Elon Musk is becoming increasingly volatile, unpredictable, and dictatorial in the way he manages both Twitter and Tesla.
In this latest puzzling move, on Thursday Twitter suspended the accounts of journalists who cover him and the social media platform.. Among them were reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other publications.
Earlier in the week he not only suspended Jack Sweeney — the college kid who was tracking Elon Musk’s private jet — but threated him with a lawsuit.
The company hasn’t explained to the journalists why it took down the accounts and made their profiles and past tweets disappear. But Musk took to Twitter on Thursday night to accuse journalists of sharing private information about his whereabouts that he described as “basically assassination coordinates.” He provided no evidence for that claim.
Now we learn that he is using Tesla as his piggy bank. He disclosed that he sold 22 million shares of Tesla stock Monday through Wednesday. The value of those Tesla stock sales was around $3.6 billion, causing shares down nearly 13% since the start of the week, something his investors find hard to swallow.
Musk’s stock sales this week bring his total amount sold since April, when he announced his bid to buy Twitter, to $23 billion, and for the year Musk has unloaded $40 billion of stock. The latest selling combined with poor performance of Tesla stock has sent Musk down the Bloomberg Billionaires Index to the number two spot. Musk’s overall stake in Tesla is now down to 13.4%, versus 17% a year ago, per Refinitiv.
It isn’t clear if the sales of Tesla shares are related to the Twitter acquisition, but they are annoying investors who are upset by a perception that he is diverting his focus and resources to Twitter ahead of Tesla.
“It doesn’t put a lot of confidence in the business, or speak volumes for where his attention is at,” said Tony Sycamore, an analyst at brokerage IG Markets, where Tesla is a popular stock among small-time investors.
And while this makes Tesla investors nervous, given his recent highly controversial decisions as Twitter CEO, it is no more reassuring for Twitter investors. Anyone following Musk’s moves must wonder whether he is out to actually destroy these two companies.
Tesla stock, which rose about 1% in early trading on Thursday, is down to half its value this year, underperforming both automakers (.SPLRCAUTM) and the broader tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC), which is down about 30% this year. As CNBC Business stated: “Elon Musk took over a struggling business with Twitter and has quickly made it worse.”
Tareck Horchani, head of prime brokerage dealing at Maybank Securities in Singapore, reported that investors are “furious”. Musk’s reply was that “Tesla will be great long-term, but doesn’t control macroeconomic tides.”
