Tesla Stock Down 2.7% as Musk Offloads 22M Shares
Tesla's shares are down almost 2.8% in premarket trading after a new regulatory filing showed that Elon Musk sold an additional 22 million shares in the electric vehicle maker.
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Elon Musk dumped Tesla’s shares again, sending the carmaker’s stock down over 2.7% in premarket trading. The billionaire sold more than $3.5 billion worth of the company’s stock this week, as per a regulatory filing.
Musk Sells $3.5B Worth of Tesla Shares
According to a regulatory filing released Wednesday, shares of Tesla are down more than 2.7% in premarket trading Thursday after Elon Musk dumped over $3.5 billion worth of the carmaker’s stock this week. This is the second time Musk has sold Tesla shares since buying Twitter in October.
The filing showed that Musk offloaded around 22 million Tesla shares over a three-day period that ended on Dec. 14. The stock fell sharply at the start of this month after Bloomberg reported that the carmaker is looking to reduce output at its Shanghai plant. It currently stands at $156.80 per share in premarket trading.
The latest sale means that Musk sold over $39 billion of Tesla shares since the stock reached an all-time high in November 2021. While it remains unclear why Musk sold more Tesla shares, the filing was released a day after he posted a tweet where he warned his followers about “debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates.”
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Tesla Investors Increasingly Anxious About the Company’s Stock Performance
The move came less than two months after Musk took over Twitter in a $44 billion deal. But the acquisition of the social media platform caused Musk headaches from the very start. The billionaire said the company saw a significant revenue decline last month and was losing $4 million per day.
According to analysts’ estimates, the Tesla boss took on roughly $13 billion in debt to fund the acquisition, a move that could leave Twitter owing over $1 billion in annual interest payments, compared to $51 million in 2021.
Furthermore, Musk’s heightened focus on Twitter has raised concerns among some Tesla investors as the carmaker heads for its worst-ever annual stock performance. Tesla’s shares are down more than 60% year-to-date, with the stock losing over $700 billion in market capitalization since its peak a year ago.
The fall in Tesla’s share price has also affected Musk’s personal wealth. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s worth has plummeted by over $100 billion in 2022 to about $160 billion.
Before this, Musk sold Tesla shares in April, August, and November this year. With the latest sale, Musk now controls around 13.4% of Tesla, meaning he is still the company’s largest shareholder.
Do you think Musk will face backlash from Tesla investors if the company’s stock continues to fall? Let us know in the comments below.
Tim Fries
Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate on the investment team at RW Baird's US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.
