Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined a twitter space today to speak about the recent moves in TSLA stock and defends his recent actions from Tesla investors who have called for him to stop wasting time on Twitter, which he recently purchased.
Today he finally went into a public twitter space to talk about these issues, including with Ross Gerber, the aforementioned investor he has been feuding with.
The main point of contention with Gerber has been regarding the source of TSLA’s recent price drop. Musk contends that Fed interest rates are the primary contributor, both because it drives capital flight from equities and into safer bonds as bond yields go up, and because it suppresses demand for consumer products that are often bought with debt, such as autos (or, perhaps, twitter itself, which Musk took on tens of billions in loans to buy).
Part of the difference could be related to Musk’s recent large sales of Tesla stock, having sold tens of billions over the course of the last year to fund his twitter acquisition (aka disaster, aka dumpster fire). Generally, insider stock sales send a signal to the market that insiders, particularly the CEO, may not have full confidence in the company’s performance, and add negative pressure to a stock price.
Musk’s sales have happened in a high-profile way and for inopportune reasons, as well. Tesla investors don’t seem to see the upside of these stock sales for the future of Tesla, even though Musk says it will help the EV company in the long term.
Today, Musk stated that he wouldn’t sell any more stock:
“I’m not selling any stock for, I dunno, a minimum of 18-24 months. You can count on me, no stock sales until 2025 or something. I need to sell some stock just to make sure there’s still some powder dry to account for a worst-case scenario… I won’t sell stock until probably two years from now. Definitely not next year under any circumstances. Probably not the year after either.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Dec 22, twitter space
However, Musk has said this many times before, and has still sold Tesla stock. Despite routinely saying he would be the last person to sell TSLA stock for the last decade, Musk has sold large chunks of stock several times over the last year. So investors may be glad to hear that he is done selling, but they’ve heard that before.
Musk also stated “I’m somewhat paranoid having gone through two really intense recessions,” suggesting that his companies might want cash on hand to weather what he sees as an upcoming recession, or at least some sort of “macro drama.” Musk said, “if we do have another 2009 situation, the stock price of everything is gonna be lower.”
Given that Twitter is a private company wholly owned by him, and Musk’s wealth is largely concentrated in TSLA stock, we’re not sure what other major methods of fundraising are available to Musk to free up more “dry powder” other than selling more Tesla stock or taking on more debt.
On the contrary, Musk even talked about the possibility of a stock buyback. Despite his concern about a recession, he also stated that the stock price is currently low, and said his vote would be for a buyback. Though this statement was couched in the eventuality that we aren’t in another 2008-2009 recession situation, which Musk believes we might be going into.
While many have made note of Musk’s distractions with twitter, he stated that “there’s not an important Tesla meeting I’ve missed the entire time. I’m not totally missing in action” and asked “is there anything I could have done in the last two months that would have helped with Tesla execution? I literally cant think of anything.” But he also referred to twitter colorfully by stating “if you cross catnip with crack, that’s what twitter is” – which is not exactly the sort of statement a person would make about something they aren’t addicted to.
Another question was asked by Earl Banning, known as 28delayslater on twitter, a longtime investor and fan who referred to how Musk’s recent political statements have taken the shine off of Tesla for him and his family (including his children, one of whom is trans, a group that Musk’s tweets have recently negatively targeted). This is something we’ve seen in data, with Tesla losing popular support due to these divisive statements.
Musk said that he doesn’t hate trans people, and “doesn’t want to be a hater of anyone.” Banning attempted to ask a follow-up, but was cut off.
Electrek’s Take
Well, this was quite the spectacle. It was nice to see Musk back to focusing on Tesla for once, after so much nonsense related to twitter for so long.
But it sort of sounded like he was saying whatever anyone wanted to hear. On the one hand, he thinks there will be a recession, and on the other hand, he thinks Tesla could do buybacks. On the one hand, he wants companies to have dry powder ready, but on the other hand, he absolutely will not sell stock in order to free up cash (as he has stated before, and then still sold stock).
So with this recent history of conflicting statements, it’s hard to take any of them seriously. However, the market seems to have been comforted by Musk’s words, as the stock went up about two and a half percent in after hours trading, mostly after his statement that he won’t sell anymore stock.
But as for our answer to one pointed question he asked on the call: “is there anything I could have done in the last two months that would have helped with Tesla execution?”
Yes, there is something. As Gerber said, Tesla has been flagging lately because it has been running without the focus of its CEO. For Tesla to function correctly, it either needs a focused CEO who can aid it in execution (perhaps by stepping down from Twitter, as Musk promised, then reversed that promise), or at the very least a COO who can take the place of the CEO while the CEO is busy with their “catnip crossed with crack.”
SpaceX has this in COO Gwynne Shotwell, who has executed well for that company. Perhaps Tesla needs someone similar (potentially Tom Zhu, head of Tesla China?).
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GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.
GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.
At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.
The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.
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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”
SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.
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Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an initial public offering and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.
The prospectus, filed with the SEC on Tuesday, lays the groundwork for Circle’s long-anticipated entry into the public markets.
JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup are serving as lead underwriters, and the company is reportedly aiming for a valuation of up to $5 billion. It will trade under ticker symbol CRCL.
It marks Circle’s second attempt at going public. A prior merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. Since then, Circle has made strategic moves to position itself closer to the heart of global finance, including the announcement last year that it would relocate its headquarters from Boston to One World Trade Center in New York.
