Enlarge image
Tesla:
The signs on the stock exchange are currently red
Photo: Alex Plavevski/EPA
From stock market star to dropout paper: The price drop in Tesla shares accelerated shortly before Christmas.
Tesla shares fell to a two-year low in the US on Tuesday, falling 8 percent to $138.
In 2022 alone, they have already lost more than 60 percent in value: At the beginning of January 2022, Tesla shares were still quoted at 400 US dollars.
Since the record high a good year ago, the minus has added up to 65 percent: Two thirds of Tesla's market capitalization have disappeared within 13 months.
The drop in the price of the former darling on the stock exchange cannot only be explained with the general drop in the price of technology stocks on the Nasdaq.
Tech heavyweights like Amazon and Nvidia have also crashed since the beginning of the year, but not to the same extent as Tesla.
At Tesla, three factors in particular weigh on it: the towering valuation, Tesla's Twitter trauma and the realization that the former tech messiah Elon Musk is becoming increasingly unpredictable.
The fact that Musk announced his imminent departure as Twitter CEO after a vote on Twitter does not change that.
The previously hyped shares of the US electric car maker have also been suffering from concerns about demand and difficulties in China for a while.
In addition, CEO
Elon Musk
(51) has been distracted by his new role as owner and CEO of the Twitter course news service for months.
Even the prospect that Musk will soon end his dual role as head of Tesla and Twitter and vacate his post at Twitter has so far not been able to slow down the price drop in Tesla shares.
On the contrary.
Enlarge image
Tesla fan Leo Koguan: "Musk is missing"
Photo: Desiree Navarro/WireImage
Many investors, including the billionaire and Musk fanboy Leo Koguan, resent Musk for apparently only marginally caring about the profit machine Tesla, the much more valuable company, since taking over the Twitter restructuring case.
Musk is "missing in action" (MIA) for Tesla investors, Koguan complained.
In other words: Twitter steals valuable time from the Tesla boss - and costs him a lot of money on top of that.
Since Musk needs money to finance the Twitter takeover, he has recently continued to sell Tesla shares, which is further depressing the price.
Most recently, between December 12 and December 14, Musk sold almost 22 million Tesla shares for a total of almost $3.6 billion.
It was the fourth time this year that he had divested himself of billions in Tesla shares, believed to be instrumental in financing the controversial $44 billion Twitter purchase.
With this, Musk continues to antagonize the investors in the US electric car manufacturer.
"The Twitter nightmare continues," commented Wedbush analyst
Dan Ives
, who recently criticized Musk for increasingly concentrating his management capacities on Twitter instead of Tesla.
Musk is now a villain in the eyes of Tesla investors, Ives said.
In his opinion, Tesla's fundamentals remain healthy, but Musk's behavior on Twitter hurts the brand.
"Musk's self-inflicted Twitter-related woes continue to weigh on the Tesla story and growing investor frustration."
Despite the price drop, it is still worth more than BMW, Mercedes and VW together
The losses in value in the portfolios of investors are enormous.
At the beginning of 2022, Tesla was still worth around $850 billion.
Now it's around $440 billion.
However, Tesla is still worth more on the stock exchange than its German competitors BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen combined.
They make it less than half in Summer.
Falling stock valuations have also ousted Musk from his status as the richest person in the world, with his net worth currently falling to $154 billion, according to Forbes.
The richest person is currently the French luxury entrepreneur and LVMH boss
Bernard Arnault
(73).
Musk will remain a major Tesla shareholder after the sale.
He now owns 13.4 percent of the shares.
After all, observers do not expect any further package sales in the short term, since the window for possible sales closed again on Friday.
Because of the publication of the quarterly figures in January, the Tesla boss is no longer allowed to sell any shares.
la, lhy with Reuters
