Tesla (TSLA) stock selloff continues as Elon Musk sells $3.6B worth of EV maker shares
Shares of Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) are down almost 3% after CEO Elon Musk sold a further 22 million shares of the electric vehicle (EV) maker. The sales were worth about $3.6 billion.
Musk was selling Tesla stock between Monday and Wednesday this week, according to the filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“At risk of stating obvious, beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates,” Musk tweeted earlier this week.
Musk sold more than 94 million Tesla shares so far this year, according to the research firm VerityData. His average exit price is $243.46 per share, meaning he generated almost $23 billion from sales. Overall, Musk sold nearly $40 billion in Tesla stock since an all-time high in November 2021.
This is despite Musk telling his Twitter followers in April this year that “no further TSLA sales planned after today.”
Tesla stock price is now indicated to open at around $152.50 - the lowest it traded since November 2020. Musk’s deal to take Twitter private has weighed on Tesla shares in the past 8 months with some long-term shareholders calling for Musk to keep his focus on his EV business.
“My 2 cents: The market voted today that the $TSLA brand has been negatively impacted by the Twitter drama. Where before EV buyers were proud to drive their Teslas to their friends or show off Teslas in their driveways, now the Twitter controversy is hurting Tesla’s brand equity,” Gary Black, managing partner of the Future Fund LLC, which owns roughly $50 million worth of Tesla, tweeted earlier this week.
Wedbush analyst commented:
"The Twitter nightmare continues as Musk uses Tesla as his own ATM machine to keep funding the red ink at Twitter which gets worse by the day as more advertisers flee the platform with controversy increasing driven by Musk," Ives wrote before continuing:
"When does it end? This remains the worry on the Tesla story as Musk has managed to change the narrative of Tesla from the fundamental EV transformation story to a "source of funds" funding the Twitter turnaround which we believe will go down as the most overpaid tech acquisition in the history of M&A and remains a train wreck situation."
Based on yesterday’s close, Tesla stock is down 55.5% year-to-date (YTD).
By Senad Karaahmetovic