Elon Musk said that he “will make sure that Tesla (TSLA) shareholders profit from Twitter long-term” after they only lost billions of dollars.
But how is the query?
As we reported earlier this month, Tesla is having its best yr ever by almost every financial metric aside from its stock price, which is now at a two-year low.
The market can be down throughout the same period, but Tesla is undoubtedly being affected more heavily by other aspects than simply the broader downturn within the stock market.
For instance, the market was up significantly over the past two days, and yet, Tesla’s stock plunged 10% as CEO Elon Musk made comments on Twitter that offended parts of the population.
Many analysts are linking Tesla’s drop to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter – each because of his financing of the acquisition by selling Tesla stocks and thru his use of the platform for the reason that acquisition.
The truth is, Tesla is down a shocking 60% since Musk began selling TSLA stocks to amass Twitter:
Over the previous few weeks, many long-time supporters of Musk have began to vary their tune and express concerns concerning the direction Tesla’s CEO is heading.
We reported on Leo KoGuan, a billionaire who’s the third-largest Tesla shareholder, having some harsh words about Musk.
Gary Black, one other big Tesla investor and long-time Musk supporter, said this yesterday:
Despite many supporters voicing similar concerns, Musk doesn’t address them and as an alternative decides to answer this comment today:
The CEO didn’t elaborate on how he plans to make that occur.
Considering Tesla lost over $500 billion in value since he moved assets from Tesla to Twitter, it will be quite an achievement to show that around.
Electrek’s Take
Alright, this might turn right into a rant, but I’ll go for it anyway.
Over the previous few years, I feel like Musk turned his own use of Twitter right into a type of echo chamber where he encourages his loyalists to praise him always and where he sees individuals who criticize him as “attacking” him with ulterior motives, often political.
To be fair, that’s sometimes the case, but he let it get to him to a level that fair criticism has no or little or no place in his Twitterverse.
This can be a far cry from his use of the platform from years ago where he would actually use it for feedback about Tesla and to advertise climate initiatives.
We’ve got a terrific example here where he hasn’t addressed any of the numerous Tesla shareholders, most of whom are long-time supporters of his, expressing serious concern about his approach to Twitter and the way it’s affecting Tesla.
As a substitute, he decides to answer Omar Qazi (Wholeblogmars), who’s unarguably his biggest sycophant, framing the situation in a positive light.
He says that it’s an “unpopular opinion,” and that’s clearly since it is improper. We just reported yesterday that surveys show the favorable opinion of Tesla has gone down since Musk acquired Twitter, and by any metric possible, including the apparent one being the stock price, the acquisition of Twitter hasn’t “elevated Tesla’s brand reach or marketing” one bit. Quite the opposite.
And it’s not clear either how that may change as Musk claims.
It has gone thus far now that on daily basis I see a brand new Musk superfan suggesting that Tesla’s board should consider a brand new CEO. I’m talking about people you couldn’t imagine saying anything like that just a couple of months ago.
I’m having a tough time seeing how Musk turns things around here. I do know people will get bored with the entire Twitter situation soon enough and things should die down, however the lack of credibility he has suffered thus far goes to last some time.
I don’t think it is going to outweigh the tremendous impact he had on the electrical revolution, clean energy, and space exploration, but his handling of the situation can be a stain on his record that may last an extended time for my part.