If Tesla shareholders were already worried that Elon Musk was too distracted by his new CEO role at Twitter, they now have even more reason to be upset: Mr Musk revealed on Wednesday that he had sold another Tesla stock worth $3.6 billionpossibly to prop up his embattled social network.
Mr. Musk has sold $23 billion worth of Tesla stock this year, most of it after he pledged in April to stop selling shares to fund his Twitter deal.
He hinted at what he was up to on Tuesday, tweeted“Be wary of debt in volatile macroeconomic conditions, especially as the Fed keeps raising interest rates.” That suggests he either plans to buy back some of Twitter’s billions in debt — including the $130 million he took on as part of his takeover. billion—or, perhaps less likely, buy back some of the company’s stock.
None of this reassures Tesla shareholders, who are concerned about the automaker’s stock price, which is down about 61% from its peak in late 2021, while one CEO admits to spending nearly all of his time on Twitter these days . on Wednesday, Liao KoyuanOne of Tesla’s largest individual investors tweeted that “Tesla needs and should have a full-time CEO on the job.”
The plunge in Tesla stock is a far cry from the days when its rise lit up the stock market and pushed the company’s market capitalization well above $1 trillion. This year, the stock has lagged not only the broader market but also more established automakers, which compete more aggressively with Tesla in the fast-growing electric vehicle business. Some investors and analysts are concerned that Musk appears not only distraught at a time when Tesla is facing competitive challenges, but that he might sell Tesla stock to shore up his Twitter acquisition.
Tesla shares were little changed Thursday afternoon after three days of losses.
“The Twitter nightmare continues as Musk uses Tesla as his own ATM to continue funding Twitter’s deficit,” Wedbush equity analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients on Thursday. Some investors also worry that Mr. Musk’s divisive and inflammatory comments on Twitter could damage Tesla’s brand and put off customers, especially those who buy electric vehicles to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change.
Some corporate boards intervene if the chief executive seems distracted or overly focused on other businesses, but Tesla’s directors, some of whom are longtime friends of Mr. Musk’s, have been criticized by corporate governance experts for not taking any steps to dissuade or restrain them. widespread criticism.
Meanwhile, Mr. Musk has been busy suspending his account on Twitter. The most famous of these is @ElonJet, the brainchild of 20-year-old college student Jack Sweeney, who uses public data to track Musk’s private jet.
The move marks a change in attitude from Mr. Musk to Mr. Sweeney, the billionaire — a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist — who initially pledged not to suspend the @ElonJets account. Twitter justified the suspension of the accounts based on rule changes it appears to have implemented in the past 24 hours.
Some chief executives remain wary of what Mr. Musk is doing at Twitter, a new poll shows. At this week’s invitation-only Yale CEO Summit, attendees were asked to weigh in on hot business topics. Here’s what these leaders have said about some of them:
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Fifty-six percent of respondents said companies should stop advertising on Twitter (although a majority later said their own companies hadn’t).
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Sixty-nine percent said they believed Twitter’s best days were behind it, while 79 percent said Mr. Musk had damaged his company’s value.
