While he was the richest man in the world since September 2021, after overtaking the fortune of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk was recently relegated to second place on the billionaire rankings by Frenchman Bernard Arnault and his family ( LVMH).
The reason for this drop in Elon Musk’s fortune is the drop in Tesla stock. And that drop in Tesla’s stock value is partly caused by Musk seeming to increasingly steer clear of the electric car maker, and spending (too) much more time managing Twitter.
Tesla stock decline continues
And as the stock continues to fall, according to Bloomberg on Wednesday, Tesla’s capitalization has fallen below the symbolic $500 billion mark. In two years, that had never happened.
According to the US agency, at the close in New York, Tesla stock lost 2.6%, while the company’s capitalization was $495 billion. And since the start of the year, Tesla has seen a 55% drop in capitalization.
Does Tesla still have a CEO?
More and more investors are raising their voices, like Gary Black, a hedge fund manager with $50 million in Tesla stock, who recently said, “There is no Tesla CEO today “.
He also explains that the markets have decided, citing the negative impact that “the Twitter drama” has on the automaker. And this one does not only blame the absence of the CEO of Tesla, who seems too busy managing Twitter. The drama could also tarnish the image of the brand.
“Where before electric car buyers were proud to show off their Teslas to their friends or show off Teslas in front of their homes, now the Twitter controversy is hurting the value of the Tesla brand”said Gary Black.
Unfortunately, attempts to reassure Tesla fans and investors don’t seem to be having the desired effect. And meanwhile, Elon Musk continues to sell.
Elon Musk sold Tesla shares again
This week, we learned that the CEO of Tesla sold 22 million shares, worth $3.58 billion. According to the BBC, this brings the total value of shares sold by Elon Musk this year to $40 billion.
The official documents that revealed this new sale do not indicate how the funds will be used. Therefore, we do not know if these 3.58 billion dollars will be invested in Twitter.
In any case, this new sale of Tesla shares by Elon Musk is not likely to appease investors.
