Elon Musk has lost $50 billion as Tesla stocks fell this week. On Saturday, Musk had posted a Twitter poll asking if he should sell 10 percent stocks. He said that he would abide by the poll decision. About 57 percent polled yes. On Monday and Tuesday the electric vehicle (EV) maker’s stock fell by 16 percent.
The steep loss is not the only issue that is bothering some Tesla investors who took to social media to comment on his Saturday tweet. His brother Kimball Musk, who is also a director in the EV company, sold 15 percent of his stock on Friday before Elon Musk posted the Twitter poll. Bloomberg reported that Kimball Musk sold more than $100 million of his Tesla stock and got a $109 million payout. If 49-year old Kimball had kept those 88,500 shares, he would have lost about $17.5 million between Friday and market close on Tuesday.
Despite it being five days since he posted the poll and said that he would accept its outcome, there is no news whether Elon Musk sold 10 percent of his shares. The Daily Mail asked Tesla for comment but there has been no response as yet.
According to Bloomberg Billionaire Index, Elon Musk was worth roughly $271 billion after Tuesday’s losses. He lost about $50 billion in two days. This is the largest ever fall according to Bloomberg. The outlet also said that the drop from Monday to Tuesday represents Musk’s biggest loss since Bezos’ the second richest billionaire on the index lost $36 billion after his 2019 divorce from MacKenzie Scott.
In a 2018 tweet, Musk had also courted controversy as he said that he had considered taking Tesla private at $420 and had secured funding. He then smoked weed publicly and that lead to a couple of resignations by Tesla executives as well as a U.S. Air Force probe. The stock market value of the company fell and the SEC fined the company $20 million and sued Musk.
Investors are saying that they would look out for any response from regulators on Musk’s Twitter poll. Tesla had been ordered to vet any material Musk made after his 2018 tweet.
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