Elon Musk
Mike Blake | Reuters
You’re here shares fell nearly 16% while the CEO Elon Musk called a “7 very intense days indeedto one of his 108 million Twitter followers.
Shares of Tesla closed at $265.25 on Friday, September 30. At market close a week later, shares of Tesla were trading at $223.07, down nearly 16%. It was the worst week for the stock since March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began to grip the United States, shutting down businesses and public life.
Over the weekend, Tesla announced the production of electric vehicles and delivery numbers which did not meet analysts’ expectations.
On Monday, Musk proceeded to stir up a political storm explaining how he thought Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine should be resolved.
After that, public records revealed that Musk informed the Delaware Chancery court that he complete a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October, a deal he had been trying to evade for months.
Tesla Deliveries and AI Day
According to estimates compiled by Street Account, owned by FactSet, analysts expected Tesla to report deliveries of 364,660 cars for the period ending September 30, 2022.
But last weekend, Tesla announced total deliveries of 343,000 and production of 365,000 electric cars, despite starting production at two new factories in Brandenburg, Germany, and Austin, Texas.
Analysts have questioned whether Tesla now faces eroding demand in China, where it faces the toughest competition from BYD, the Warren Buffet-backed lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle maker.
Tesla also held a engineering recruitment event late Friday last week, during which he unveiled a rough first prototype of a humanoid robot and spoke about the remaining challenges and progress in developing self-driving technology that can turn his cars into robotaxis with a software update.
The robot’s demo failed to impress industry insiders, but its potential captivated some optimistic fans and analysts.
Musk on Russia
On Monday, Musk posted a Twitter poll gauge support for what he claimed was a likely outcome of the seven-month conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
He suggested further UN-supervised votes in Ukraine on whether some divisions of the beleaguered democratic nation should join Russia. He also suggested that Ukraine should cede Crimea to Russia, and that the nation should then remain “neutral” rather than aligning itself with NATO or Russia.
The Kremlin praised muskbut he drew strong criticism from many others, including Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk, South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham and anti-Putin human rights activist and former chess champion Garry Kasparov.
Kasparov, who sought to block Putin’s rise to power and was jailed and beaten for his activism before fleeing the country, described Musk’s plan as a “repeat of Kremlin propaganda”.
The Twitter deal is back
While Musk initially agreed to buy Twitter in April 2022, he spent months after that accusing the company of lying about its usage stats in financial documents, while battling in court to get out of it. the deal he offered.
Twitter had sued Musk to ensure the deal would go ahead as promised, seeing it as a boon for its shareholders. Facing a deposition this week, and with a trial start date looming, Musk sent a letter to Twitter and the court this week saying he would take the company private at $54.20 a share after all. He wanted Twitter, or the court, to put the litigation on hold, and a judge gave him up to October 28 conclude the case or proceed to trial.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX may have to sell another chunk of his Tesla stock to fund the Twitter acquisition. It will only be able to do so on or after October 19, when the electric vehicle maker releases its third-quarter results.
On the rise…
Despite his volatile week, Musk has at least landed a historic professional achievement in his reusable rocket project, SpaceX. The company sent four people to the International Space Station of Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday.
The mission is SpaceX’s fifth operational crew launch for NASA to date and the company’s eighth manned spaceflight in just over two years. One of the people to have flown with SpaceX on this latest mission is Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina.
Musk also bragged about the years-delayed start of production. Tesla Semian all-electric heavy-duty truck, and promised that the company would deliver some of the trucks to Pepsi by December 1.