by This has not been a great week for Tesla.
Shares are down nearly 13%, and yesterday the company’s CEO Elon Musk revealed that he sold 22 million shares of Tesla stock, worth $3.6 billion.
Related: Elon Musk isn’t the world’s richest person anymore — here’s who stole his title
Some Tesla investors have begun to blame Musk’s lack of focus for the company’s decline. They say he has been too distracted by Twitter, which he bought in October for $44 billion, noting that he has spent the past few weeks working from the company’s San Francisco office, hosting audio chats and engaging in too much public discourse about Twitter’s new features and policies.
Perhaps ironically, many of these frustrated investors have turned to Twitter themselves to vent their anger.
“I expect the Tesla board to increase pressure on Elon to find a talented, driven 24/7 media executive to run Twitter so Elon Musk can focus all his energies on running Tesla,” tweeted Tesla investor Gary Black, who is Managing Partner, The Future Fund LLC.
I expect that $TSLA The board to increase pressure on Elon to find a talented, driven 24/7 media executive to run Twitter saw @elonmusk can focus all energy on running $TSLAwhich could be a $3T market cap company in 5 years. @MartinViecha @hiromichimizuno@jgebbia @IraEhrenpreis
— Gary Black (@garyblack00) 14 December 2022
Twitter investor Ross Gerber, the co-founder of Investment Advisor, agreed, tweeting that Tesla’s fortunes would turn around if the company found an interim CEO.
If the BOD of tesla made an announcement about what is happening with tesla management. Someone should be the interim CEO. The stock decline would end. It’s that simple. @MartinViecha $tsla
— Ross Gerber (@GerberKawasaki) 13 December 2022
In a letter to Tesla chairman Robyn Denholm and senior director of investor relations Martin Viecha, Nancy Levine asked, “What, if anything, is Tesla’s board doing to protect shareholders from the harm caused by Mr. Musk’s Twitter activity?”
The letter was posted on Twitter, naturally.
I sent an email @Tesla chairman Robyn Denholm and head of investor relations Martin Viecha today with questions about Elon Musk’s #Twitter activities and his impact on $TSLA. I’ll let you know if I get an answer. Source reporting in the thread below. #CorpGov #RiskManagement pic.twitter.com/xh3UysFAKi
— Nancy Levine (@nancylevine) 12 December 2022
But not all investors are worried about Musk’s latest actions.
Tesla investor Galileo Russell told Washington Post that even though he thinks Musk has gotten a little too political lately, he still supports him.
“I own all of my Tesla shares and continue to believe that Elon is the best CEO on the planet and the best person to run Tesla,” he said.
Musk himself has asked investors not to worry – albeit through Twitter.
“I want to make sure Tesla shareholders benefit from Twitter for the long term,” he tweeted earlier this week.
I want to make sure that Tesla shareholders benefit from Twitter in the long term
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 13 December 2022
