Internet punching bag, exploding car salesman, beneficiary of an apartheid emerald mine, and alleged horse trader Elon Musk has sold another $3.58 billion worth of Tesla stock this week, but it wasn’t clear where the proceeds were being spent.
Musk sold the shares December 12th-14th, according to a filing posted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. With these latest filings, Musk has sold nearly $23 billion worth of Tesla stock since April 2022, with much of the money likely going to help fund his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.
The sale comes as shares of the electric vehicle and solar panel maker have collapsed, losing over half their value since Musk first disclosed in April that he was buying up Twitter stock. Financial experts credit the falling shares as the reason Musk is longer the world’s wealthiest person, with his net worth falling to $174 billion, but we like to think it’s because San Francisco booed him so hard that they warped reality.
Musk’s bumbling takeover of Twitter has not been smooth, and some big companies have halted advertising on the social media platform. We don’t usually like to speculate, but it probably has something to do with the combination of mismanagement, massive layoffs of integral team members, and the noted rise of hate speech on the platform.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives suggests Musk is now a pariah among Tesla investors, who fear the thin-skinned billionaire has spent so much of his time realizing that Twitter’s original features were in place for a reason that he’s been distracted from the car company. Ives says 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.”
Current reports out of San Francisco indicate the rent on the Twitter HQ building hasn’t been paid since Musk took over.
