Elon Musk: ‘I will make sure Tesla (TSLA) shareholders benefit from Twitter long-term’ – but how?

Elon Musk said that he “will make sure Tesla (TSLA) shareholders benefit from Twitter long-term” after they just lost billions of dollars.

But how is the question?

As we reported earlier this month, Tesla is having its best year ever by almost every financial metric other than its stock price, which is now at a two-year low.

The market is also down during the same period, but Tesla is undoubtedly being affected more heavily and by other factors than just the broader downturn in the stock market.

For example, the market was up significantly over the last two days and yet, Tesla’s stock plunged 10% as CEO Elon Musk made comments on Twitter that offended parts of the population.

Many analysts are linking Tesla’s drop to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Both due to his financing of the acquisition by selling Tesla stocks and through his use of the platform since the acquisition.

In fact, Tesla is down a stunning 60% since Musk started selling TSLA stocks to acquire Twitter:

Over the last few weeks, many long-time supporters of Musk have started to change their tune and express concerns about the direction Tesla’s CEO is heading.

We reported on Leo KoGuan, a billionaire who is the third-largest Tesla shareholder, having some harsh words about Musk.

Gary Black, another big Tesla investor and long-time Musk supporter, said this yesterday:

Despite many supporters voicing similar concerns, Musk doesn’t address them and instead decides to respond to this comment today:

The CEO didn’t elaborate on how he plans to make that happen.

Considering Tesla lost over $500 billion in value since he moved assets from Tesla to Twitter, it would be quite an achievement to turn that around.

Electrek’s Take

Alright, this might turn into a rant, but I will go for it anyway.

Over the last few years, I feel like Musk turned his own use of Twitter into a sort of echo chamber where he encourages his loyalists to praise him constantly and where he sees people who criticize him as “attacking” him with ulterior motives – often political.

To be fair, that’s sometimes the case, but he let it get to him to a degree that fair criticism has no or very little place in his Twitterverse.

This is a far cry from his use of the platform from years ago where he would actually use it for feedback about Tesla and to promote climate initiatives.

We have a great example here where he hasn’t addressed any of the many Tesla shareholders, most of whom are long-time supporters of his, expressing serious concern about his approach to Twitter and how it is affecting Tesla.

Instead, he decides to respond to Omar Qazi (Wholeblogmars), who is unarguably his biggest sycophant, framing the situation in a positive light.

He says that it is an “unpopular opinion” and that’s clearly because it is wrong. We just reported yesterday that surveys show the favorable opinion of Tesla has gone down since Musk acquired Twitter and by any metric possible, including the obvious one being the stock price, the acquisition of Twitter hasn’t “elevated Tesla’s brand reach or marketing” one bit. On the contrary.

And it’s not clear one bit how that will change as Musk claims.

It has gone so far now that every day I see a new Musk superfan suggesting that Tesla’s board should consider a new CEO. I am talking about people you couldn’t imagine saying anything like that just a few months ago.

I am having a hard time seeing how Musk turns things around here. I know people will get tired of the whole Twitter situation soon enough and things should die down, but the loss of credibility he has suffered so far is going to last a while.

I don’t think it will outweigh the tremendous impact he had on the electric revolution, clean energy, and space exploration, but his handling of the situation is going to be a stain on his record that is going to last a long time in my opinion.