Even by the requirements of Elon Musk — who mentioned in 2019 his Twitter feed had just about descended into nonsense — final weekend’s ballot on whether or not he ought to promote 10% of his Tesla Inc. inventory was outlandish.
After a transparent majority (58%) of three.5 million Twitter customers voted sure, Tesla shares tumbled probably the most in eight months in New York buying and selling Monday, falling as a lot as 7.3%. The stake could be valued at about $21 billion based mostly on the 170.5 million Tesla shares he holds.
Much is made these days of unrealized positive factors being a method of tax avoidance, so I suggest promoting 10% of my Tesla inventory.
Do you assist this?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021
Whether he goes by way of with it or not, the attention-grabbing transfer was simply the most recent in a protracted historical past of Musk utilizing Twitter and his legions of followers on the platform to stoke curiosity in Tesla and his different ventures, typically pushing the envelope with tweets that veer from tongue-in-cheek to intentionally outrageous.
It additionally wasn’t the primary time his Twitter musings have moved Tesla’s shares, with the notorious “funding secured” tweet drawing the ire of authorities.
That resulted within the 50-year-old agreeing in 2018 to get approval from a Tesla lawyer previous to speaking materials data to traders as a part of a settlement with US securities regulators. It wasn’t clear whether or not that official previewed Musk’s Twitter ballot.
Here are six different occasions Musk has moved the market along with his tweets:
1. Musk was at it simply final week, casting doubt on Hertz Global Holdings Inc.’s deal to purchase 100,000 Teslas for its rental-car fleet and downplaying the $4.2 billion settlement. Tesla’s inventory dropped 3% the next day.
You’re welcome!
If any of that is based mostly on Hertz, I’d like to emphasise that no contract has been signed but.
Tesla has much more demand than manufacturing, subsequently we’ll solely promote vehicles to Hertz for a similar margin as to customers.
Hertz deal has zero impact on our economics.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2021
It wasn’t the primary time Musk had questioned the market’s response. On Oct. 25, he tweeted that the change in Tesla’s valuation — the shares jumped 12% — was “strange” as a result of he mentioned the corporate faces issues with manufacturing, not demand.
Strange that moved valuation, as Tesla could be very a lot a manufacturing ramp drawback, not a requirement drawback
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 25, 2021
2. In May final yr, Musk unleashed a tweet storm by which he mentioned he was promoting virtually all his possessions and gained’t personal a home, and voiced the weird opinion for a CEO that his firm’s inventory (then buying and selling at a split-adjusted $156) was too excessive. The shares promptly slumped 10%. However, the slide was short-lived, with all of the losses recovered over the following three days.
Tesla inventory value is simply too excessive imo
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2020
3. In February 2019, Musk corrected a prediction for what number of vehicles Tesla would make that yr, simply hours after tweeting that annual manufacturing would attain about 500,000 automobiles. The electric-car pioneer mentioned he meant to tweet that Tesla expects to be making vehicles at an annual fee of about 500,000 by the top of 2019.
Meant to say annualized manufacturing fee at finish of 2019 in all probability round 500k, ie 10k vehicles/week. Deliveries for yr nonetheless estimated to be about 400k.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2019
In response, the inventory fell 3.7%.
4. Arguably Musk’s most notorious tweet dropped in August 2018, sparking weeks of fevered hypothesis about his intention to take Tesla personal. The shares jumped 11%, earlier than erasing these positive factors in following days as doubt mounted about his potential to tug off the deal.
Am contemplating taking Tesla personal at $420. Funding secured.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
In the top, all of it seemed to be a quite obtuse joke — April 20, or 4/20 ($420, get it), is a well-liked day amongst cannibas aficionados for celebrating marijuana tradition.
Musk ended up paying a $20 million wonderful to settle fraud fees and needed to step down as chairman for 3 years. Tesla additionally paid a $20 million penalty. Musk was unrepentant, later tweeting that the wonderful was “worth it” and persevering with to take potshots on the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
As it seems, it could have been the steal of a lifetime. The “offer” valued Tesla at $82 billion, a fraction of the $1.17 trillion market cap it now instructions.
5. Amid the frenzied hypothesis in regards to the take-private provide, Musk tweeted that he’d pulled within the huge weapons from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and famend Silicon Valley buyout agency Silver Lake Management LLC as advisors.
I’m excited to work with Silver Lake and Goldman Sachs as monetary advisors, plus Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Munger, Tolles & Olson as authorized advisors, on the proposal to take Tesla personal
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 14, 2018
Still, that did little to silence the doubters, and the shares continued their downward trajectory, occurring a four-day, 15% slide.
6. An April Fools’ joke that fell flat, Musk’s tweet that Tesla has gone “completely and totally bankrupt” got here following a run of dangerous information for the automaker, together with manufacturing shortfalls, regulatory scrutiny over its driver-assistance system Autopilot and a credit standing downgrade additional into junk by Moody’s Investors Service.
Tesla Goes BankruptPalo Alto, California, April 1, 2018 — Despite intense efforts to boost cash, together with a last-ditch mass sale of Easter Eggs, we’re unhappy to report that Tesla has gone utterly and completely bankrupt. So bankrupt, you may’t imagine it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2018
All that mixed to ship the inventory down as a lot as 8.1%.
And after all, there’s additionally the affect Musk wields in crypto markets, sending the value of Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Shiba Inu surging and plunging along with his musings and memes.
