- The sale brings Musk’s total sales to nearly $40 billion
- Tesla shares mark lowest close in two years
- Investors frustrated by Musk’s sale and focus on Twitter
Dec 15 (Reuters) – Tesla ( TLSA.O ) chief Elon Musk disclosed another $3.6 billion in stock sales on Wednesday, bringing his total to nearly $40 billion this year and thwarting investors as the company’s shares sink to two-year lows.
A US securities filing showed it unloaded 22 million shares of the world’s most valuable carmaker over three days from Monday to Wednesday.
The sale is the second major chunk of stock it has cashed in since its $44 billion purchase of Twitter in October. It’s unclear whether the sales are related to the Twitter acquisition, but they are upset investors who are upset by the perception that it is diverting its focus and resources to Twitter ahead of Tesla.
“It doesn’t put a lot of confidence in the business, or say a lot about where their attention is,” said Tony Sycamore, an analyst at brokerage IG Markets, where Tesla is a popular stock among retail investors.
“It’s not a good situation. I’ve talked to a lot of investors who own Tesla stock and they’re absolutely furious with Elon.”
There was no immediate response to a Reuters request for comment from Tesla and Musk emailed after business hours. Musk’s 13.4% stake in Tesla is down from 17% a year ago, according to Refinitiv data.
Tesla’s share price has halved this year, underperforming both the automaker (.SPLRCAUTM) and the broader tech Nasdaq (.IXIC), which is down 30% this year year. Musk’s total sales value over the past year is nearly $40 billion.
“It’s going to start to get tiring for investors,” said Tareck Horchani, head of prime brokerage trading at Maybank Securities in Singapore.
BRAND NEW
Musk’s fortune, mostly tied to Tesla shares, has fallen with prices this year and he briefly lost his title as the world’s richest person last week, according to Forbes, when he was overtaken by the head of Louis Vuitton, Bernard Arnault.
In addition to Tesla and Twitter, where Musk’s management and tweets are drawing political attention and pushback, Musk also runs the rocket company SpaceX and Neuralink, a startup developing interfaces to connect the human brain with the computers
Tesla, meanwhile, faces persistent logistics challenges and said in October it expected to miss its vehicle delivery target this year. It is more profitable than rivals who have struggled to make money selling electric cars.
The latest stock sale comes a month after Musk sold $4 billion worth of stock in the days after the Twitter deal closed.
Tesla investor Ross Gerber, a staunch Musk supporter, said on Twitter that Tesla should announce a buyback “to take advantage (sic) of the low stock price that Elon has created.”
Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bangalore and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Additional writing and reporting by Tom Westbrook in Singapore. Editing by Devika Syamnath and Raju Gopalakrishnan
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