the TeslaInvestors are angry about the renewed slide in prices – once again Elon Musk (51) may have triggered. The Tesla CEO sold another $3.58 billion worth of Tesla stock this week. According to a report published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday evening, he parted with 22 million papers from Monday to Wednesday. During the same period, Tesla shares fell a good 12 percent while the benchmark index rose.
With this, Musk continues to antagonize the investors in the US electric car manufacturer. Since the $44 billion takeover of the short message service Twitter the entrepreneur has repeatedly thrown shares on the market in order to probably secure the financing of the deal with a large part of the proceeds. In all, he has divested himself of nearly $23 billion worth of Tesla stock since the Twitter acquisition announcement in April.
“The Twitter nightmare continues,” commented Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who recently criticized Musk for increasingly concentrating his management capacities on Twitter instead of Tesla. Musk is now a villain in the eyes of Tesla investors, Ives said. In his opinion, Tesla’s fundamentals remain healthy, but Musk’s behavior on Twitter hurts the brand. “Musk’s self-inflicted Twitter-related woes continue to weigh on the Tesla story and growing investor frustration.”
Tesla stock has more than halved since April
Tesla shares have lost more than half their value since the Twitter acquisition was announced in April. Tesla is now worth just over $490 billion on the stock market. The group is still by far the most valuable car manufacturer in the world. But at the start of the year, Tesla was still worth around $850 billion.
Musk will remain a major Tesla shareholder after the sale. He now owns 13.4 percent of the shares. It could be that he is currently parting with other shares. However, observers are no longer expecting any major package sales, since the window for possible sales is closing again this Friday. Because of the publication of the quarterly figures in January, the Tesla boss will not be allowed to sell any more shares for the time being.