Elon Musk has lost his position as the richest man in the world. Tesla 's valuation has fallen more than 50% this year. And this may be just the beginning of the billionaire's problems.
Just a year ago, no one would have guessed that the creator of Tesla Elon Musk will be in trouble. But that's what's happening. The most momentous proof of this is that he has just lost his position as the leader in wealth.
Elon Musk has lost as much as $107 billion since the beginning of the year! Of course, the market is not a good time for tech companies, as investors have been shedding their shares for over a year in the face of rate hikes. However, the loss of one-third of assets in a year is due to more than just bad sentiment towards growth companies, which include Tesla.
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Recall that Elon Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter in October 2022 . The transaction amounted to USD 44 billion. Musk once boasted that he devoted many hours to Twitter , and half of his tweets were created ... during a visit to the toilet (during "sitting on the porcelain throne"). Musk liked Twitter so much that he decided to take over and "fix" it, because this company cannot boast of good financial results.
Elon After taking over Twitter , Musk focused on quite nervous management. First, in one day, he fired half of the employees, from which he then withdrew. He proposed a new subscription model ($8 a month fee for account verification), which he later partially backed off again. Kudos to him for starting a crusade against Twitter bots.
Interestingly, Musk announced the acquisition of Twitter in mid-April 2022, and from that moment the market began to overestimate Tesla shares. The electric car maker's share price has fallen by as much as -58% this year, while the Nasdaq 100 index has fallen by -28%.
According to S3 Partners, a Wall Street analytics company , investors betting on the decline in Tesla shares have already earned USD 11.6 billion in 2022. This is a good result, with USD 19.6 billion invested in "short" positions.
Source: TradingView
And indeed, the market was right to be concerned about Tesla's business in the event of Musk's takeover of Twitter . In recent months, the company has been accused of lying about its self-driving feature . Their Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) features have been recognized as advanced driver assistance systems, not fully autonomous driving systems. Besides National highway The Traffic and Safety Administration is investigating accidents involving Tesla cars that were just driving using autopilot and FSD.
Of course, the company had temporary production problems in China, but that's not Musk's fault. But it is worth noting that it is starting to lose the battle for the Chinese EV market , e.g. with BYD. Currently, Tesla shares are trading 32x next year's profits according to the consensus of analysts, and this is one of the lowest levels of this indicator for this company in history.
Tesla investors are getting furious with Elon Musk for "playing" with Twitter instead of trying to put out a fire. "Tesla has no CEO today," hedge fund manager Gary Black tweeted Future Fund, which owns Tesla shares worth about $50 million.
Tesla shareholders thunder on social media that Elon Since the beginning of the year, Musk sold shares of this concern for USD 19 billion just to finance the dilapidated Twitter . “The Tesla brand has been negatively affected by Elon Musk is doing with Twitter and on Twitter . Previously, Tesla EV buyers were proud to own the car, but now, due to the owner controversy, they no longer have it,” notes Black.
Ross Gerber, a longtime Tesla investor, also accused Musk of "working for another company." “Tesla is great and deserves a CEO focused on it. It would be good to know what Elon Musk's plans are for Tesla in general," Gerber said, quoted by the WSJ.
Moreover, Elon Musk also neglects SpaceX . NASA chief and former astronaut Bill Nelson revealed last week that SpaceX is actually run not by Musk, but by COO Gwynne Shotwell .
In short, Elon Musk has taken to Twitter , and it's hurting his image and his companies. Will he turn back this way? We'll see. The question is where will Tesla's share price be when it finally decides to do so...
