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Elon Musk with Tesla Model 3: "The most valuable company in the world in the long term"
Photo: Aly Song / REUTERS
Tesla stock lost around 70 percent of its value in 2022, making it one of the biggest losers in the S&P 500. Tesla boss Elon Musk accelerated the slide in 2022 by taking over Twitter and selling Tesla shares.
Now the Tesla and Twitter boss is trying to calm the employees of the US electric car manufacturer.
"Don't get too irritated by the madness of the stock markets. If we continue to perform excellently, the market will recognize it," Musk wrote in an email to employees on Wednesday.
He firmly believes that Tesla will become the most valuable company in the world in the long term.
Tesla was worth more than $1.1 trillion 13 months ago, but is currently only worth around $360 billion on the stock market.
The most valuable publicly traded private company is Apple with a market value of more than $2 trillion.
Tesla still has a long way to go until then - although large investors like Baillie Gifford also believe Tesla can one day develop into a multi-trillion dollar company.
In his letter, Musk urged employees to accelerate vehicle delivery by the end of the fourth quarter.
"Please go all out in the next few days and help with delivery if possible. It will make a real difference."
Tesla is offering its models in the USA and China at a discounted price until the end of the year - recent sales difficulties had forced the company to offer unusual discounts.
According to information from Reuters, Tesla will also cut production at its Shanghai plant from January.
Investors feared a drop in demand and the competition catching up.
After several years of steep price rises, Tesla has gone from being a high flyer and stock market darling to a problem paper for investors.
Investors are concerned not only about weaker growth and weakening demand.
Elon Musk's dual role as head of Tesla and Twitter was also criticized: Instead of concentrating on the growth of the Tesla cash machine, Musk spent most of his time on the Twitter restructuring case, criticized Tesla investor Leo Koguan, for example.
Another problem is Tesla's high drop.
Despite the significant price losses this year, Tesla is still highly valued.
Tesla is still valued higher on the stock exchange than the three German car manufacturers Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz together.
There can be no question of a "bargain" at Tesla even with the current valuation.
In contrast to Twitter, Tesla delivered robust figures even in the crisis year 2022.
Sales and profits continued to grow in the first three quarters of the year.
Earnings in the third quarter of 2022 more than doubled compared to the third quarter of 2021.
Nevertheless, the market leader Tesla is feeling the growing pressure from the competition.
In 2018-2020, Tesla dominated the electric car market with a market share of around 80 percent.
This market share fell to 71 percent in 2021, as the data supplier S&P announced.
By 2022, Tesla's market share is likely to have fallen below the 70 percent threshold.
The US electric car manufacturer is still the market leader by a wide margin.
The problem is not the market position, but the extremely high valuation of the company.
Fund managers' window dressing continues to put pressure on Tesla
The sales of some institutional investors who no longer want Tesla shares in their portfolios at the end of the year also caused further selling pressure in the last few weeks of the year.
This so-called "window dressing" serves to avoid being accused of holding on to "loser stocks" for too long.
At the same time, at the end of the year, some investors buy shares that performed better than average in the past year.
Even Musk's announcement before Christmas that he would probably not sell any more Tesla shares for the next two years and that he would hand over the lead on Twitter as soon as he found a suitable successor has not been able to appease investors so far.
la/mmq/Reuters
