Tesla stock jumped on Monday morning after Twitter users overwhelmingly voted against Elon Musk running the microblogging company. The Tesla shares, which have been battered badly over the last one year, rose 4 percent on early Monday in premarket trade.
Shares in the electric car company had plunged on Friday after news broke that Musk sold more than 20 million Tesla shares to raise as much as $3.5 billion. Musk’s preoccupation with Twitter has been a matter of concern for Tesla investors. Many analysts had said that Musk’s Twitter acquisition was a huge distraction that cost Tesla badly. Tesla shares plunged more than 16 percent in the last week to touch their lowest point since November 2020.
Musk, who acquired Twitter in a $44 billion deal to make it private, has been spending top dollar to fix the bad finances at the social media platform. He has been selling huge chunks of Tesla stock throughout the year even as he was embroiled in the controversial takeover of Twitter. The overall value of the Tesla share sale by Musk since then stands at around $40 billion. According to a Tesla filing at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) following the latest share sale filed with, Musk’s shares in Tesla are now worth about $66 billion. There has been increasing investor concern if Musk’s obsession with Twitter was diluting the prospects of Tesla.
Monday’s bounce back in Tesla shares happened after Musk indicated his willingness to step down as Twitter CEO. “I will abide by the results of this poll,” Musk wrote on Twitter after announcing voting to decide his future as Twitter boss. As many as 17.5 million Twitter users voted, with more than 57 percent saying that he should step down, while more than 42 percent said he must continue at the helm of Twitter.
