "not going to pay less because she remarried," Martin said. "Each parent has an obligation to support their children based upon their income."
Andrea's court victory on Tuesday wasn't the first time she has won a court battle against her ex.
In 2009, one year after she divorced Andrew, Andrea seemed to get married to her new love.
A wedding ceremony was held, Andrea wore a wedding dress, and she told her kids she was getting married.
Andrew seemed to be able to get out from under hefty spousal support payouts.
But Andrea never applied for a wedding license — so was not legally married. She called it a "commitment ceremony" — so Andrew had to continue his $32,547 monthly spousal support payments.
Andrea's lawyer declined to comment.
For Andrew Left, whose short of Tesla has been a big money loser, the court loss simply gave him another, more personal reason, to hate Tesla.
"Tesla investors find more than one way to stick it to short-sellers," Left told The Post.
For Salzman, the court battle — and the question over him collecting "rent" from his wife for her two teenage kids — won't help erase the feeling in some precincts about his penny-pinching.
One of those people who has griped about Salzman is Elon Musk, the chief executive and founder of Tesla.
In a 2015 book, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," Musk said that Salzman "balked" at providing more funding to the fledgling car company. Salzman made Musk come meet him the next morning to pitch him again.
Despite his efforts, Musk said he was still denied.
"The only reason he wanted the meeting at his office was for me to come on bended knee begging for money so he could say, 'No,'" Musk said in the book. "What a f**khead."
Salzman did not respond to requests to comment. His lawyer, reached by phone, told The Post: "I am not going to talk to any newspaper about the work this firm does."
Filed under child support , prenups , tesla , 12/12/17
Resort claims guest's 'conduct' led to her own sexual assa...