Musk said this late Thursday evening in a live conference offering (“Spaces”) of Twitter’s text messaging service, which Musk recently owned. The controversial group leader recently sold Tesla shares for about $40 billion. Proceeds were primarily used to fund the $44 billion Twitter takeover. Musk is currently also the boss of Twitter, but here he announced his retirement.
Tesla’s market cap has plummeted in recent months due to Musk’s stock sales, his dual role as CEO of Tesla and Twitter, and operational issues, among other things. There are signs that demand for electric cars is slowing in some regions. On Thursday, Tesla’s regular trading price fell nearly nine percent to $125; minus adds up to 64 percent this year. This means that the paper has been one of the biggest losers in the Nasdaq 100 tech selection index since the end of 2021, after gaining close to 1200 percent and being one of the strongest values in the last two years.
The electric car maker’s stock market value fell below $400 billion after Thursday’s price drop. In November 2021, its market cap was just over $1.2 trillion. The main shareholder, Musk, was by far the richest person in the world at the time; Meanwhile, he lost that position to Bernard Arnault, boss of luxury goods group LVMH. Bloomberg news agency put Musk’s fortune at $140 billion.
Musk’s statements at least managed to stabilize Tesla’s course after the trade day; The course has improved a bit.
(SDA)