Tesla’s market value tumbles below $1tn after Musk’s offloading
Tesla’s market value has fallen below $1tn for the second time in four sessions, after investors reacted to chief executive Elon Musk’s offloading $6.9bn worth of shares.
Following a $187bn loss in market value over the last week, the company dropped below $995.75, losing its $1tn status. Tesla’s shares bottomed to $983.25 this morning – a 4.8 per cent slump compared to Friday’s closing price of $1,033.42.
The drop comes amid a series of tweets that Musk – who’s in the race to become the world’s first trillionaire – has dropped in the last 10 days.
After asking his 63.5 million followers whether he should sell the 10 per cent of his holdings via a Twitter poll, the extravagant entrepreneur decided to abide by the poll’s result and offloaded during the course of last week 6.36 million of his company stocks.
Tesla’s value has also suffered a hit following yesterday’s dispute between Musk and US Democratic senator Bernie Sanders. Replying to a tweet in which Sanders demanded “the extremely wealthy pay their fair share,” Musk said: ” I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.”
“Want me to sell more stock, Bernie? Just say the words…” he added an hour later.
Musk’s comments didn’t go down well in the Twitterverse, as many people – including political activist Marianne Williamson and writer Shawn King – lambasted him for his poor choice of words.
Economist David Rotschild said: “Every billionaire owes massive debt to security, human capital, infrastructure, democracy that made their fortune possible”, but later added: “If this were a movie: Elon Musk is walking very fine line between crusading capitalist & super villain.”