Elon Musk sells $3.58B worth of Tesla stock within three days

Elon Musk sold another $3.58 billion worth of Tesla stock this week, as the electric car maker’s stock price plummeted to its lowest level in two years.

The Tesla CEO, and new owner of Twitter, sold the nearly 22 million Tesla shares over a three-day period from Monday through Wednesday, according to a filing posted Wednesday night by the U.S.Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk has sold nearly $23 billion worth of Tesla stock since April, with much of the money likely going to help fund his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. He sold almost $22billion worth of stock in 2021.

The sale comes just hours after ‘s stock – dipping below $500 billion for the first time since 2020 – as furious individual investors claim Musk’s lack of focus is due to . 

Since the billionaire CEO acquired the social media platform in April and took ownership late October, Tesla’s market value has taken a beating, losing well over half its value since the beginning of the year with experts predicting that the company’s stock is on track for its worst full-year performance, Futurism reported. 

Gary Black, a hedge fund manager who owns $50 million worth of Tesla stock, tweeted on Monday, ‘There is no Tesla CEO today,’ before calling out Musk for his lack of leadership, that some say is causing ‘serious collateral damage’ on the company’s reputation,  reported.

‘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,’ Black said.

Ross Gerber, a longtime supporter of the electric-car giant, tweeted out a question to Tesla’s board of directors on Monday, simply asking:  ‘Who is running tesla day to day during this critical time for the company.’ 

The falling shares have bumped Musk from his status as the world’s wealthiest person, with his net worth falling to $174 billion, according to Forbes.He was passed last week by French fashion and cosmetics magnate Bernard Arnault. 

The takeover of Twitter has not been smooth, and some big companies have halted advertising on the social media platform. Musk has said that Twitter had ‘a massive drop in revenue’ due to the advertiser losses.

Investors have been punishing Tesla stock of late as Musk has spent much of his time running Twitter, raising fears that he’s distracted from the car company.

‘It seems like Elon Musk is spending 100 percent of the time on Twitter and you know, it might need more capital,’ said Jay Hatfield at Infrastructure Capital Management in November.

Since buying Twitter, Musk has made very few tweets on Tesla, a practice that helped him gain traction on the platform.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said Musk is now a villain in the eyes of Tesla investors. He said Tesla’s fundamentals remain healthy but his behavior with Twitter is hurting the company’s brand.

‘The Twitter overhang is a nightmare that is growing with no one but Musk to blame,’ Ives wrote in an email.

Musk pledged to provide $46.5billion in equity and debt financing for the acquisition, which covered the $44billion price tag and the closing costs.Banks, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp, committed to provide $13 billion in debt financing.

The billionaire had tried to walk away from the deal in May, alleging that Twitter understated the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform.This led to a series of lawsuits between the two parties.

Tesla and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk has dealt with several controversies since becoming the ‘Chief Twit’ as he put it.

On Monday, Tesla’s stock fell more than 6% after a weekend fraught with controversy after a series of rants by Twitter’s new leader.

On Sunday, Musk called for Dr.Anthony Fauci’s persecution in a series of tweets He also publicly shamed Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yael Roth, 34, when he posted part of Roth’s thesis which suggested letting children access the gay hook-up app Grindr.

Roth and his boyfriend had to flee their El Cerrito, California home over fears for their safety, after receiving a torrent of threats, the Washington Post reported. 

Many Tesla backers expressed their concerns when Musk took over the social media platform last month with some urging him to abandon the deal and put his energy into the car maker. 

At that that time, the company was also seeing their value diminish as shares were down around 30 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Rising inflation and fears of a possible recession did not help and the company’s stock which has fallen, experts say about 28% since the Twitter deal closed in late October through Tuesday, when Tesla ended trading at its lowest level in more than two years.

On Tuesday, Musk tweeted: ‘Tesla will be great long-term, but doesn’t control macroeconomic tides.’  

‘I will make sure Tesla shareholders benefit from Twitter long-term,’ he added in a later tweet. 

On Sunday, Musk was met with a chorus of boos when he was introduced as a surprise guest during a comedy gig in San Francisco. 

The billionaire businessman appeared shellshocked at the hostile reception in Twitter’s headquarter city and remained mostly silent on stage, asking the comedian: ‘What should I say?’

At one point Chappelle joked: ‘It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience.’ 

Footage circulated on Twitter of the embarrassing moment for Musk, who in his brief stint as the company’s CEO has fired much of its workforce, lifted Donald Trump’s ban and released .

Shortly after the video was shared and it started to gain traction, the account that posted it mysteriously disappeared from the site.

Chappelle, who was performing at the Chase Center on a double-bill with who discussed being slapped by at the Oscars, introduced Musk to the crowd as the ‘richest man in the world’.

But when the mogul walked on to the stage wearing an ‘I love Twitter’ t-shirt, applause was drowned out by jeers and boos, and he stood by awkwardly beside the comic.

Musk acquired the influential platform on April 14, 2022, for $44 billion and took ownership late October.

An investigation by the nonprofit U.K.-based Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found the use of racist, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-Semitic slurs soared significantly after Musk took over Twitter on October 27, and the reported. 

The study revealed in his first week, the anti-Semitic slur ‘k***’, and racist terms ‘w**’ and ‘s***’ – appeared in 2,598, 1,256, and 935 retweets.That’s an increase of 23%, 62%, and 77% respectively compared to the average for 2022.