It was reported on May 30 that recently, the news that electric vehicle manufacturer elonmusk was going to buy twitter made Tesla investors very upset. Since musk announced that he had a large stake in twitter, Tesla's share price has fallen by 30%. Some musk and Tesla fans worry that the acquisition of twitter will make musk even more tired.
Musk's plan to acquire personal social media twitter not only angered a group of executives and employees on twitter, but also frustrated many loyal fans of Tesla.
Since April 1 this year, the farce about Musk's investment in twitter stock and whether he is willing to pay $44billion for it has intensified, and Tesla's market value has evaporated by about 30%. In contrast, the Nasdaq composite index, dominated by technology stocks, fell about 15% over the same period.
This incident made some of Musk's fans worry that he might not care about it at all. In addition to Tesla, musk also operates SpaceX, a rocket company, and has participated in the establishment of boring, a tunneling enterprise, and a neuroscience start-up company that studies brain computer interface technology. Now, with Twitter, many Tesla supporters worry that musk may be distracted.
"I want him to quit," said Gary black, managing partner of future fund, a fund management company. Black's company owns Tesla shares worth about $50million. As a Tesla supporter, Blake said that he thought that the acquisition of twitter would distract musk, which might take up more of his time.
A person who closely followed Tesla recently advised Musk on Twitter: "Elon, Twitter is an unnecessary interference. Just follow Tesla."
Musk has been trying to quell such concerns. "What needs to be clear is that I actually spend less than 5% of my time buying twitter. This is not rocket science!" "I think about Tesla all the time," he wrote on twitter last week
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
People have been worried that musk may have taken on too much responsibility. He has built Tesla into the world's most valuable automaker and also runs SpaceX, a rocket company.
But Tesla investors have been trying to digest Musk's repeated efforts to acquire twitter. April 1 was the last trading day before musk disclosed that it held a large number of shares in twitter. On April 25, twitter announced its acceptance of Musk's takeover offer. During this period, Tesla's share price fell by about 8%, while the Nasdaq composite index fell by about 9% over the same period.
But then Tesla began to plummet. In the days after announcing the intention to reach a deal with Twitter, musk sold about 9.6 million Tesla shares, worth about $8.5 billion. Then, when Tesla's share price continued to fall, musk also said that out of concern about false accounts on the platform, "temporarily shelved" the acquisition plan. However, he stressed at that time that he was still committed to completing the acquisition.
Twitter said that it was promoting the transaction in accordance with the agreement.
Musk's wealth is mainly composed of Tesla shares. He disclosed last Wednesday that he no longer planned to use the margin loan obtained by mortgaging Tesla shares to finance the acquisition of twitter. Instead, he promised to increase the amount of equity acquisition, saying that he was seeking to introduce more external funds for the acquisition of twitter.
The recent decline in Tesla's share price prompted investors such as black to put pressure on Tesla to buy back shares to enhance investor confidence. As of the first quarter of this year, Tesla had about $17.5 billion in cash.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on whether to consider a share buyback. In April this year, when asked about Tesla's future cash use plan, chief financial officer Zachary kirkhorn said that the company was investing in new factories and new products.
It is not clear whether some of Tesla's loyal fans' comments reflect the views of major shareholders or affect Musk's ideas.
Earl banning, a psychologist in Dayton, Ohio and Tesla investor, said he was hesitant about Musk's decision to acquire twitter.
"He is already a controversial person, which makes him more like a controversial person," Tesla fan Benning often interacts with Musk on twitter. However, the decision to buy twitter did not prompt Benning to sell his Tesla shares.
"Elon or Elon," Benning said. "I think that as a long-term shareholder, the stock price will return to its due level because they are operating. They are selling cars and making profits."
Tesla reported a record profit of $3.3 billion in the first quarter.
Musk's acquisition of Twitter is not the only problem Tesla investors need to digest. Supply chain bottlenecks also limit Tesla's sales. According to analysts' estimates, Tesla will deliver about 292000 vehicles worldwide in the second quarter of this year, down from 310000 in the first quarter. This means that Tesla's shipment volume fell month on month for the first time in more than two years.
Recently, it was also reported that SpaceX paid a flight attendant $250000 in 2018 to reach a settlement on its sexual assault charges against CEO musk. Musk responded that the allegations were "completely untrue".
Gwynne shotwell, President of SpaceX, told the company's employees in a subsequent email that she personally believed that the charges against musk were false. But schotwell did not mention whether the company would pay the settlement. She said in her email that SpaceX would not tolerate any form of harassment.
Some Tesla supporters saw opportunities in the fall of the stock price. Johnstringer, who runs a Tesla owners' club in Silicon Valley, said he had increased his holdings of Tesla in recent weeks.
When talking about Musk's unpredictable tweets and trying to take into account the current situation of several companies at the same time, stringer said, "this is the characteristic of the industry he is in charge of."