Circle reported $1.68 billion in revenue and reserve income in 2024, up from $1.45 billion in 2023 and $772 million in 2022. The company reported net income last year of about $156 million., down from $268 million a year earlier.
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A successful IPO would make Circle one of the most prominent pure-play crypto companies to list on a U.S. exchange. Coinbase went public through a direct listing in 2021 and has a market cap of about $44 billion.
Circle will be trying to hit the public markets at a volatile moment for tech stocks, with the Nasdaq having just wrapped up its steepest quarterly drop since 2022. The tech IPO market has been mostly dry for over three years, though there are signs of life. Online lender Klarna, digital health company Hinge Health and ticketing marketplace StubHub have all filed their prospectuses recently. Late last week, artificial intelligence infrastructure provider CoreWeave held the biggest IPO for a U.S. venture-backed tech company since 2021. But the company scaled back the offering and the stock had a disappointing first two days of trading before rebounding on Tuesday.
Circle is best known as the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.
Pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasury securities, USDC has roughly $60 billion in circulation and makes up about 26% of the total market cap for stablecoins, behind Tether‘s 67% dominance. Its market cap has grown 36% this year, however, compared with Tether’s 5% growth.
The company’s push into public markets reflects a broader moment for the crypto industry, which is enjoying political favor under a more crypto-friendly U.S. administration. The stablecoin sector specifically has been ramping up as the industry gains confidence that the crypto market will get its first piece of U.S. legislation passed and implemented this year, focusing on stablecoins. President Donald Trump has said he hopes lawmakers will send stablecoin legislation to his desk before Congress’s August recess.
Stablecoins’ growth could have investment implications for crypto exchanges like Robinhood and Coinbase as they become a bigger part of crypto trading and cross-border transfers. Coinbase also has an agreement with Circle to share 50% of the revenue of its USDC stablecoin, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on the company’s most recent earnings call that it has a “stretch goal to make USDC the number 1 stablecoin.”
The stablecoin market has grown about 11% so far this year and about 47% in the past year, and has become a “systemically important” part of the crypto market, according to Bernstein. Historically, digital assets in this sector have been used for trading and as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi), and crypto investors watch them closely for evidence of demand, liquidity and activity in the market.
After its meteoric rise in the global auto industry last year, the Chinese EV giant is off to a hot start in 2025. BYD sold over one million EVs and plug-in hybrids in the first three months of the year. Even more impressive, BYD’s overseas sales doubled to start the year as it expands into new markets. With new EVs arriving, some predict BYD could see even more growth this year.
BYD’s overseas sales are surging as new EVs arrive
BYD sold 377,420 new energy vehicles (NEVs) last month alone. Like most Chinese automakers, BYD reports NEV sales, including plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and fully electric vehicles (EVs).
Of the 371,419 passenger vehicles BYD sold in March, 166,109 were EVs, and the other 205,310 were PHEVs. Combined, BYD’s sales were up 23% compared to last year.
BYD’s Dynasty and Ocean series accounted for 350,615, while its luxury Denza brand sold 12,620, Fang Cheng Bao had 8,051, and its ultra-luxury Yangwang brand sold another 133 models.
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Through the first three months of 2025, BYD sold over one million (1,000,804) NEVs. That’s up 60% from the 626,263 sold in Q1 2024. Fully electric models accounted for 416,388 while PHEV sales reached 569,710, an increase of 39% and 76% from last year, respectively.
BYD Dolphin (left) and Atto 3 (right) at the 2024 Tokyo Spring Festival (Source: BYD Japan)
BYD’s overseas sales reached a new record last month, with 72,723 vehicles sold in markets outside of China. Through March, BYD has sold over 206,000 NEVs overseas, more than double (+110%) the number it sold last year.
BYD has made a name for itself with ultra-low-cost EVs like the Seagull, which starts at under $10,000 in China. In overseas markets, like Mexico, it’s sold as the Dolphin Mini and starts at around 358,800 pesos, or around $20,000.
BYD Seagull EV (Dolphin Mini) testing in Brazil (Source: BYD)
The world’s largest EV maker is quickly expanding into new segments with pickup trucks, smart SUVs, luxury models, and electric supercars rolling out.
Last week, BYD launched the Yangwang U7, its first ultra-luxury electric sedan. With four electric motors, the U7 packs 1,287 horsepower, good for a 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) sprint in just 2.9 seconds. It also has up to 720 km (447 miles) CLTC driving range.
BYD Yangwang U7 ultra-luxury electric sedan (Source: Yangwang)
The Porsche Panamera-size EV is loaded with BYD’s top-tier “God’s Eye” A advanced driving assistance system, DiPilot 600, and a host of other premium features. All of that, and it starts at just just 628,000 yuan ($87,700).
In Europe, BYD is aggressively expanding with new vehicles tailored to buyers in the region, like the Sealion 7 midsize SUV and Atto 2. It’s also expected to launch the low-cost Seagull EV in Europe later this year or early 2026 as the “Dolphin Surf.”
BYD’s wide-reaching electric vehicle portfolio (Source: BYD)
According to S&P Global Mobility, BYD’s sales are expected to double in Europe this year to around 186,000. By 2029, that number could reach 400,000 or more.
BYD outsold Honda and Nissan in 2024. As it aims to sell 5.5 million vehicles this year, BYD could be on track to surpass Ford in global sales this year. BYD also aims to sell over 800,000 EVs overseas in 2025, double the number it sold last year.
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