SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Tesla (TSLA.O) “Tesla is on my mind 24/7,” CEO Elon Musk said Thursday, in an effort to allay investor fears about being distracted by Twitter. (TWTR.N) The deal that led to a plunge in shares in the electric car company.
Posting a photo showing a woman (Tesla) annoyed with her boyfriend (Elon) checking out another woman (Twitter), he said, “It might look like below, but it’s not true.”
“To be clear, I spend <5% (but actually) of my time acquiring Twitter. It's not rocket science!" He tweeted.
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“Yesterday it was Giga Texas, today it’s Starbase. Tesla is on my mind 24/7.”
This year Tesla opened its new car factory in Texas, and Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, has a launch site known as Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
Tesla shares have lost a third of their value since the billionaire revealed his stake in Twitter in early April and sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock in a move seen to help fund his $44 billion Twitter deal.
Stocks were also hit hardest by Chinese shutdown measures that reduced Tesla’s production and excluded Tesla from the widely followed S&P Sustainability Index. Read more
Daniel Ives, Thor Tesla, an analyst at Wedbush, on Thursday lowered Tesla’s share price target due to production disruptions in China and warned of “distraction risks” from Musk’s deal on Twitter.
Leo KoGuan, the main individual investor in Tesla, on Thursday called on the electric car maker to buy back shares.
“Tesla should immediately announce and buy back $5 billion of Tesla stock in free cash flow this year and $10 billion in free cash flow next year, without affecting its current cash reserves of $18 billion with Zero Debt. Tesla’s Head of Investor Relations, Martin Visha.
Visha was not immediately available for comment.
Last year, KoGuan, Tesla’s third largest individual shareholder, said he is investing billions in Tesla because he believes in “Musk’s great mission that I share.” He said in March that he was buying more Tesla shares, not selling while the shares were down.
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(Reporting by Hyunjo Jin Editing) Written by Nick Ziminski and Chris Reese
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