SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 – Tesla (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk said Thursday that “Tesla is on my mind 24/7,” trying to allay investor concerns that he is distracted by a twitter (TWTR.N). Deal that pushed down the electric car company’s shares.
He posted a picture showing a woman (Tesla) upset that her boyfriend (Elon) is looking at another woman (Twitter) and said, “This may seem like the below, but it’s not true.”
“To be clear, I spend <5% (but actually) of my time on Twitter acquisition. This isn't rocket science!” he tweeted.
“Yesterday was Giga Texas, today is Starbase. I think about Tesla 24/7.”
Tesla opened its new car factory in Texas this year, and Musk’s rocket company SpaceX has a launch site called Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
Tesla shares have lost a third of their value since the billionaire announced his stake in Twitter in early April and sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock to close his $44 billion Twitter deal finance.
Other negative stocks include Chinese lockdown measures that dampened Tesla production and Tesla’s exclusion from a popular S&P sustainability index. Continue reading
Tesla bull Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, on Thursday cut Tesla’s price target due to the production disruption in China and warned of “distraction risks” from Musk’s Twitter deal.
Leo KoGuan, a major individual investor in Tesla, urged the electric car maker to buy back shares on Thursday.
“Tesla must immediately announce and repurchase $5 billion in Tesla stock from its free cash flow this year and $10 billion from its free cash flow next year without excluding its existing $18 billion in cash reserves. affecting dollars with ZERO debt,” KoGuan said in a Twitter message to Tesla’s head of investor relations, Martin Viecha.
Viecha was not immediately available for comment.
Last year, KoGuan, Tesla’s third-largest single shareholder, said he was investing billions in Tesla because he believes in Musk’s “big mission that I share.” He said in March that he was buying more Tesla stock and not selling during the stock tumble.
Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin Editing by Nick Zieminski and Chris Reese
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